MovieChat Forums > Lady and the Tramp (1955) Discussion > What would L + the T's children really l...

What would L + the T's children really look like?

posted 11 years ago by agnieszka01
6 replies | jump to latest

This thought just popped into my head randomly last night because I had insomnia. Most of their babies looked exactly like Lady, except for the one that looked just like Tramp. I'm no doggie genetics expert, but that can't be right. I bet if this movie were made today, they would have drawn a more realistic Lady/Tramp hybrid baby. What breed is Tramp supposed to be, anyway? And what would be a closer phenotype of the progeny of a Cocker Spaniel and a mutt, or whatever Tramp is? Bonus if you can name what that hybrid breed would be called. A cocker trampiel? I don't know.

The sky is blue

[–] thereseuphemiaabernathy 10 years ago

Haha, yes. I've often wondered the same thing. The odds of a real litter coming out like that...three females who look like purebred Cockers identical to the dam and one male mix identical to the sire...are incredibly slim. The parents in this case are so different-looking that it's hard to imagine what more realistic pups would've looked like, though...probably combinations of their colors, coat types/lengths, ear/tail types, and other physical traits. Most would likely be small-to-medium-sized.
And Tramp is definitely a mix. His overall build is similar to an Irish Terrier's, but his coloration suggests a cross with something like a Standard Schnauzer.

[–] furienna 10 years ago

I have to say that the way they designed these dogs, it became so hard for me to see how a male dog could be a cocker spaniel, or how a female dog could be a terrier or a bulldog. So in the end, the had every breed connected with one gender, despite how I know that it's not so in real life. So I do understand how the female puppies looks just like Lady (even though one of the cocker spaniel puppies used to be a boy), while the male puppy looks just like Tramp. They had to follow the female-looking/male-looking formula, that they had developed for the movie.

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[–] PopSixSquish 10 years ago

Oh, I can definitely picture Disney-style dogs where every breed, regardless of how "masculine" or "feminine" it generally appears, has members of both sexes. xD I appreciate when that happens in animation, frankly. The recent Pound Puppies cartoon had good examples (e.g., a female Boxer and Bulldog, a male Maltese, etc.) I adore this movie to bits, and it's sort of quaintly cute how they designed the pups to look just like the parent of the same gender...but as a fan of realism, I can't help wishing there could have been at least one pup who blended his/her parent's traits or looked more like the opposite-sex one.

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[–] boxerrebellion 10 years ago

If Tramp is a mixed breed, then the pups would still be half Cocker Spaniel and one quarter or less of any other... so the Cocker may have been dominant. Look at people... I am not in any way inferring that breeds and race are the same, but when you look at someone who has a parent of two different races, the offspring may be very one or another along with anything in between. Same goes for hair; thus a family that has brown eyed parents could easily have children with blue, green or brown eyes. Although the brown trait is dominant, if both parents have the recessives, anything can happen.

[–] PopSixSquish 10 years ago

True, the purebred Cocker would be the one with the biggest proportion in the offspring. Genetics can be very funny, surprising, and unpredictable no matter which species you're dealing with; it's not straightforward, and indeed, anything can happen. Still, that very fact makes it likely that, in reality, most of the pups would have exhibited varying combinations of their parents' traits. The odds of three looking almost exactly like the dam and one being nearly identical (phenotypically) to the sire are exceedingly slim. Still, it COULD work out that way. And it would certainly be possible for one or more to look a lot more like one parent than the other, but the way Disney chose to do it seemed to be purely for the sake of convenient cutesiness. Not that I'm complaining; it never stuck out like some outlandish, unacceptable affront to logic, and I love the litter.

[–] PopperTheKungFu-Dragon 10 years ago

Its a cartoon. That's the only answer.

I don't think so, Tim.