Dog DNA tests

[Mary-Ridenhour]

Just for curiosity’s sake, I submitted a DNA test for both Cricket and Chance through the Wisdom Panel. I adopted both dogs as adults from rescues, so no clue about their actual breeds and mixes. I’ve always called both pit bulls. I have a vet school buddy that submited a test for his 35 lbs (16 kg) brown island dog (if you google St. Kitts island dog, you’ll get a good idea of what the brown dogs with black muzzles look like) and the result said he was a Yorkie/Bloodhound mix… The test was for fun, and I was pretty much prepared to take results with a grain of salt.

Anyways, the results:

Cricket was pretty much a 50/50 American Staffordshire and Miniature Bull Terrier mix. Believable. I’ve always called her a Staffordshire Bull Terrier (https://docsbay.net/advice-on-finding-a-well-reared-staffordshire-bull-terrier-puppy), but I think the Mini Bull Terrier crossed with AmStaff gives her the right size and appearance. The test accurately estimated her adult weight.
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Chance was a mixed bag. He was mostly American Staffordshire Terrier, Bull Terrier, and Boston Terrier but also had small amounts of English Cocker Spaniel and Weimaraner (there are no Bull Terriers, Bostons, Cockers, or Weimies on St. Kitts…). The test incorrectly underestimated his weight by about 10 lbs. I actually read after the fact that there was a disclaimer that if your dog was imported from anywhere other than the USA, Canada, the UK, or Germany that your results may be inaccurate. It was fun to do anyway. Maybe the Bull Terrier is why his nose is longer than the average pit bull?? Maybe the Weimaraner is why he’s so anxious when I have to board him?? Maybe his trademark ears come from the Boston Terrier??

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Have any of you ever done a doggie DNA test?

[Jennifer]

So you’re on St. Kitts then? That must be an interesting place to be a vet! For some reason, the image links for your dogs aren’t working for me (I think you have to either link to photos in your DA profile, or else post an external link to Imgur or similar). But anyway, I did look up some pics of “St. Kitts brown dogs” and also Googled out of curiosity to see if Embark had any test results for such dogs publicly available, since they test for “American Village Dog” as well as for mixed breeds. They did have some:

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I did also notice results for a couple dogs from St. Kitts who tested as, and looked like, predominantly-pit-type (AmStaff/APBT) multimixes, so that would be more like your dogs, presumably. I’m not sure whether Embark also maintains a disclaimer regarding dogs from outside certain countries. Their “village dog” reference panel dogs are definitely from all over the world, because the founders of the company already had that DNA from their own research, but that doesn’t necessarily mean their reference panel dogs for the pure breeds they test for are comparably internationally diverse.

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I’ve had my mutt (the dog in my avatar) tested with both WP and Embark. She was born in a shelter, and the shelter people had seen her presumed sire as well as, of course, her dam, who were stray traveling companions. They guessed that mom was either a high-content-ACD herding cross, or else an unusually lanky pure ACD, and described dad as looking “like a Boxer/Collie mix.” Within a short time after bringing Luna home, we were pretty sure the ACD and Boxer parts were correct (nip nip nip, boing boing boing). But we were really curious to see what the rest might be, because her build is distinctly more delicate than a 50/50 ACD/Boxer’s would generally be, and she also showed some behaviors that, while herder-y, didn’t seem quite ACD-ish (very “soft” and almost comically earnest about training, flashes of “strong eye” behavior during herding play).

her WP results:

~ 50% Australian Cattle Dog (predicted as one purebred parent)
~ 25% Boxer
~ 12.5% Australian Shepherd (asterisked, indicating uncertainty as to whether the predicted % is really accurate)
~ 12.5% too mixed to call/unknown, with Herding and Sighthound groups listed as possibilities

her Embark results:

34.9% ACD
15.1% Border Collie (predicted to come from the same parent as the ACD, therefore one “Border Heeler” parent)
25.1% Boxer
15.8% Australian Shepherd
9.1% too mixed to call/unknown, with Sheltie specifically predicted to be in the mix

her Darwin’s Ark results to date, by % of ancestry (hopefully these will fill out more as their reference panel grows):

35.6% ACD
26.7% unknown
21.2% Boxer
6.2% Border Collie
3.8% Collie
3.6% Sheltie
2.9% Australian Shepherd

So overall, pretty similar results. And all three work pretty well to explain her looks and behavior, I think. Both WP and Embark were pretty much spot-on about her weight, but from what I’ve seen that’s often not the case, even when the reported mix itself seems very probable.

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