I see this dog every once in awhile in my nieghborhood. He is one of those kind of dogs that is so ugly he’s cute.
Today he was tied up outside a 7-11 and is owner was coming out, so I asked her what kind of dog he was. She said she had no idea, she got him at the pound and they said he was a mix. She got him as a puppy and he just kept growing, she said he is a mutt.
He looks like he’s a combinatin of every living dog ever made. I asked if I could pet him and that’s when I discoved he isn’t as big as he is fluffy. He looks about 100 pounds. But if you pet him two or three hands could sink into that fur.
Anyway I was thinking since he is a mutt, would it be physically possible to take DNA from him and determain what kind of breeds he was? I know all dogs can breed, as long as there isn’t any physically size issues, like Chihuhua and Great Dane.
In principle, it should work. Particularly for purebreeds, who have very small ancestral gene pools. I’m not sure if anyone has done the groundwork necessary to identify specific genetic markers that identify a specific breed, however.
Ah, here’s what was rattling around in the back of my head: the dog genome project. They seem much more interested in tracking down the genetic causes for all of the congenital defects that a lot of purebreeds have. I don’t know if they’ve come up with sets of markers that will identify a given dog.
I’ll second lazybratsch- scientifically, that could be done quite easily. But I don’t know if the necessary research has been done to know what we’re looking at with dog genes. In short, we definitely have the technology, but we may not have the data to do it yet.
Everything I’ve read on the topic of autosomal genetic testing ( both human and canine ) for race/breed seems to indicate that there is still a reasonably high error rate. As I noted in a similar thread recently, if the police were to search for a friend of mine based on his autosomal tests, they’d be looking for an ( Asian ) Indian man. Unfortunately he’s blond-haired, blue-eyed and not even slightly Indian in ancestry ;).
Which isn’t to say said testing may not become much more reliable in a year, five, ten or twenty. But right now it appears it really isn’t there yet. For one thing these tests only seem to include a limited scope of breeds and databases will often be skewed towards particular geographic areas. I personally wouldn’t spend the money on a canine breed test at this point in time ( as opposed to, say, a pedigree test to determine ancestry in a known line or a test looking for a particular disease-related mutation ).
I’ve known a few people who have had it done for dogs - and it was pretty darn innaccurate.
A friend has a 65 pound (lean and muscular) mutt. He got classified as 100% Brussels Griffon. Not only is there a huge size difference, but I don’t even know HOW a Brussels Griffon puppy was supposed to show up in a shelter, hundreds of miles from the nearest breeder…