[brittney logan]

Hi Mina,

Thank you very much for your support and participation in our research. We do apologize for the long wait, and wish we could support the sequencing for all of the Free Kits right away.

You dog’s behavioral surveys and DNA samples are very valuable to use, and I can assure you that the samples remain safe and stable.

Our research is grant funded, so depending on the grants we receive we are limited as to how many, and which dogs we can support at that time. For example, we received an allergy grant, so we were able to select and support the sequencing of dogs that fit that research project base on the survey questions answered by the owners. The grants we receive are the main source of how we can determine and send out the samples to be sequenced, but of course we do also have to select random samples to be sent as well.

We do take into consideration how long a dog has been participating and how many survey questions have been answered. The more questions answered, the more likely that dog is able to fit into the study! 🙂

I hope this helps to explain a bit of how the research works and why it takes so long.

We continue to apply for more grants and we send out samples whenever we can! We do have the option on all of the dog profiles to fund their sample if you do not want to wait any long for our funds to support the sequencing.

If you have any other questions, we are happy to help and if you would like more details on your dog directly please email us at support@darwinsark.org

Best,
Brittney

[brittney logan]

Hello, thank you for your interest in our research!

To enroll your dog, please make sure you are logged in and go to My Laboratory -> View Laboratory. There you will see the button “Add Dog” to create your dogs profile. We have 22 surveys available in order to learn more about your dog’s unique behaviors and physical characteristics. There is also the option to join the free kit waitlist, or you can donate in order to receive the DNA kit right away.

If you have any other question, I am happy to help!

[brittney logan]

Hi Lori,

I hope you were able to see our emails. If not I wanted to let you know that your dogs results were added to the profile on 2021-07-06! 🙂

To view them, please log in and view your dogs laboratory, then click on the pink dog house where you will see the results!

Apologies if you have not been receiving our emails to you previously, and I hope this forum post finds you well.

Best,
Brittney

[brittney logan]

Hi Renold,

Thanks for your question.
If you haven’t had a chance to look at our FAQ What to Expect from Your Dog’s Results https://darwinsark.org/faqs/#section-what-to-expect-from-your-dogs-results it has some good information about the breeds in our panel as well as how many markers.

In addition our own Dr. Hekman was interviewed for this article, which might be of interest if you’re looking for more general information about breed testing. I’d maybe set aside the headline and ranking, and look at the information contained in the article. https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-dog-dna-test/

Finally our blog (stories) has a lot of great information. https://darwinsark.org/stories/
This article on how we get information from DNA is a good starting point if you’re interested in learning more about the process. https://darwinsark.org/information-from-dna/

I hope that helps!

Shannan
(filling in for Brittney)

[brittney logan]

Hi Lori,

I’m sorry you’re not receiving my emails, it’s certainly odd they’re being filtered as I’ve messaged from 3 different accounts. Hopefully you’re able to get that sorted and aren’t missing too many other messages! 🙂

Your sample is in sequencing. I can’t provide an exact timing but first results are likely to come in between 90 and 120 days of receipt of the 20 samples needed to sequence the batch. (For reference: https://darwinsark.org/faqs/)

When it’s been completed your profile will be updated. I hope that helps answer your questions and thank you for participating!

-Shannan

[brittney logan]

Hi Lori,

I’m sorry this must be frustrating, I’ve been trying to contact you and have emailed from both my personal account and the Darwin’s Ark support email with your kit status update. If you can please check your spam folder and/or add support@darwinsark.org to your safe list, as it seems you’re not receiving the messages and I’ve been trying to respond.

Thank you,
Shannan

Currently filling in for Brittney Logan who is on leave.

[brittney logan]

Hi Susan,

Dr. Jessica Hekman was interviewed for this article which might be of interest for your client. I’d maybe set aside the headline and ranking, and look at the information contained in the article as it does provide some good information about the pros and cons of the Wisdom panel. https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-dog-dna-test/

In addition when I forwarded your question to Dr. Hekman she responded by saying she’d want to emphasize that Wisdom, has a minisucle number of markers (20k) vs Embark (200k) or us (millionish) which means that they won’t be as able to detect really small breed percentages. OTOH from what she recalls they have the best breed panel. Her advice generally is “if you have a mixy mix don’t use Wisdom. If you are curious about a particular rare breed 1-2 generations back, Wisdom works great.”

I hope that helps! 🙂
– Shannan
(filling in for Brittney on leave)

[brittney logan]

Hi Sonja,

You can participate from the UK, it costs $199 USD (including shipping) for an international kit. You can also enroll for the free kit, but as I’m sure you know the waiting list is quite long now. If you have any questions you can also email me, Shannan, at support@darwinsark.org. I’m currently covering Brittney’s desk while she’s on leave.

Thanks,
Shannan

[brittney logan]

Hi Lori,

I recieved your email today and have sent an update with the current status of your sample, if you don’t see it in your inbox please let me know.

Thank you,
Shannan Skitch

Currently filling in for Brittney who is away for a few months.

[brittney logan]

Hi Sarah,

I apologise for the long wait. I do understand that it is frustrating, we too wish we had the ability to process these faster.

I can promise you this is not a bait and switch, it is Citizen Science with the best intentions to better understand canine behavior and genetics. We have a full team of scientists working day and night on this project. Dr. Karlsson has done, and continues to do, incredible work in the dog world.

With that said, we are not a business like many other genetic tests out there, this purely research running off of grant money.
Since grant money has become tight, our team works constantly to keep apply for more. We wanted to provide participants with another option so that they could get their results faster without waiting for our grant money. This option, the Explorer Lever, is not meant as a ‘bait and switch’ but allows those who would like to fund their dogs sample to do so, ensuring it gets sent out for sequencing quickly and providing participants with another option. This option eliminates the wait time associated with the Free Participation enrollment and we hope it will reduce frustration as less samples are waiting for grant funding. We still plan to sequence the free participation samples, it just takes time, since we rely on limited grant money.
Unfortunately that is how research works, but we are determined!

Again my apologies for the wait but we do appreciate everyone that has enrolled.

[brittney logan]

Hi Ava,

Thank you for your interest in our research!

In order to get started, please log in and go to “My Laboratory” -> “View Laboratory”. There you will see a button that says “Add Dog”. This will allow you to create your dog’s profile!

Once created, you will see on the right hand side the 22 behavioral surveys, that will tell us all about your dog’s unique behaviors, traits and looks. When at least 10 surveys are completed, the option to join the Free DNA Kit Waitlist will become available. Please note that this option is funded by our grant money, which takes time to acquire, but we are working each day to support these participants.

If you do not want to wait for a kit to be supported off of our grant funds, you are welcome to Order the DNA kit!

If you have any other questions please let me know.

Best,
Brittney

[brittney logan]

Hi Ezekiel,

We continue to apply for more grant funding to support our free participation kits.

Please note that in order to enroll for the Free Kit Waitlist, at least 10 behavioral surveys need to be completed for that option to become available on your dogs profile. The more behavioral surveys completed for your dog, the more likely we can prioritize getting a kit out! If you do not want to wait for our funds to support a kit for your dog, we have the option to Order a DNA kit.

If you have any questions or concerns, please let us know or email us directly!

Best,
Brittney

[brittney logan]

Hi Brandi,

I hope your dog is doing okay! You are welcome to go back into the surveys and update your dogs answers. We save the original answers so we will now if they were updated.

We did indeed receive a grant to study the genetics of food allergies in dogs. We continue to work with data and write up our findings. At this point in time, we are not yet ready to have an individualized report.

When we do, we will be sure to let our participants know of any additional reports!

Best,
Brittney

[brittney logan]

Hi there,

With the sequencing methods that we use, we cannot tell age at the time of sequencing.

[brittney logan]

Hi Trish,

Just to be clear, your dogs DNA sample is not “de-prioritized” just because we do not yet have the breed in the panel (yet). Your dog can certainly still be sequenced and is very valuable to our research! The results will likely come back with breeds of close ancestry and maybe even a portion unknown. Once CLDs are in the panel (and for any other breed for that matter) we updated our results.

We do indeed have some Catahoula Leopard Dog samples in our study participating on the free kit waitlist, we just do not the funding at the moment to sequence them. If enough of the dogs are funded by owners, (at least 12 unrelated) then we could work on adding them to the panel! 🙂

With so many breeds that we could add, Catahoula Leopard Dog have just as equal a playing field as other breeds. Once we receive funding, it really all depends on the grant, so I cannot say which breed(s) would be our next focus.

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