I am puzzled. I am owned by a Lurcher whom I took from the pound. I initially planned to rehome him but fell in love with the creature and so he joined the house pack a few months back. He's not a young dog anymore and snoozes alot. However, I always wondered what's "in" him, he's roughcoated, fawn coloured with choc brown ears and quite tall.

Today I met the identical twin brother of my dog. He's 2 years old and a cross of Wheaten x Greyhound x Deerhound. He looks EXACTLY the same as my dog. Same size, colour, demeanour, EVERYTHING.

I am gobsmacked. How is that possible?

They say we all have a doppelganger.

are they related?

> Today I met the identical twin brother of my dog. He's 2 years old and a cross of Wheaten x Greyhound x Deerhound. He looks EXACTLY the same as my dog. Same size, colour, demeanour, EVERYTHING.
>

A friend of mine owns one exactly like the opne you describe. He is a collie crossed with a greyhound x deerhound. He gets his fawn colur from the greyhound we think and the darker bits could be collie linked as his sire was a tri colour border collie.

He bred the dog himself and it was the first and last litter he ever had. Mother is a Greyhound and Father is a Wheaten x Deerhound (F1). My dog is at least 9 years old, so the chances that they are related are slim.

Perfectly possible.  First time I went to the local rescue kennels I saw the doppelganger of River, my little labXcollie - the onyl difference was that he was a little beefier, being male.  But right down to the fur type and lay, he was the spitting image.  Same size too.  Yet i know they aren't related - she did have three littermates, but she was the only one without any white markings, and this dog had no white on him.

And again today, at the same kennels - not quite the spitting image but very close, there's a male collie cross who looks like River's twin - but with longer hair.  That's the only difference, even his build is exactly the same.

Some crossbreeds are very predictable in appearance - go to a lurcher show and look at the bedlington x whippet classes!

Some are less so - first x labrador/standard poodle has a much greater variety of appearance, size. shape, coat type..

Lurchers are bred to do a job so its not uncommon for different people to breed the same crosses if they want to do the same job in the same sorts of conditions, and of course people choose those particular crosses based on their own and other peoples experience with that cross, rather than go for an unknown untried mix.

Greyhound/deerhound/wheaten is not a hugely uncommon cross (less common these days but trends change and go round again) and a pretty predictable one, I wouldnt at all be surprised to find two totally unrelated dogs of that breeding that look identical.