When the news arrived that dog DNA testing would be made available, there was a mix of reactions. Some people were angry, as communities were using it to see if pooches had any banned breeds in their ancestry. Some people were happy with the possibility of determining the appropriate disease prevention...
When Will Mulhall brought his two 7-week-old pups home several years ago, he had no idea they would become celebrities and garner a fan base bigger than some of their human colleagues. “I just got them to take walks on the beach and the forest near our house,” Will said....
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...
If you have Embarked your dog and opted to participate in scientific research, you’re officially a citizen scientist! On behalf of Embark, I want to say thanks for your contribution. In 2017, Embark presented some of the first research to come out of the data that you and others have...
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...
I founded Embark because I love dogs and science. My earliest experiences as a biologist came in the rainforests of Costa Rica and Panama studying all different sorts of tropical biodiversity, and also getting friendly with the free-ranging dogs wandering around the nearby towns (my family even adopted a dog...
