Venn diagram

Compare your dogs to Tiger Select one to begin:

Tiger

Formosan Mountain Dog

“Adopted from Taiwan, fell in love with his gorgeous markings, but even more in love w/ his sweet cuddles and weirdo personality.”

Instagram tag
@tigerFMD

This dog has been viewed and been given 6 wags

Genetic Breed Result

Loading...

Village dog trace breed analysis

Village dogs often have short stretches of DNA that match purebred dogs, due to a distant common ancestor or a more recent mating between a purebred and a village dog. Tiger has short stretches of DNA in common with these breeds:

What exactly are village dogs?

Village dogs are the free-breeding, free-roaming “outside” dogs found around the world living in and around human settlements big and small. They are also known as island dogs, pariah dogs, or free-ranging dogs.

Many village dog populations precede the formation of modern breed dogs.

They make up about 3/4s of the billion or so dogs living on Earth today. They serve as trash cleaners, sentinels, and even sometimes companions while still retaining much of their freedom. Embark’s founders have studied village dogs on six continents since 2007 in their efforts to understand the history, traits, and health of the domestic dog. Through this work they have discovered the origins of the dog in Central Asia, and also identified genetic regions involved in domestication and local adaptation, such as the high altitude adaptation in Himalayan dogs. Embark is the only dog DNA test that includes diverse village dogs from around the world in its breed reference panel.

So what breeds are in my dog?

In a very real sense, Formosan Mountain Dog is the actual breed of your dog. Village dogs like this descend from separate lines of dogs than the lines that have been bred into standardized breeds like Labradors and Poodles. If you trace the family tree of Tiger back, you won’t find any ancestral dogs that are part of any of those standardized breeds.

Formosan Mountain Dog

Formosan Mountain Dogs hail from the Formosan Mountain region in Taiwan. Recently, some of these ancient dogs were used as foundational stock to create the Taiwan Dog breed.

Learn More

Loading...

Start a conversation! Message this dog’s humans.

Loading...

Explore

Village dogs have lived just about everywhere across the world for thousands of years. Long before there were any recognized dog breeds, there were village dogs around the fires and trash heaps of early human villages. Tiger is part of this ancient heritage, not descended from a specific breed, but continuing the ancient lineage of dogs that were our first, best friends.

Embark's co-founders studied Village Dogs on six continents in their efforts to understand the history, traits, and health of the domestic dog. Through this work, they discovered evidence for the origins of the dog in Central Asia , and they also identified genetic regions involved in domestication and local adaptation. As a result, Embark has the largest Village Dog reference panel of any canine genetics company.

We compared Tiger's DNA to a global panel of thousands of village dogs. This plot highlights regions of the world where Tiger's DNA is most similar to those village dogs. The areas of darkest red reflect the greatest similarity to our village dog panel.

Village Dog Map
Similarity to village dog groups around the world. Darker red reflects greater similarity.

Explore

Traits

Explore the genetics behind your dog’s appearance and size.

Base Coat Color

Base Coat Color

Coat Color Modifiers

Coat Color Modifiers

Other Coat Traits

Other Coat Traits

Other Body Features

Other Body Features

Body Size

Body Size

Performance

Performance

Loading...

Explore

Through Tiger’s mitochondrial DNA we can trace his mother’s ancestry back to where dogs and people first became friends. This map helps you visualize the routes that his ancestors took to your home. Their story is described below the map.

Haplogroup

A1b

Haplotype

A361/409/611

Map

A1b

Tiger’s Haplogroup

This female lineage was very likely one of the original lineages in the wolves that were first domesticated into dogs in Central Asia about 15,000 years ago. Since then, the lineage has been very successful and travelled the globe! Dogs from this group are found in ancient Bronze Age fossils in the Middle East and southern Europe. By the end of the Bronze Age, it became exceedingly common in Europe. These dogs later became many of the dogs that started some of today's most popular breeds, like German Shepherds, Pugs, Whippets, English Sheepdogs and Miniature Schnauzers. During the period of European colonization, the lineage became even more widespread as European dogs followed their owners to far-flung places like South America and Oceania. It's now found in many popular breeds as well as village dogs across the world!

A361/409/611

Tiger’s Haplotype

Part of the A1b haplogroup, this haplotype occurs most frequently in German Shepherd Dogs, Poodles, and Shiloh Shepherds.

A1b is the most common haplogroup found in German Shepherds.

Loading...

Explore

Through Tiger’s Y-chromosome we can trace his father’s ancestry back to where dogs and people first became friends. This map helps you visualize the routes that his ancestors took to your home. Their story is described below the map.

Haplogroup

A

Haplotype

Hc.1

Map

A

Tiger’s Haplogroup

A is the distant relative of some of the most numerous paternal lineages in the world. Characterized by a single sub-lineage, this is a rare and interesting paternal line! The A line is found most commonly in Siberian Huskies and in Alaskan village dogs. It seems plausible that this paternal lineage diverged within the last 10,000 years from a group arriving with the first Arctic explorers. The recent ancestors of dogs with this lineage actually allowed humans to survive in some of the most forbidding conditions on the face of the earth!

Hc.1

Tiger’s Haplotype

The lone member of the A haplogroup, this haplotype occurs most commonly in Siberian Huskies and village dogs from Alaska.

Siberian Huskys are the only breed to have the A haplogroup.

Loading...

Explore