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How Dog DNA Testing Works

How DNA Genotyping Works

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Occasionally, we get questions from customers curious about how their dog’s DNA is processed into the genotype data that we analyze to understand breed ancestry and health risks. Once we receive your dog’s cheek swab, the DNA contained in the sample is copied many times in a process called amplification. Next, all of those copies...

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Breed Surprise

Why Mixed Breed Siblings May Not Look Exactly Alike

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“Are these dogs really siblings? They look nothing alike.”  This is a common question people have after using our Relative Finder. After you’ve Embarked your pup, there is a chance that you’ll come across dogs who are very closely related to yours, but look very different.  We’ve written previously about how the breed(s) in your...

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How Dog DNA Testing Works

Top Reasons to Get Your Dog’s DNA Tested

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Dog; it’s the first word many of us learn and the first friend many of us have. Dogs are an integral part of our communities and lives, they represent a feeling of warmth, home and comfort to so many. While pets often become members of the family, many don’t know as much as they could...

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How Dog DNA Testing Works

Inbreeding in Dogs Explained

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When closely related dogs mate, it is defined as inbreeding. “Inbreeding is the mating of individuals or organisms that are genetically closely related, resulting in increased homozygosity and consequently an increase in the occurrence of recessive traits,” according to Nature. “This can lead to inbreeding depression: reduced biological fitness of the population.” In this video,...

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Go to "Embark CSO Explains Genetic Diversity" article
How Dog DNA Testing Works

Embark CSO Explains Genetic Diversity

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Genetic diversity refers to the total number of genetic characteristics in the genetic makeup of a certain species. Embark cofounder and Chief Science Officer Dr. Adam Boyko explains genetic diversity and how it affects dogs in the following video. Dr. Boyko has traveled to every inhabitable continent to study dogs and is a professor at...

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How Dog DNA Testing Works

Why Human & Dog Siblings Have Different DNA

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My Italian grandmother and her brother recently tested their DNA with the same company and got very different results. Since I work for a startup that makes dog DNA tests, they turned to me for answers. “One of us is not from the milkman, Ashley, how did this happen?” my Nona asked. “How can it...

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How Dog DNA Testing Works

A Tail of Two Breeds: How Dog DNA Diverges Over Time

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At Embark, we often receive questions like this one: “How can you differentiate ancestry between closely related breeds?” For example, American Bulldogs and modern English Bulldogs are the descendants of working English Bulldogs that made their way to America with working-class immigrants. So, how can we tell the difference between the genetics of American Bulldogs...

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How Dog DNA Testing Works

Oedipus Rex: Dog Inbreeding, its Consequences, and its Quantification

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For millenia, dog breeders have intentionally mated relatives as a way to fix traits in a lineage, recognizing that there is a reduction of fitness in offspring of close relatives. However, this certainly wasn’t always intentional as one can see from this post on the Hapsburg lip. A century ago, Sewall Wright devised the coefficient...

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How Dog DNA Testing Works

Genetic Weight: Informed by Science, and You

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Greetings, Embarkers! I want to spend a bit of time discussing one of our features: genetic weight. We get a lot of questions about this: How do we arrive at your dog’s individual results? How come we get it wrong sometimes? Read on to learn more. The reason dogs rule (from a genomicist’s point of...

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Go to "What’s in Your Dog? Why Breed Doesn’t Always Dictate Appearance" article
Breed Surprise

What’s in Your Dog? Why Breed Doesn’t Always Dictate Appearance

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What makes a dog breed a dog breed? Let’s answer that question using one of the most popular breeds today as an example: the Corgi. For starters, the signature bobtail in the Pembroke Welsh Corgis comes from a mutation in the T-box gene. Without it, the Corgi everyone knows and loves would look totally different....

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Dog DNA Testing

Learn all about dog DNA testing with expert guidance designed for veterinarians, pet owners, and breeders. These resources answer common questions about the dog DNA testing process, from comparing dog DNA tests to understanding what a dog’s genetic results could mean for their health.

At Embark, science is at the heart of everything we do. That’s why our scientists are hard at work making new discoveries in canine genetics. Dive into the science behind topics like how dog DNA tests work, which dog DNA tests are accurate, and how we can use genetics to help dogs live healthier lives.