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Sven

Formosan Mountain Dog

“Sven is a sweet rescue from Taiwan and is happiest when he's rolling around in things, the stinkier and more inappropriate, the better.”

Place of Birth

Taichung City, Taiwan

Current Location

Pleasanton, California, USA

From

San Ramon, California, USA

This dog has been viewed and been given 20 wags

Registration

Microchip: 990000000000682

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. Sven has short stretches of DNA in common with this breed:

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 Sven 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.

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

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Good news!

Sven is not at increased risk for the genetic health conditions that Embark tests.

Breed-Relevant Genetic Conditions

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Additional Genetic Conditions

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Traits

Explore the genetics behind your dog’s appearance and size.

Base Coat Color

Base Coat Color

Coat Color Modifiers

Coat Color Modifiers

Other Coat Traits

Other Coat Traits

Other Body Features

Other Body Features

Body Size

Body Size

Performance

Performance

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Through Sven’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

C2/5/12

Map

C1

Sven’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.

C2/5/12

Sven’s Haplotype

A member of the C1 haplogroup, this haplotype occurs most often in Jindos and East Asian village dogs. It's a rare find!

The C1 maternal line is commonly found in Jackals.

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Through Sven’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

H5b

Map

C

Sven’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.

H5b

Sven’s Haplotype

Part of the C haplogroup, this haplotype occurs most commonly in Shiba Inus.

The Shiba Inu descends from this relativey rare haplogroup.

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