Another form of multiple inhertance involves a subclass that inherits directly from two classes and can use the attributes and methods of both.

class Animal:
  def __init__(self, name):
    self.name = name

class Dog(Animal):
  def action(self):
    print("{} wags tail. Awwww".format(self.name))

class Wolf(Animal):
  def action(self):
    print("{} bites. OUCH!".format(self.name))

class Hybrid(Dog, Wolf):
  def action(self):
    super().action()
    Wolf.action(self)

my_pet = Hybrid("Fluffy")
my_pet.action() # Fluffy wags tail. Awwww
                # Fluffy bites. OUCH!

The above example shows the class Hybrid is a subclass of both Dog and Wolf which are also both subclasses of Animal. All 3 subclasses can use the features in Animal and Hybrid can use the features of Dog and Wolf. But, Dog and Wolf can not use each other’s features.

This form of multiple inheritance can be useful by adding functionality from a class that does not fit in with the current design scheme of the current classes.

Care must be taken when creating an inheritance structure like this, especially when using the super() method. In the above example, calling super().action() inside the Hybrid class invokes the .action() method of the Dog class. This is due to it being listed before Wolf in the Hybrid(Dog, Wolf) definition.

The line Wolf.action(self) calls the Wolf class .action() method. The important thing to note here is that self is passed as an argument. This ensures that the .action() method in Wolf receives the Hybrid class instance to output the correct name.