Venn diagram

Compare your dogs to Louie Select one to begin:

Louie

Formosan Mountain Dog

“In 2014, we'd been looking after 6 puppies at the morning market, in Taichung, Taiwan. We'd stop by and feed/check on them. When we left on the scooter, I could see the entire group of them chasing us, in my mirror, adorable! Once they followed us home. This went on for a few months. Then one Friday morning as I was going to work, I saw Louie laying in front of my house. He was still there when I came home that evening. I brought him in, and fell in love. An absolute joy in our lives.”

This dog has been viewed and been given 2 wags

Genetic Breed Result

Loading...

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. Louie 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, Formosan Mountain 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 Louie back, you won’t find any ancestral dogs that are part of any of those standardized breeds.

Formosan Mountain Dog

Formosan Mountain Dogs hail from the Formosan Mountain region in Taiwan. Recently, some of these ancient dogs were used as foundational stock to create the Taiwan Dog breed.

Learn More

Loading...

Start a conversation! Message this dog’s humans.

Loading...

Explore

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. Louie 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 Louie's DNA to a global panel of thousands of village dogs. This plot highlights regions of the world where Louie'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.

Explore

Through Louie’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

C1

Haplotype

C1

Map

C1

Louie’s Haplogroup

Congratulations, C1 is a very exotic female lineage! It is more closely associated with maternal lineages found in wolves, foxes and jackals than with other dog lineages. So it seems dogs in this group have a common male dog ancestor who, many thousands of years ago, mated with a female wolf! This is not a common lineage in any breed, though a good number of German Shepherds and Doberman Pinchers are C1. It is also found in breeds as diverse as Peruvian Inca Orchids and Pekingese; it is rarely found amongst Labrador Retrievers, Border Collies, Siberian Huskies, or Cocker Spaniels. Despite its fascinating origins, it is widely distributed around the globe, and even shows up frequently among Peruvian village dogs. It almost certainly survived at low frequency in Europe for millennia and then was dispersed outside of Europe by colonialism, though not as successfully as some other lineages.

C1

Louie’s Haplotype

Part of the C1 haplogroup, this haplotype occurs commonly in village dogs in Peru, and has also been spotted in South America, the Middle East, and through South Asia into Fiji. The breeds that show this haplotype most frequently are the Yorkshire Terriers, Peruvian Inca Orchids, and West Highland white Terriers.

The C1 maternal line is commonly found in Jackals.

Loading...

Explore

Through Louie’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

A1a

Haplotype

H1a.10

Map

A1a

Louie’s Haplogroup

Some of the wolves that became the original dogs in Central Asia around 15,000 years ago came from this long and distinguished line of male dogs. After domestication, they followed their humans from Asia to Europe and then didn't stop there. They took root in Europe, eventually becoming the dogs that founded the Vizsla breed 1,000 years ago. The Vizsla is a Central European hunting dog, and all male Vizslas descend from this line. During the Age of Exploration, like their owners, these pooches went by the philosophy, "Have sail, will travel!" From the windy plains of Patagonia to the snug and homey towns of the American Midwest, the beaches of a Pacific paradise, and the broad expanse of the Australian outback, these dogs followed their masters to the outposts of empires. Whether through good fortune or superior genetics, dogs from the A1a lineage traveled the globe and took root across the world. Now you find village dogs from this line frolicking on Polynesian beaches, hanging out in villages across the Americas, and scavenging throughout Old World settlements. You can also find this "prince of patrilineages" in breeds as different as German Shepherds, Golden Retrievers, Pugs, Border Collies, Scottish Terriers, and Irish Wolfhounds. No male wolf line has been as successful as the A1a line!

H1a.10

Louie’s Haplotype

Part of the large A1a haplogroup, this haplotype occurs most frequently in village dogs throughout Africa and down into the South Pacific. Among breeds, this haplotype occurs in 5 breeds and is most common among Shetland Sheepdogs, Border Collies, and Cairn Terriers.

Dogs with A1a lineage travelled during European Colonial times.

Loading...

Explore