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Nova

Alaskan-type Husky

“Nova was rescued from a shelter in CA. She was severely emaciated weighing about 25 lbs at about 1-2 years of age. A couple years later she has maxed out at 40 lbs and has turned out to be quite the runner.”

Instagram tag
@blueeyedsupernova

Current Location

Seattle, Washington, USA

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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. Nova 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, Alaskan-type Husky 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 Nova back, you won’t find any ancestral dogs that are part of any of those standardized breeds.

Alaskan-type Husky

The Alaskan Husky is all athlete. These dogs have a wide variety of appearances because they are bred for performance and behavior rather than looks. In fact, they've been specifically bred to pull sleds for hundreds of years. In temperament, they tend to be similar to the Siberian Husky.

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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. Nova 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 Nova's DNA to a global panel of thousands of village dogs. This plot highlights regions of the world where Nova'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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Here’s what Nova’s family tree may have looked like.
While there may be other possible configurations of her family’s relationships, this is the most likely family tree to explain Nova’s breed mix.
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Through Nova’s mitochondrial DNA we can trace her mother’s ancestry back to where dogs and people first became friends. This map helps you visualize the routes that her ancestors took to your home. Their story is described below the map.

Haplogroup

A2

Haplotype

A211

Map

A2

Nova’s Haplogroup

A2 is a very ancient maternal line. Most likely it was one of the major female lines that contributed to the very first domesticated dogs in Central Asia about 15,000 years ago. Some of the line stayed in Central Asia to the present day, and frequently appear as Tibetan Mastiffs and Akitas. Those that escaped the mountains of Central Asia sought out other cold spots, and are now found among Alaskan Malamutes and Siberian Huskies. This lineage is also occasionally found in several common Western breeds, such as German Shepherds and Labrador Retrievers. Curiously, all New Guinea Singing Dogs descend from this line. These are an ancient and very interesting breed found in the mountains of Papua New Guinea. Unfortunately, they are now endangered. They are closely related to the Australian dingo, so you could say its cousins are dingos! This line is also common in village dogs in Southeast and East Asia. Unlike many other lineages, A2 did not spread across the whole world, probably because it did not have the opportunity to hitch its wagon to European colonialism - or because these dogs just prefer hanging out in mountains, tundras, islands, and other hard-to-reach places!

A211

Nova’s Haplotype

Part of the A2 haplogroup, this haplotype occurs most commonly in German Shepherd Dogs, Siberian Huskies, and Alaskan Malamutes.

Dingos commonly possess this haplogroup.

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The Paternal Haplotype reveals a dog’s deep ancestral lineage, stretching back thousands of years to the original domestication of dogs.

Are you looking for information on the breeds that Nova inherited from her mom and dad? Check out her breed breakdown and family tree.

Paternal Haplotype is determined by looking at a dog’s Y-chromosome—but not all dogs have Y-chromosomes!

Why can’t we show Paternal Haplotype results for female dogs?

All dogs have two sex chromosomes. Female dogs have two X-chromosomes (XX) and male dogs have one X-chromosome and one Y-chromosome (XY). When having offspring, female (XX) dogs always pass an X-chromosome to their puppy. Male (XY) dogs can pass either an X or a Y-chromosome—if the puppy receives an X-chromosome from its father then it will be a female (XX) puppy and if it receives a Y-chromosome then it will be a male (XY) puppy. As you can see, Y-chromosomes are passed down from a male dog only to its male offspring.

Since Nova is a female (XX) dog, she has no Y-chromosome for us to analyze and determine a paternal haplotype.

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