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Teela

Central Asian Village Dog

“Born in Siberia, Russia. Adopted to Sweden.”

Place of Birth

Ryssland

Current Location

Strängnäs, Södermanlands län, Sverige

From

Ryssland

This dog has been viewed and been given 22 wags

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

A1d

Haplotype

A41

Map

A1d

Teela’s Haplogroup

This female lineage can be traced back about 15,000 years to some of the original Central Asian wolves that were domesticated into modern dogs. The early females that represent this lineage were likely taken into Eurasia, where they spread rapidly. As a result, many modern breed and village dogs from the Americas, Africa, through Asia and down into Oceania belong to this group! This widespread lineage is not limited to a select few breeds, but the majority of Rottweilers, Afghan Hounds and Wirehaired Pointing Griffons belong to it. It is also the most common female lineage among Papillons, Samoyeds and Jack Russell Terriers. Considering its occurrence in breeds as diverse as Afghan Hounds and Samoyeds, some of this is likely ancient variation. But because of its presence in many modern European breeds, much of its diversity likely can be attributed to much more recent breeding.

A41

Teela’s Haplotype

Part of the large A1d haplogroup, we have not spotted this haplotype in village dogs yet. We do see it in 3 breeds: Alaskan Malamutes, Bichon Frises, and Posavac Hounds.

The vast majority of Rottweilers have the A1d 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 Teela 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 Teela is a female (XX) dog, she has no Y-chromosome for us to analyze and determine a paternal haplotype.

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