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If you’ve ever looked at your dog and wished they could tell you all about their background and family history, now they can—kinda. Much like you can get a kit to find out your family history through DNA testing, you can do the same for your dog. Wisdom Panel performs DNA tests that can help you learn more about your dog.
A Wisdom Panel Dog DNA test can identify your dog’s breed, pinpoint potential genetic anomalies that could cause health problems, as well as help you learn more about your dog’s proclivities and breed traits that affect behaviour. Wisdom Panel gave me the opportunity to do a DNA test on my dog and a friend’s dog so I could see what the experience is like and what I could learn about my dog, Rainie, a mixed breed rescue that came to us from Mexico.
Wisdom Panel offers two tests, the ‘basic Canine Breed Detection test ($84US)and the more in-depth Wisdom Panel Health Canine Breed + Disease Detection for $149US. I received the Canine Breed + Disease Detection version.
Once your Wisdom Panel kit arrives in the mail, performing the test is simple and takes just seconds. Inside the box (which you need to save to ship the samples back!) are two swabs in a sealed plastic wrap (save that too!). The swabs look similar to mascara wands on long handles. You’ll roll each one around your dog’s mouth for about 15 seconds, then pop it back into the cardboard box to dry for a few minutes. Then you’ll slip them back into the wrapper.
Next up, you need to activate your kit online so Wisdom Panel knows where to send the results. After about 3 weeks, an e-mail landed in my inbox declaring the results were in!
The Wisdom Panel results come in an easy to read colourful and personalized report. You can view a very detailed report online, or print an abridged version. Rainie, our rescue pup, was billed to us as a lab cross, but she clearly has some doberman features, so our best guess was she was a lab doberman mix.
Wisdom Panel’s test shows Rainie’s breed percentage as:
12.5% Boxer
12.5% Staffordshire Terrier
12.5% Chihuahua
12.5% Cocker Spaniel
50% “Breed Groups; Herding, Sporting, Asian, Terrier”
VO
Looking at Rainie’s results and them looking at her, it might be easy to say, “no way”, since one might wonder where the obvious doberman characteristics fit in.
To help me interpret the results, I spoke with Wisdom Panel’s Angela Hughes, DVM PhD and one of the principals at Wisdom Panel.
She explained that some customers are confused by the “Breed Groups” designation, but that this means your dog is likely so thoroughly mixed, so far back in their lineage, that it becomes harder and harder to pull specific breeds from the results. What you can see is where the strongest markers come to the forefront.
So where does that leave my little Dobie-cheeked puppy? Perhaps somewhere way back, one or more of her relatives was a Doberman, but that her DNA has become so mixed up, it’s now too distant to tell.
So what else is a dog DNA test good for, aside from being able to dazzle your friends at the dog park? Wisdom Panel’s test can tell you if your dog carries any mutations for health issues. Rainie was all clear, but my friend’s dog, which I also had tested, did test positive for a marker that shows he’ll be prone to hip problems later in life, and since he’s now a senior dog, we can already see this is happening. If he’d been tested earlier in life, (he is also a rescue) perhaps more care could have been taken with his diet, weight and exercise by his previous owners to stave off problems.
Overall, There’s definitely a lot of info in the wisdom Panel dog DNA report and I’m really glad to have done it.
The report for my dog and my neighbour’s dog were vastly different, so any conspiracy theorists who might think you get the same report no matter the dog can sleep easy.
I found the results jived really well with not just the visual traits I can see, but with Rainie’s characteristics; she can be wary of strangers and protective of me, she is eager and fast to learn and freakishly intelligent (she can open doors and door handles plus sliding doors!), very alert, active and quite playful.
The Wisdom Panel kit also recommends weight guidelines for her based on her makeup, and we’ve found that quite helpful, since when we got her she was very underweight and we weren’t sure how much to try to put on her.
I was glad to see this little Mexican mix has no major health concerns in her DNA so I hope that means she’ll live a long, healthy and active life.
I definitley recommend the Wisdom Panel experience. You can order right from the company’s website. The ‘basic Canine Breed Detection test ($84US)and the more in-depth Wisdom Panel Health Canine Breed + Disease Detection for $149US.
