My problem with the racism analogy is that being afraid of a dog who has recently been, or currently is, intentionally bred to be intimidating is hardly the same as judging someone by their ethnicity. It may be less likely to see this behavior in herding dogs than in the general population, but a shepherd would be a blue-ribbon idiot to keep working a dog who showed those tendencies because he was “well-bred”. Optimal Selection™ is a simple and easy-to-use testing service that helps you understand your litter's health and increase their well-being. Wisdom Panel 4.0 is the latest and greatest in the line of Wisdom Panel’s dog DNA test kits. Test Tracker. My results took about 4 and a half weeks to return. What do those low percentage breeds really mean? It also means that 10% of the time, it is flat wrong. And actually, it had all along seemed to me that there wasn’t really a disagreement among all our views in the subject of breed stereotyping (from previous thread) and with breed behaviors here. Hopefully your next swab will go better. Of course, I failed to mention that the flip side is that when a Border Collie stalks and herds the kids and nips them,; the poorly socialised GSD attacks the visitors and the under stimulated cocker fetches and chews all your designer shoes then these dogs can also find themselves abandoned because they fit the breed type and the owner didn’t do their research! But it’s quite common, and if you want BC eye, get a border collie (or a Kelpie). There is nothing wrong in my opinion about someone wanting a particular type of dog. The point is that the majority of them actually are (I’m not talking about Am Staffs bred by good breeders; I know little about them). If anyone wants to make a guess here is the link to her page: http://www.wisdompanel.com/community/details/?DogId=43983, we have a American Staffordshire Terrier, Boxer, Golden Retriever & Standard Poodle Cross –, https://www.facebook.com/kristinaemory.craft/media_set?set=a.10153610673106549.1073741934.592666548&type=3, Your email address will not be published. So when the DNA breed testing became available a few years ago, I decided I would have him tested. Would they even have brought a dog of that size into their family if it was a different breed? If they were beagles, I would have not worried so much about their dog-dog socialization (I would have socialized with other dogs, but not gone out of my way to approach literally every dog we met). We were working on keeping him cool. My dog is black and tan/cream colored and has non-errect ears, like his dad. While they try, shelters/rescues guesses are rarely accurate (the JRT/Chi was listed as a Dachshund mix). The most comprehensive dog DNA test available. In turn, those dogs go on to produce more “purebreds”…consequently, it is actually not surprising to find a “suspect” breed in the distant past of some dogs, even supposed purebreds. http://imageshack.us/a/img706/3205/wisdompanel2.png. However, he developed corneal dystrophy, common in Norwegian Elkhonds, & found only in a couple of puppy-mill lines of Kees’. Beth with the Corgis, well put. But their bags are hard as rocks, poor things, and they are giving almost no milk at all. The top 5 breeds comprising that ‘mixed breed’ were German Spitz 21.86% , Shuh Tzu 8.5%, Belgian Tervuren 6.35%, Parson Russell Terrier 4.88% and Mastiff 4.49%. I’m not especially enamored of these guess-the-mutt DNA tests and consider them nothing more than a parlor game, a phrase I note another commenter used. My recent pit bull experience: One of my training classes was being held out at a park, and we were practicing “Sit for Petting” with some strangers that had wandered up. Sally’s Health Results. April’s Embark Health Results: Screened for 175 conditions ― found at risk for 0; carrier for 3; cleared for 166. If I had a dog that I thought was a bloodhound/lab cross and it turned out there was a likelihood it was part mastiff/catahoula/fox terrier, what would that affect, if anything? Corgis get fat so easily that if we listened to the vet’s advice, most Corgi owners would have dogs that weighed 50 pounds instead of 25 or 30. Great Danes were bred as boarhounds originally, but they haven’t been used for that purpose in centuries. But it’s easier than saying that the dog is a dwarfed German Shepherd cross. I think it’s a valid point personally as there is no doubt about it, size matters when it comes to aggression. Anyway, it left me a little skeptical of the process. 4.49% Mastiff? @Beth, May I respectfully suggest that what you experienced may have been puppy owners who were astonished that anyone could think their puppy was mean and were still trying to process the idea that their puppy’s breed is so maligned that people see the stereotype rather than the dog no matter what the dog, or in this case puppy, is presenting? Required fields are marked *. If you will bear with me I would like to share a story of my own. WISDOM PANEL, Wisdom Panel 4.0, $85 Wisdom Panel Health, $150 WIRED: Approachable pricing. Here’s how it all went down, with results to follow! I’m glad to hear it’s not just me that can be easily distracted. Except there is some pheromone activity that we don’t pick up on consciously to do with our immune systems. In our case, dog parks are definitely essential. Basically I set up scenarios where the pup would intentionally start chasing and conditioned him to realize that the second he nipped me, I would stop play and ignore him completely (looking at the ceiling) til he wandered away, bored. She also mentioned having pups go into homes and getting loose or living on acreage and bringing down deer. Secondly, lots of info here about DNA breed testing. References: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2763679/ and http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19426042.300. Speaking of Rare Breeds:  That was my primary question to both scientists at Mars. Each breed description would be a blank with a statement that said “All dogs are individuals. It would not be a surprise if our already mixed breed dog would show to have a little bit of almost anything in his/her breed background. And so on. You would never in a million years guess rough collie in just looking at her. I appreciate that you are the type of owner who can deal with the dog you have, and it sounds like you have enough flexibility in your life to cope with different behaviors. She does have a fantastic stalk and ‘eye’ very much like a BC. I got mine 2 weeks after they received it exactly but it was on analyzing the results for a week. Yes, you should deal with the dog you have. Sounds funny unless you are confronted with this! Temperament is so important too of course, but behaviour is incredibly complex and I think that the nature vs. nurture debate isn’t really a debate anymore amongst scientists. Kat, re: show vs work, there is not an easy answer to that. Love it! I’d say that boils down to a lot of people failing their dogs by failing to educate themselves in order to understand their behaviour, what they are trying to communicate and placing unrealistic expectations on them. Dogs by their breeding alone can not be judged to be ‘good’ with children IMO. However, having seen lots of labrador/collie crosses, most of which look like labs with finer features, you might come to recognize it over time. Dna Results. She enjoys reading every comment, and adds her own responses when she can. > Page 1 of 2 1 2 Next > Apr 19, 2018 #1. eam New Member Registered. Still others pride themselves in the fact that they have a large number of dogs who excel at both showing and working. I don’t know about you, but I don’t run much. One guy has a lovely field-bred English Pointer. And there’s an agenda behind the way some people use of these tests.. which is to deny that “breeds” exist at all in any meaningful sense (that is, with dogs of a breed having some consistency in appearance/structure/behavior). That’s why they say things like “can you believe people think this is a mean dog?” Because people do NOT see the dog in front of them, they see the breed, or worse, the stereotype of the breed. I’ve never bothered to do a DNA panel on them because really, what’s the point? And does knowing that alter how a breed is perceived, if it is breeding true now? They both bark a lot. We sometimes forget that all purebreds developed from village dogs, not the other way around. It’s a matter of welfare. Not true! Bassett Hound 3.96% But, as we are responsible for them, we should use science to ensure we selectively breed for ethically sound reasons – not simply because we think they look cute, behave aggressively or feel we have ownership over a type of breed because we happen to breed them ourselves. We cooed and complimented and I struck up a conversation. As stories in general have been central to human history, perhaps our breed stories overlap in serving similar purposes, including but not limited to: entertainment, preservation, education, manipulation, inspiration, etc. That is perhaps something that not-so-savvy members of the public might assume, but breeders, breed-rescue, etc generally carefully evaluate the individual for placement, based on what the potential owner is looking for. If he hadn’t been a Lab would the family have taken more precautions? A friend told me about his intact Basset (show dog) bolting one evening on their walk and when he caught up with his dog he discovered the reason was a young Newfoundland bitch in heat being taken for a walk. Please note that this test may have changed since our review was written. Given the nature of pedigree dog breeding, perhaps some people have been inclined to be disappointed if their purebred dog gets a report that inclines otherwise. She’s the kind of dog who, if she were a person, wouldn’t go around looking for fights, but would be the person at the bar who gets all up in someone’s face if they bump into her. Hmmm…. It could be that indeed, somewhere back in time a purebred Terv bred with someone’s purebred Whatchamacallit. Its an old midwives trick for mastitis that I have had great success with in dogs….easier to keep on and it can give you several hours of heat pack. Everything makes so much sense about our girl Fynn. Had my vet & I known that, he might have been diagnosed & treated without my needing to take him to a veterinary ophthomologist at Purdue. Update October 2018: We were informed that Embark has increased the speed of its turn around time from 6-8 weeks to 2-4 which is an improvement and comparable to Wisdom Panel’s 2-3 weeks. In these discussions it pays to get dog aggression into persepctive in society. I know I was astonished recently when talking to friends and mentioned that the dog I had seriously been looking at before we adopted our psycho bitch was an AmStaff and received a very negative reaction. Mary K, breed descriptions will say that breeds are “good with kids” or “good with older children” etc, but that does not mean that people think that every individual dog will always be good in every situation. I read on a working cocker breeder’s blog recently about what he advises people to do with puppies who fail to make eye contact with their owners. She spent the entire time scanning the store, especially noting anyone who came in the door. They have done this by: Using 1,800 most revealing genetic markers to evaluate DNA; Testing for over +200 different dog breeds and variations