Photo by Ernie Mastroianni/Discover Mixed breed. Mongrel. Roadside setter. A something-something. Dogs of uncertain provenance get called a lot of things. When the animal arrives at a shelter, staff usually can make only an educated guess about the dog’s parentage. Most of the dogs at my local animal control are assessed as “pit mixes” upon arrival — including the three I’ve adopted over the past 2 years. But a pit bull isn’t a breed: it’s just a type of dog characterized by a short coat, muscular frame and broad, oversized head. All three of my dogs clearly — at least to my eyes — showed signs of specific breeds somewhere in their heritage: Tall and snow white Pullo looks like the breed standard for an American Bulldog. Tyche’s body is svelte like a boxer’s and inky black like some Labs. And lanky, long-limbed Waldo sometimes bays like a hound, especially when treeing squirrels. Guessing my dogs’ breeds was a fun parlor game, but I wanted more definitive answers. So I turned to science. And, well, let’s just say it’s a good thing I didn’t place any bets on what was in my dogs’ family trees.
Finding Fido’s Family Tree
Consumer-targeted dog breed identification testing has been around for about a decade, with Wisdom Panel 2.0, owned by Mars Veterinary, as the dominant player on the American market. Wisdom Panel looks at 321 genetic markers in your dog’s DNA to create a unique profile. That profile is fed into a program that assigns each ancestor from three generations — parent, grandparent and great-grandparent — into the best fit among more than 200 breeds in the Wisdom Panel database. The doggie DNA test works differently than human ancestry tests, which typically trace both Y-chromosome DNA and maternally-inherited mitochondrial DNA back several generations. Instead, Wisdom Panel looks across the entire genome, not just on the sex chromosomes. Wisdom Panel, like human ancestry tests, is more for the curious than for owners whose dogs are facing serious health problems. Medical DNA testing for dogs is much more focused and hunts for typically single-gene mutations that cause disease. Urs Giger, a leading veterinary clinician and researcher, heads PennGen, at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Veterinary Medicine in Philadelphia. He says that though Wisdom Panel is less focused, it still has some medical value. “Wisdom Panel’s purpose is to identify the breed or breed composite, which can be quite helpful information,” says Giger. Knowing your dog’s breeds can help your veterinarian tailor the treatment for a number of conditions, such as anemia, which may have different, breed-specific causes.
