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brittney loganKeymasterAs a side note (not saying you need this Michelle), if any of our participants are experiencing difficulties with training or have noticed drastic changes in their dogs behaviors that are a concern, we have been working closely with the International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants (IAABC).
The IAABC has behavioral consultants around the world, who are highly trained and happy to help you and you best friend!
brittney loganKeymasterHi Michelle,
Yes you are more than welcome to retake the surveys if you feel your dogs behavior has changed!
To retake any of the surveys, please first go to “My Laboratory” and on your dogs profile you will see on the right hand side “View Surveys”. A list of all 21 surveys will appear below, and you will see in pink test “re-take”.
Thank you for checking in with us first! Have fun!
brittney loganKeymasterHi Tracy,
We fully understand you concerns and frustrations. It has taken quite a bit of time because we are purely research and not business run like many other genetic tests out there. I can promise you this is not a bait and switch. We made Darwin’s Ark into an optional donation project so that owners that did not want to wait can pay to have their dogs DNA sequenced right away, which is entirely optional. If participants do not wait to donate, then they do not have to, there is just a bit of a wait time because of grant money.
Prior to us recently launching this research as a non-profit, we have completed sequencing for nearly 1,000 dogs that were funded by our grant money (‘free participation level’). That does not include the recent 400 that were just sent out.
In total, we have received around 4,500 saliva samples so far! All of the samples remain stable and safe until sent for sequencing either by the grant money we have avaliable by owner donations.
We are currently working on uploading our first round of results to Darwin’s Ark owners via their dogs profile. We plan to share these results only on owner profiles, since we do not own the data, we believe it is the owners data and if they wish to share they can.
As for public results that we have shared and had permission from owners to do so, we created a mini project called Mutt Mix Project! We took these results and made it into a survey to see just how well dog people are at guessing mixed breeds. Anyone can still participate in this survey and check out some of the results we got from sequence these interesting Mutts! (owners did received the results)
Having a large sample size of all unique individual dogs participating in citizen science is absolutely amazing! We thank each and everyone one of you for your participation and patience with this research!
brittney loganKeymasterHi Linda, all of your dogs are still there and in our database. It is just under a different email address. I will be in contact with you via email to resolve this. Thank you!
brittney loganKeymasterHi Kathy,
First off, we are so sorry to hear of your loss. Your dog is still more than welcome to continue to contribute to our study if you wish!
We understand your frustrations with the wait, but this is purely research, we are not a business so things run a bit differently.
The wait time is due to various aspect, the top one being limited grant money, so we cannot send out all of the sample were receive at once. We have made changes our webpage and made Darwin’s Ark into a non-profit in order to provide participants with more options and say in when their dogs samples goes out for sequencing. 🙂
Since grant money is the main factor in the wait, owners can now fund their dogs sample if they want it to go out for sequeincing right away! (if you have already sent in your dogs sample and have answered the surveys, then funding your dogs sample is $99.00)
This is of course optional, and you can remain participating for free if you wish. Free participation means that we will be funding your dogs sample from our available grant money for the project. This is where the waitlist comes into play according to when you enrolled and completed the surveys.
If you would like to learn more about our new participation levels, I have provided the link to our FAQ page below. I hope this helps! Again, our condolences go out to you, and we thank you very much for enrolling your dog in our canine behavioral genetics research.
brittney loganKeymasterHi Liz,
We plan to have the results uploaded to your dogs profile very soon! Since new have a new webpage, we have been working on formatting, which is taking a bit longer than we expected. Thank you for your patience though, we are so excited to share the results of the sequenced samples so far!
brittney loganKeymasterHi Merry,
No you are not at the bottom of the waitlist, we just needed to know how you wanted to participate since we have new options. 🙂
You spot remains the same, as go from the dates that you enrolled and completed the surveys.
brittney loganKeymasterDarwin’s Ark works along side the International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants (IAABC). If you are interested in connecting with a certified trainer in your area, please check out the link below! Best of luck!
brittney loganKeymasterHi Courtnie,
Yes, we will provide you with your dogs Breed Calling information, which will be able to tell you what he/she is a mix of. We hope to in the future tell you about illnesses and disease, but as of right now the methods for this are not up to our standards. We want to be able to provide you with valid information and in the animal world, the standards are not up to par with what is being done in the human world.
The Founder and our Principle Investigator of Darwin’s Ark was apart of a wonderful article explaining the difficulties we face today with pet genomic and health testing.
The article is in Nature and is titled Pet genomics medicine runs wild
brittney loganKeymasterHi Karen,
We apologize for the long wait. There are many factors that have been playing into the wait time such as grant money (since we are purely research bases) and determining the best methods in order to provide you with the most information about your dog. In order to combat this wait time issue, we have become a non-profit with new options for our participants! 🙂
Please check out our FAQ page for more information about our various participation levels.
(please note that if you decide to participate by funding your dogs sample, we already have the saliva sample here so it will only be $99.00)
I hope this helps,
Brittney
brittney loganKeymasterHi Jennifer,
Yes your dogs sample has been sequenced. It takes quite so time for the processing and then we need to get the raw data back so we can do computational work to make sense of it all. Then comes the formatting and making of the graphs and results for you. We are working on uploading results to various participants profiles, we have just been working out the kinks with this new webpage set up.
brittney loganKeymasterHi Tina,
Wait time depend upon how you chose to participate and when you enrolled in our study.
I have provided a link below for more information on participation levels which are in relation to wait time for kits! I hope this helps. 🙂
brittney loganKeymasterHi Catherine,
Prior to us recently launching this research as a non-profit where owners can donate, we have completed sequencing for nearly 1,000 dogs that were funded by our grant money (‘free participation level’). That does not include the recent 350 that were just sent out.
In total, we have received around 4,500 samples total so far. All of the samples are remaining stable and safe until sent by owner donations or by our grant money.
Having a large sample size of all unique individual dogs participating in citizen science is absolutely amazing! We thank each and everyone one of you for your participation and patience with this research!
brittney loganKeymasterThat leads into the next question brought up. There are various levels of participation (including free waitlist level).
If you have already sent in your sample and have answered the behavioral surveys, you can order the DNA analysis for $99.00 (that is the 36 paid donations that you seen in my answer above)
Next, if you have not received your DNA kit and don’t want to wait for the kit or results, then there is the Explorer level.
Lastly, there is the Trailblazer level where your dogs can join and elite group of dogs that will have fully sequenced DNA!
If you want to learn even more about these levels of participation and donations, I have provided the link below to our FAQ page.
brittney loganKeymasterGreat questions!
Currently we have sent out about 350 free participation samples. We just began sending them out in batches, so that is why the number is low right now. We plan to keep sending them out in batches whenever we possibly can! 🙂
As for the owner funded samples there have been about 20 sent out for sequencing. Again that number is low because we send them out in batches of about 100 so we do not overwhelm the laboratory and it is easier to make sure things stay organized. In total, there are now 36 paid test donations (which include the 20 that have already been sent out).
As for all donations for all participation levels there has been 68!
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