Dog DNA test, revisited

I’d heard Embark is a more accurate DNA test for dogs, but I’d gotten the Wisdom one as a gift and submitted it. I never quite trusted the results (everyone who sees Astrid sees Shar-Pei, GSD, Australian Cattle Dog), though. As she’s declining in her senior years, I realized I was running out of time to cross-check the Wisdom results and maybe unlock the mystery of what breed(s) she actually is, and when the Embark test went on sale I splurged a bit.

The kit arrived May 5th and I put it in the mail on the 7th. It was delivered on the 10th, on the 13th I got a notice that the swab was in processing and the DNA had been extracted, and on the 17th I got the message that they were looking at her genome. Yesterday (May 19th, 9 days after they received the sample) I got an email with the results.

They track Astrid’s Wisdom results pretty closely (the 19% “supermutt” included Border  Collie, Australian Cattle Dog, and Boxer) (but contain new interesting information regarding the A5 haplogroup; I’ve also had people identify her as a Carolina Dog, so that could track):

Comparison between tests:


                           Wisdom   Wisdom Revised   Embark

Siberian Husky             25.0%    28.0%            27.4%

American Pit Bull Terrier  12.5%    11.0%            18.3%

Chow Chow                  12.5%    19.0%            18.2%

German Shepherd Dog        12.5%    15.0%            12.3%

Doberman Pinscher                    5.0%             4.8%

Supermutt                                            19.0%

  Boxer                              2.0%               ?%

  Australian Cattle Dog              3,0%               ?%

  Border Collie                      3.0%               ?%

Breed Groups

  (Herding/Asian/Hound)    37.5%                       n/a

Other Asian and Oceanian

  Akita                        n/a     3.0%            n/a

  Chinese Shar-Pei             n/a     3.0%            n/a

  Samoyed                      n/a     2.0%            n/a

Other Herding

  Collie                       n/a     3.0%            n/a

Sporting

  Labrador Retriever                   2.0%

Companion

  American Eskimo Dog                  1.0%







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