[rebecca rice]

You may want to consider adding the “classic tri-color” option as well on the coat patterns. That’s most associated with dogs like Dobermanns, but shows up in other breeds as well, where the dog has tan cheeks, eyebrows, inside ears, and sometimes on the legs as well.

[rebecca rice]

Interesting post. However, what it really highlights is that people approach socialization with the wrong idea. It’s not about having every stranger play with your dog, or coaxing them onto strange surfaces. It’s about exposing them to the situation, and allowing them to decide what to do about it, and ENSURING that the interactions are positive. For example, with the bleachers, hanging out with the dog around them and waiting to see if the dog goes and explores them. Maybe, just maybe, if the dog does seem interested in them, putting something the dog wants up on a step, so that the dog can figure out a way of getting it. And then leaving.

Or, paraphrasing a meme I saw once: “What if I told you that socializing was teaching your dog to ignore things, not play with them?”

[rebecca rice]

Hi! I get the entire “it’s going to take time to type all of the samples”, but I am curious: Do the samples ever go bad? On the one hand, we have gotten DNA from Neanderthal teeth and frozen mammoths, so maybe not. But on the other hand, samples do degrade and get contaminated, so maybe?

[rebecca rice]

I have been thinking about this, and the bit about “indemnify and hold harmless”, and would like to suggest that, when and if you give breed results, you phrase it carefully. Apparently, there has been at least one case where someone did a breed test on a registered purebred, and it came back stating that one of the grandparents was not that breed, even though the breeder swore up and down that they were. It is possible that the breeder was lying, but it is also possible that one of the grandparents just had gene-positions-that-aren’t-as-common in that breed. They were forced to declare that dog, and all of the dogs of that line, as non-purebred, and that caused them a lot of problems since many of the dogs had been bought for showing and breeding. When I did the Wisdom panel, they clearly stated that there could be issues with the breed identifications if there were large differences between the field lines and show lines, or between American and European populations of the breed. So, I would suggest that, instead of saying something like “your dog is 25% German Shepherd, 50% Chihuahua, and 25% Lab” you go with wording like “X% of your dogs genetic markers are similar to those found in breed…” Because, as I understand the system and statistics, it is statistically possible that there is a purebred dog out there that has none of the common breed markers, and just as statistically possible that there is some random mutt that has all of a breed’s common markers. Statistics being what they are, it’s a very very very rare possibility, but still, not impossible. So, just to cover yourself, and be clear on what the information shows, I would phrase the results very carefully.

[rebecca rice]

Jesse – could you do both, bin and spilt? In other words, provide the ability to give feedback on the group and the individual sports? So I could say that, overall, “herding” activities are good for dogs like mine, but for sheep in particular I could point out that there is an instinctive part to it that she seems to be lacking. That could, possibly, help you to fine-tune recommendations, based upon any genetic components that you can determine.

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