<p>For xmas I purchased for my husband a dna/breed identification test for our newest shelter dog. We had just been calling her a “mystery mix”. </p>
<p>35 pounds, long body, short legs, black wavy hair that makes her look like a walking toupe, ball obsessed, barks turn into an aroo sound</p>
<p>The results came back on Thursday. NONE of the breeds we thought likely were in her. I thought lab mixed with c@cker and basset hound. She has 5 breeds in her, not a lot of anything so both parents were mixed breeds as well. She is American water spaniel, doberman, Irish setter, with trace amounts of shih tzu and American fox hound. We had never heard of the American water spaniel.</p>
<p>If anyone has been considering this for their dog, I recommend it. We have had hours of entertainment looking up pictures of dog breeds on the internet and trying to figure out how the breeds are displayed in her.</p>
<p>It was done through a blood draw at the vet. The fee was $150 which is why it was an xmas present. I think there are a couple different companies that do this. Hers was Wisdom Panel.</p>
<p>Just so you know, those tests are not reliable at all. Owners of purebred dogs have sent in DNA to see how reliable the tests were and they came back as incorrect breeds that weren’t even close to their breed in size or color.</p>
<p>I wish this technology had been around when we had our old dog. They told us at the shelter that he was blue tick (a coon hound) & beagle. I figured with beagle, he might not get too big. Turned into a horse. Blue ticks are a mottled kind of dog, but he had a black coat with tan and white markings on 3 feet and head. Looked nothing like either. It would have been nice to know what he was.</p>
<p>I agree with OP it was a fun thing to find out. We have a “terrier mix” - or so we thought. She’s a very quirky dog and I always say she has all of the bad aspects and none of the good of every breed she is. She is a 25 lb white long haired shaggy dog. Turned out she was mostly border collie (which explained a lot about her personality!) as well as whippet (which we never thought she could possibly be) and poodle. The company at the time did not have all the breeds so I am not sure that terrier breeds were even an option. It cost $60 and for me it was well worth the enjoyment of finding out.</p>
<p>We looked up online photos of the water spaniel puppies. I actually accused my husband of slipping a photo of our dog into the ones he was showing me! Nationally it is a rare breed but since it originated in the upper midwest (WI) and she came from “Up North” where hunting is a way of life, this component of hers is plausible to me. It’s the doberman that has us scratching our heads; perhaps gave her the black color but she has no face markings.</p>
<p>Our company is the same one the American Kennel Club uses.</p>
<p>I’ve heard of a few cases with questionable results with the tests too.
My sister also received one as a gift. Her dog is a stray rescued from the streets of a low-income, rural area, and looks like a pitbull/shepherd/yellow lab mix, with blue-black tongue and lips reminiscent of a chow. Anyway, the test came back showing none of those breeds other than a a little bit of pitbull. The rest were collie, whippet and something else exotic that made no sense at all.</p>
<p>I’d be more apt to trust your own gut feelings with your dog (especially the basset, with that “aroo” bark!), and her wavy black coat. Also, it would be pretty unusual for an American water spaniel to end up in the mixed breed gene pool-- they’re pretty unusual dogs, not ones you’d normally find in puppy mills or running around making puppies. Certainly not impossible, though. Same goes for American foxhound-- a purebred one is RARE, and taller and leggier than the english version.</p>
<p>But (now that I’ve come off as the nag who tries to put a damper on everything) I DO think it’s a very fun and different gift! I did the same thing with a human ancestry website. No one has any idea where my mother’s family came from. Midwestern farmers- only able to track back a few generations. Anyway, we did test where they’d tell you what geographical area your maternal ancestors came from. After shelling out $80, it came back as “unknown.” So disappointing!</p>
<p>We did this last year for one of our dogs (the only one we had at the time). The test was a cheek swab and cost about $70. He is from the SPCA, found in a box with the rest of the litter on the streets of Long Beach. He weighs around 25 lbs, is white and fluffy with black spots. The SPCA thought he was a Bichon mix.</p>
<p>I eagerly awaited the test results, I was sure he was part Poodle (too big to be
Bichon), with some Dalmatian.</p>
<p>Since this was the limited cheek swab test and not the more thorough blood test, the results turned out to be meaningless. There was no main match, no secondary match. It only told us that our fairly small, white and furry dog had Belgian Tervuren dna. Since we are dog lovers we knew of that breed; they are similar to German Shepherds. Not exactly a spitting image of ours. </p>
<p>So the mystery remains.</p>
<p>Since then we have gotten another dog. His dad is a pedigreed Bichon Frise (white and curly) and mom is either a Cockapoo or a Maltipoo (very dark brown and smoother). Our dog has no Bichon looks whatsoever; he is apricot colored and only somewhat curly. The Poodle part seems to dominate as he has a longish nose and that color.</p>
<p>Anyway, my point is that what a dog looks like does not necessarily reflect its immediate ancestry. I still wish I knew what my other dog was. </p>
<p>lspf72, I would love to do that. We know where we are from (since we came from there when I was a kid) but I would enjoy getting more information. On the other hand it was disappointing enough to not get much, if any, information about a dog, I would hate to get that result about myself.</p>