As a result, puppies in the same litter may have different parents. As is to be expected, the genetic variation between puppies with different parents is greater than that of those who share the same parent. On average, siblings who share the same parents are approximately 50% genetically related. Superfecundation happens more often than you think.
So yes, a litter of puppies can have more than one parent, but puppies can't have two parents. Potentially, a litter of kittens could have two or even more parents. This situation is often seen in stray animals, as well as in unsterilized female cats living in the same household with one or more intact male cats. A single kitten cannot have multiple parents; each individual kitten in a litter has only one parent.
If you're wondering if your litter of puppies can have more than one parent, it's probably because something seems a little suspicious. If your litter of puppies looks very different but you're absolutely sure Sophie mated with only one dog, you might be right. If two puppies from the same litter have different SARS ancestors, you can raise those two puppies together, as long as their parents are different. However, female dogs produce several eggs at once and that is why they usually give birth to litters instead of individual puppies.
If a female dog is inseminated by more than one parent, especially if the semen of both stallions is deposited at about the same time, the probability that the puppies in the resulting litter will be born to different parents is less than 1%. He must have been partying with the neighborhood dogs because I bet this litter is the result of mating with more than one parent. One last interesting fact that came out of that study was that litter sizes were significantly larger when there were two stallions. Each puppy will receive half of its DNA composition from mom and a father, but since dogs often have litters, it is possible that two puppies from the same litter have 2 different parents.
If Sophie mates with several dogs, then yes, she can easily get pregnant and the litter of puppies can have different parents. For example, if a litter of puppies contains some puppies that look like Chihuahuas and some puppies that look like basset hounds, superfertilization could be the culprit. You might have a litter of all-white puppies, and then there's a black one that makes you wonder if Sophie was also playing with other dogs. A strange finding in this study is that when looking at litters of mixed parents, it is found that the father who inseminates the female second, compared to the first parent, tends to father a higher proportion of puppies (73% vs 27%).
While it's often the case that all the puppies in a litter look very similar, sometimes you'll find a litter with some puppies that look different and out of place.
