Lisa Peterson

Every day, our brave servicemen and women stand ready to protect us. But for many, the hardest battle is the one they face after returning home: post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). When this happens, who stands ready to protect them? Often, it’s a service dog. June is National PTSD Awareness Month and a great time to...

You’ve Embark-tested your dog and received the most informative DNA results available. Now, how do you use those results to help find potential mates to complement your breeding goals? Enter Matchmaker Embark’s advanced, custom breeding tool that makes it easy to assess inherited disease mutations in potential mates and view predicted average litter COI. Discover all...

DNA testing is rapidly growing among breeders, giving them increasingly detailed information to manage and improve the genetic health, diversity, and physical traits of their breeding lines. Given the importance of these test results to the health of not only each dog but also that of future generations of dogs, we believe it’s critical to...

Embark’s Professional Team strives to provide you with the most useful, most actionable test results. To best leverage these results, it’s useful to understand the basics of genetics and what factors need to be considered when applying test results to a breeding program. Genetics can be simple or complex, and both are actual scientific terms...

Coat color genetics can be fun and interesting at the same time. This is because there seems to be an exception to every rule, and the veterinary genetics community still has much to discover about coat color. Learning about the inheritance of coat colors can be incredibly rewarding, as it allows one to see the...

What is Degenerative Myelopathy (DM)? A disease of mature dogs, Degenerative Myelopathy(DM) is a progressive, degenerative disorder of the spinal cord that causes muscle wasting and gait abnormalities. Affected dogs do not usually show signs until they are at least 8 years old when the nerves that supply the hind limbs begin degenerating.  At first,...

North American Grey Wolves were once always grey, but now some are black. Why? Dive into how the introduction of domestic dogs from Asia changed the makeup of wolves, forever. Dogs and wolves share much in common  Did you know that it’s because of dogs that some members of the American Gray Wolf population have...

As a responsible breeder, you’re already invested in the health of your dogs: You’ve DNA-tested your breeding stock, received expert consultations on results, and made adjustments. So when your next litter arrives, you may wonder, why test all the puppies? At Embark, we understand the cost of testing an entire litter may seem challenging, especially...

Dog breeders often ask, why are the risks for some health conditions difficult to detect with genetic testing? The short answer is: genetics can be simple or complex—scientific terms that mainly refer to patterns of inheritance or transmission of a disease-causing mutation. Some health issues currently have a DNA test available to see if your...

Every day, we hear from Embark customers who are surprised by their dog’s breed results. This often happens with mixed-breed dogs that don’t quite look like you’d imagine based on their breed breakdown.  These expectation-defying differences are possible because of how genetic inheritance works. Just like you, your dog gets one set of genes from...

Merle coat pattern testing is included in the Embark for Breeders DNA Kits by testing for the M Locus. Merle coat pattern is common to several dog breeds, including the Australian Shepherd, Catahoula Leopard Dog, and Shetland Sheepdog, among many others. In Dachshunds, this color pattern is known as “dapple.” A tricolor merle Australian Shepherd....

Are you a fan of Agility and its superstars? If so, you may have seen lightning-fast mixed-breed dogs on the televised finals of the Masters Agility Championship at Westminster.  These talented athletes and their handlers, who have also tested their dogs with Embark, include Brio, and his handler Ali Park, of Fort Stewart, Georgia, the...