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Choko

East Asian Village Dog

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Genetic Breed Result

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Village dog trace breed analysis

Village dogs often have short stretches of DNA that match purebred dogs, due to a distant common ancestor or a more recent mating between a purebred and a village dog. Choko has short stretches of DNA in common with these breeds:

What exactly are village dogs?

Village dogs are the free-breeding, free-roaming “outside” dogs found around the world living in and around human settlements big and small. They are also known as island dogs, pariah dogs, or free-ranging dogs.

Many village dog populations precede the formation of modern breed dogs.

They make up about 3/4s of the billion or so dogs living on Earth today. They serve as trash cleaners, sentinels, and even sometimes companions while still retaining much of their freedom. Embark’s founders have studied village dogs on six continents since 2007 in their efforts to understand the history, traits, and health of the domestic dog. Through this work they have discovered the origins of the dog in Central Asia, and also identified genetic regions involved in domestication and local adaptation, such as the high altitude adaptation in Himalayan dogs. Embark is the only dog DNA test that includes diverse village dogs from around the world in its breed reference panel.

So what breeds are in my dog?

In a very real sense, East Asian Village Dog is the actual breed of your dog. Village dogs like this descend from separate lines of dogs than the lines that have been bred into standardized breeds like Labradors and Poodles. If you trace the family tree of Choko back, you won’t find any ancestral dogs that are part of any of those standardized breeds.

East Asian Village Dog

Many years ago, when wolves began scavenging our hunting camps, they became gradually attuned to human life. Genetic changes in those wolves over time led to tameness, small body size and early age of first reproduction that soon after yielded what we see today in the East Asian village dogs.

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Village dogs have lived just about everywhere across the world for thousands of years. Long before there were any recognized dog breeds, there were village dogs around the fires and trash heaps of early human villages. Choko is part of this ancient heritage, not descended from a specific breed, but continuing the ancient lineage of dogs that were our first, best friends.

Embark's co-founders studied Village Dogs on six continents in their efforts to understand the history, traits, and health of the domestic dog. Through this work, they discovered evidence for the origins of the dog in Central Asia , and they also identified genetic regions involved in domestication and local adaptation. As a result, Embark has the largest Village Dog reference panel of any canine genetics company.

We compared Choko's DNA to a global panel of thousands of village dogs. This plot highlights regions of the world where Choko's DNA is most similar to those village dogs. The areas of darkest red reflect the greatest similarity to our village dog panel.

Village Dog Map
Similarity to village dog groups around the world. Darker red reflects greater similarity.

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Through Choko’s mitochondrial DNA we can trace his mother’s ancestry back to where dogs and people first became friends. This map helps you visualize the routes that his ancestors took to your home. Their story is described below the map.

Haplogroup

A1e

Haplotype

A281

Map

A1e

Choko’s Haplogroup

This female lineage likely stems from some of the original Central Asian wolves that were domesticated into modern dogs starting about 15,000 years ago. It seemed to be a fairly rare dog line for most of dog history until the past 300 years, when the lineage seemed to “explode” out and spread quickly. What really separates this group from the pack is its presence in Alaskan village dogs and Samoyeds. It is possible that this was an indigenous lineage brought to the Americas from Siberia when people were first starting to make that trip themselves! We see this lineage pop up in overwhelming numbers of Irish Wolfhounds, and it also occurs frequently in popular large breeds like Bernese Mountain Dogs, Saint Bernards and Great Danes. Shetland Sheepdogs are also common members of this maternal line, and we see it a lot in Boxers, too. Though it may be all mixed up with European dogs thanks to recent breeding events, its origins in the Americas makes it a very exciting lineage for sure!

A281

Choko’s Haplotype

Part of the large A1e haplogroup, this haplotype occurs most commonly in village dogs in Mongolia.

Irish Wolfhounds are a consistent carrier of A1e.

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Through Choko’s Y-chromosome we can trace his father’s ancestry back to where dogs and people first became friends. This map helps you visualize the routes that his ancestors took to your home. Their story is described below the map.

Haplogroup

C

Haplotype

H5a

Map

C

Choko’s Haplogroup

C is a relatively rare paternal lineage. The dog populations which bear C are a disparate bunch. The Akita and Shiba Inu are Japanese breeds, the former of which seems to have roots in the Jomon population of hunter-gatherers which were present in the islands of Japan before the ancestors of the modern Japanese arrived. The New Guinea Singing Dog, Samoyed, and Alaska Malamute are all disparate breeds that also represent the C lineage. One village dog from Peru also bore this lineage. This wide distribution and diversity suggest C is not a recently expanded lineage. It likely represents a canid lineage which diversified sometime around the Last Glacial Maximum, when the dogs of Siberia and Oceania split off and went their separate ways.

H5a

Choko’s Haplotype

Part of the C haplogroup, this haplotype occurs most commonly in Akitas and Alaskan Malamutes.

The Shiba Inu descends from this relativey rare haplogroup.

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