Dna Testing

[War Consigliere]

I can't really say why I need this, but is a reference available online as to how effective (or otherwise) DNA breed testing is? Anecdotes aren't really helpful, but if anyone can point me to a study put out by an impartial body (i.e. one that's not associated with a group that has a financial impact pro- or anti- breed testing) it'd be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

[Salukifan]

Never seen one.

It's completely reliable if you want to test the origns of dogs from known parentage (ie dog and bitch are available).

Having seen some of the results published here for breed testing, I'd not trust it as far as I could kick it.

[tdierikx]

When APBT and AmStaff both have the exact same DNA makeup - how is anyone able to tell which dog is the APBT or the AmStaff?

As HW says - the only reliable testing is that from known stock and their progeny.

If you have a dog of unknown parentage, then DNA testing won't give you a definitive answer as to what it actually is - just what went into making it over many years of breedings.

T.

[War Consigliere]

Fair enough. Thanks anyway, guys.

[ricey]

There is no recognised DNA test for the American Pit Bull Terrier; likewise, there is no accepted DNA test for the American Staffordshire terrier.

ricey

[seld]

We had our old dog, a rescue, dna tested for fun by GT Labs. They send you out a kit with cheek swabs, you send it back and after a short wait they mail you back the results with with a fair bit of paperwork that made no sense to me (with one page that said what he was in plain English). A good friend who is a medical scientist that does something to do with childrens dna and inherited diseases went through it for me and said the results were quite thorough and vouched for Gt labs and their efficacy in human testing.

I cant vouch for the apbt testing etc, but the company that did my boys test was pretty good.

[Weasels]

Interesting that they said the results were thorough. The report I have (from several years ago) gives no information on the type, number or variability of DNA markers used, the depth or diversity of reference individuals used to create the tests, or of any systematic testing of the misclassification rates in crossbred dogs of known ancestry. All of which would be necessary things to know to evaluate the quality of the tests, and would be the bare minimum required to publish the results of a test in the scientific literature. The only thing I could determine from the report was the computer program they used to analyse the data, which is not informative without information on the data itself.