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Smudge

Central Asian Village Dog

“Smudge was rescued from a street in Kazakhstan and then flew to the united states to be with us!”

Place of Birth

Atyrau, Atyrau Province, Kazakhstan

Current Location

Salt Lake City, Utah, USA

From

Kazakhstan

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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. Smudge 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, Central 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 Smudge back, you won’t find any ancestral dogs that are part of any of those standardized breeds.

Central Asian Village Dog

Central Asian Village Dogs are very special dogs. While they might not look like much—they are sort of a drab color, and they look a little bit like coyotes—they are a gem in the dog world. They are suspected to be the closest living relative to the earliest ancestors of domestic dogs. Essentially, this means Central Asian Village Dogs are genetically the closest thing to the canines that ancient humans let into their camp thousands and thousands of years ago. More specifically, Central Asian Village Dogs can trace their ancestry over 15,000 years. Now, that’s quite the family tree.

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

A1e

Haplotype

A234

Map

A1e

Smudge’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!

A234

Smudge’s Haplotype

Part of the large A1e haplogroup, this haplotype occurs in village dogs in South America, South Asia, and into the South Pacific. Among breeds, we see it in highest frequency among Vizslas, Boxers, and Yorkshire Terriers.

Irish Wolfhounds are a consistent carrier of A1e.

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

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