Reply To: Different results?

[jessica hekman]

Folks – just wanted to clarify a few things that have been discussed on this thread.

Where part of a dog’s ancestry is marked “unknown,” this is because our computer algorithm honestly failed to match it to a breed. This is most commonly because those parts of the ancestry are so mixed up (lots of little chunks from lots of breeds) that the computer doesn’t have enough info to match it to a breed confidently. (We are hopeful that we’ll do better here when we start using more markers – getting our v2 breed panel up and running is currently one of Kathleen’s highest priorities.)

It is also possible that this is a breed that we don’t have in our panel yet. This is less likely for most dogs because a) we have the most common breeds in there except for American Pit Bull Terrier (which, again, will be in v2) and b) I’ve observed that when we don’t have a particular breed, but there is a large chunk of ancestry, the computer tends to match it to a closely related breed. So when you have Malinois, the computer tends to find German Shepherd. (Mal will also be in v2…)

When you see breed results with really small percentages – under 10% – don’t trust them too much. It’s just really hard for the computer when the bit of ancestry from that breed is so small. This is why, under 5%, we group them all into an “other” category – we don’t want people putting too much stock on those breed calls.

I hope this helps and feel free to ask me questions!

Jessica
Darwin’s Ark Researcher