To analyze your dog’s saliva, we extracted DNA from the sample and sequenced most of the 2.4 billion base pairs that make up the canine genome. After sequencing, we compared your dog’s DNA sequence to a database consisting of the genetic material from over one hundred purebred dog lineages as well as genetic material from multiple populations of village dogs around the world. Read more in the blog post entitled Making Sense of Genomic Sequence Data.
These kinds of analyses are complicated, and it's important to us to provide information that explains how they work and what the results mean. We do this through our newsletter sent monthly to all participants, through blogposts and FAQs that can be accessed any time, as well as through one-on-one responses to questions. Also, the genomic report we generate for each dog explains that the information is derived from our currently available database and that some purebred dogs may not be able to be assigned to their correct breeds because of this. We are aware that many owners may have valuable information to share about our interpretation, and we can't anticipate that for each individual dog in advance. That is why we invite our participants to correct any information in the genomic report (including not only our interpretation of breed, but also our interpretation of body size, coat color, coat features, etc.) so that we can continue to refine our understanding of gene expression in dogs.
If your dog is from a breed that is not represented in our genetic database, then our analysis would identify the most closely related breed that is. For example, you might have a Flat-Coated Retriever. If we don’t have this breed represented in our reference panel, then the analysis will match your dog to the closest breed in the panel, which in this example is likely to be a Labrador Retriever. We can generally add interpretive information about a new breed after we have sequenced about 10 dogs from that breed, and we update our panel with these new breeds as often as we have the accurate data to do so.
If this situation applies to you, please use the Genomic Report Feedback Survey to let us know. We will use this information to improve our DNA analyses.