What’s My Dog?
May 31, 2007 by Daniel Beatty, DVM · 6 Comments
OK you all know that my dog is a Border Collie named Meme, but this is not about her but rather about a website called www.whatsmydog.com
And more specifically it is about what is available at that website. How about the age old question for those of you that have mixed breeds – what is your dog? Is he a poodle mix, a collie mix, no – a beagle mix, Oh the heck with it, he is just a Heinz 57! Well no more, now you can have your veterinarian do a blood test called the Wisdom Panel and have it tested against 130 recognized AKC breeds to determine what your dog is with a much better accuracy than a bunch of people looking at your dog and saying well he looks like an Italian Greyhound.
The test is around $150 plus whatever your vet charges to draw a blood sample and is provided by the Mars Veterinary Division…Yes the same Mars that makes candy bars has a veterinary division.
So go check it out and ask your vet if they would be willing to do the test. For all intense and purposes it is mainly a curiosity thing but some vets will use it to help with breed specific diseases. From my perspective I do not know how helpful that would be because the dog truly is not a specific breed but rather a mixed breed with different genetics and has the benefit of what is called hybrid vigor, so I am not so sure if this test that will determine genetically the breeds your dog is would actually be helpful in genetic based diseases.
Anyway curosity has got me thinking about one of my clients dogs that I have been teasing for a couple years now that it is part Sharpei. I think I will help defray the costs to prove I am right! LOL.
Vet Directory
There is another do-it-youself test already on the market called The Canine Heritage Breed Test. The pet owner can order the kit on-line. It comes with a little soft brush that is used to take a cheek swab of the dog which then is mailed to the lab. In about 4-6 weeks, the mystery is revealed in the form of a certificate. Right now the test can identify 38 breeds but the company will expanding that to over 100 this fall. The test is only $65 plus shipping and handling! Go to http://www.canineheritage.com
Theresa,
There was a question about accuracy regarding your test, can you address that?
I did not know you were expanding that test to another 100 breeds.
When you say “question about accuracy”, I am not really sure to what you are referring. As its name implies, MMI Genomics, which is the MMI subsidiary that developed the Canine Heritage™ Breed Test, has been doing genomics work since its inception; it is the most experienced laboratory in the world for Canine DNA identification and parentage testing services. Over the past 12 years MMIG has tested over 500,000 dogs using the cheek swab method to great effect and efficiency. As you know DNA can be extracted from either blood or a cheek swab sample. However, we do not believe that an invasive and possibly painful method such as drawing blood is necessary for this non-medical purpose. Our test allows the pet owner to easily retrieve a sample by twisting a brush inside the dog’s cheek. It’s easy and non-invasive, making pet owners feel comfortable about performing the task.
I did not mean the accuracy of your laboratory I am sure it is an excellent facility and your labs resume is impressive.
After further research I have concluded..
The question I believe came from the interview on Good Morning America. The statement was that blood was the most accurate for DNA sampling (paraphrasing because I could not find the exact statement). I have just read the UC-Davis study from 2003 that suggested that toe nail clippings, buccal swabs and blood were the same accuracy in the test itself so I believe the question comes from human error in actually collecting a sample.
So with all that said I retract my statement about “question of accuracy” because how hard is it really to collect a sample from a dogs mouth?? Must be propaganda and biased viewpoint.
Once you add the other dog breeds you should be ahead of the game, due to cost and focusing on the non-invasiveness. Right now people see the 130 breeds vs 30 breeds.
I have this adorable little dog, and whenever anyone sees her, of course they ask me, “what is she?” All I’ve ever been able to do is give my best guess, and then who ever I’m talking to has a suggestion of their own. It has ranged from Maltese to bunny rabbit. I have been wanting to do this test since I first heard about it, and on a recent visit to the vet I saw that they were offering the Wisdom Panel test. This is the one that they have to take blood for, but we were getting blood work done anyway. A month and $175 later I have the results.
“Mrs. Jones is unique, unlike any other dog in the world. Results like Mrs. Jones are found in about 70% of mixed breed dogs in the U.S. Mrs. Jones ancestry contains some Yorkshire Terrier and also includes distant traces of Beagle, Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, and Chihuahua. There are also faint signals from other breeds which are not strong enough to identify.”
So there it is. I finally have a definitive answer to the “what is she?” question.