Dog ancestry/DNA tests-if you've done this, who did you use? Would you recommend them?

[Arniesaxe]

And was it worth it?
I was lucky enough to meet my dog's Mum, Grandmother and Grandfather. But no idea about Dad. I'd like to know what exactly she's made up of!

I keep getting google results about which ones are on offer etc but I'm finding it all a bit confusing to be honest!

I used Wisdom Panel, think Embark are rated as the best/most accurate (according to Reddit?! Found this out whilst waiting for KnobDog’s results!)

my boy is a rescue Heinz57, so heritage completely unknown, but i guessed a three breeds based on his looks/characteristics (and two of them flagged up on his report so …)

Its good fun though!

I don’t think they’re super accurate to be honest and I think the databases they work off are skewed towards American dogs. Fun to do but probably not very reliable. I’ve heard they can’t be used to prove breed.

I’ve heard some people sent a human sample in and were allocated dog breeds… while I think it would be fun. I’m not sure I’m gonna waste the money any time soon.

I used Wisdom Panel on my rescue when I first got him, 5 years ago. Wisdom Panel then added a family/relative option to the test, so we brought another test last year. His results were significantly different to the first test he had done

Interested too, but more for genetic issues rather than breed/s.

I was told Wisdom panel & embark have the biggest breed databases which improves match reliability, but they're more accurate than they were in the past.

I went with Wisdom for 2 of my dogs and a friend's and the results seemed correct. 2 were crossbreeds of 2 breeds that were fairly expected and the mutt with 4 breeds you could see the influence once known. Now they include more health tests and have a dog version of Ancestry

I wouldn’t waste your money if I were you.

I used Wisdom panel on the dog we found in the road near our house in France. Very interesting results and in no way skewed to the USA. I have a friend who also did a test on a European rescue dog. Same good result not skewed.

Used wisdom panel for my rescue. The breeds seemed spot on (mongrel, but with one breed at 25% - this is the breed he looks most like) and best of all it identified a littermate who had previously been tested. His brother's breeds were listed the same.

So I think it's accurate, and a lot of fun (we will be meeting up with his brother at some point and have exchanged lots of photos - you can contact any relatives through the Wisdom interface). The other relatives it threw up were much more distant (about 3% commonality) spread all over the world - they were stud dogs of his predominant breed. In the future, another sibling (or mother/father) might come to light!

I found buying via Amazon, rather than directly on the Wisdom website, to be cheapest at the time I was buying.

I have used Wisdom Panel for my two. For my first dog it was good as no one knew the dad, turns out it was a Welsh Terrier who lived in the village and it made sense once you knew. The other is a cockerpoo and it confirmed what we knew.
Interesting there is a new test, might see if he has any relations tested.

Agree with this tbh. Remember the Poster a few weeks ago whose Goldie came out as someone sort of spaniel because of the way the tests work? 😁

Besides, in most dog their features are pretty distinct - as are their personality defects - so you’ll pick it up eventually.

We did this with our Serbian rescue dog. He definitely has some terrier in him but it didn't really show that. And nearly all of them say chihuahua. It's a standing joke on the rescue fb page. But that could just mean they have small legs! As far as I'm aware, they just really identify furnishings, traits and looks that the dog may have and won't actually state 'your dog is a ....... breed' but we were happy with the price for a bit of knowledge on ours. They got his probable height, colour, and furnishings spot on. The total mix was a bit out there though.

Please tell me you kept them? Gorgeous pup.

Well, she actually had a tiny puppy with her, who we found a wonderful home for, and after much umming and aahing, cutting a long story short, we did keep her. She’s no angel, but 100% energy and entertainment. She’s a Peekapoochi - those are her most dominant genes 😂 I think she’s part wild Haggis.

I did it for mine. It gve me his unknown fathers breed, was right on the other breed ( mum) and connected me with a known sibling so i do believe it is accurate

The chihuahua thing is likely because the Serbian dogs all have a common Serbian breed in them which isn't (yet) included in the Wisdom Panel breed database.

It's a bit like phone numbers. Imagine the excluded Serbian breed is made up of the DNA code 01613 and the DNA code for chihuahua happens to be 01631 (transposing the last two numbers). As the 01613 code is not (yet) in the database, the Wisdom Panel algorithm lists the nearest alternative, that is 01631, i.e. Chihuahua. In the same way the dialling code 01613 (Manchester) has nothing geographically/phenotypically in common with 01631 (Argyle & Bute) - they just happen to have the same 5 digits in a different order - the Serbian dogs don't have any Chihuahua, or Chihuahua traits, or breeds similar to Chihuahua in them. The fact that lots of Serbian dogs get Chihuahua in them actually suggests the test is very accurately identifying a common breed in all of them - it just doesn't know what it is yet!

Wisdom say they are adding more breeds to the database all the time (which might explain why the poster above who did the test 5 years apart got different results).

Anyone that isn't wisdom or embark isn't worth doing.
I'll dig out the article but the scathing reviews often go to sites that are cheaper

We used embark. If I remember correctly embark tends to be better at identifying groups of breeds eg collie types and gives you larger percentages, where as wisdom tends to break it down into tiny breed percentages eg specific collie breeds

It seems fairly accurate for my dog. I'd be more suspicious of them for foreign rescues because sometimes I think they are misinterpreting eg Romanian dog types into the minitia of western dog breeds

We got the health one and it gave us a list of characteristics which were all correct

The family tree was also correct for our other dog

Imo it's a bit of fun. I don't take it massively seriously and if you are happy to spend a chunk of money for fun then that's fine.

I wouldn't bet my life on it

Actually, my dog is French, found in France. I took her DNA swab while we were in the UK and got the results there too. Not one scrap of British dog was identified in her. All European and quite a few I’d never heard of - Estrella Mountain Dog for example.

Thank you so much for all the responses everyone. Very interesting. Embark or Wisdom seems to be the general consensus.

I used Wisdom Panel and they were 100% accurate for my dog. I was sceptical so didn't send a picture or even a birth date, but they correctly identified all 3 breeds my dog is made up of and also listed her brother, who I already knew as I'm in touch with all the owners of her litter!

Wisdom Panel for my 4 mixed breed rescues in the UK. It even surprisingly identified 2 as brothers (from different litters).

The situation with my dog is, I raised her as a neonate. I was friends with a woman who knew the (backstreet) breeder and told me a pup had been rejected. I offered to raise the pup until she was weaned and then give her back, but obviously I ignored my brain and went with my heart, and dog is almost 10 now!

Breeder had the original breeding pair there so I met them, patriarch was a HUGE animals, whom breeder said she'd got from a wolfdog breeder. Allegedly, he was half wolf. I can believe it just on the sheer size of him, and he was broad backed with no arch.
He had mated with a husky.
Their daughter is my dog's Mum-and she'd allegedly been mated with a malamute.

But I'd love to know if my dog does have wolf in her or if 'grandad' was just an immensely huge mix of other origins, and what her Dad actually was.

I used Wisdom Panel as I was curious about the breed makeup up of my complex rescue dog. The results were fascinating and explained her behaviour traits. It seemed accurate as it tied in with her appearance, size etc

Wisdom panel. Still waiting on results.

How did they know yours had a brother? Is it because they had also done a test too?