# How Accurate is Embark DNA Testing?



## Liz (Oct 2, 2010)

The result is accurate, but your interpretation likely isn't. Poodles (like all breeds) are inbred, so you cannot gauge two dogs' familial relationship based on shared genes like you can in humans. See Embark. The easiest explanation is that the same dam and sire were mated twice. Do you know the sire from the other dogs' litter? Another explanation is that the breeder used line breeding at some point.


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## RedonRed (Jan 26, 2020)

That makes much more sense. Embark labeled the relationship as the dogs being brothers or father and son, which is why I questioned it. Unfortunately I don’t know the other dog’s sire, but line breeding is a definite possibility.


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## TeamHellhound (Feb 5, 2021)

Could it be be a littermate to either his sire or dam?


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## RedonRed (Jan 26, 2020)

He could be a littermate to Reggie’s sire. Reggie’s breeder doesn’t dock tails and other dog has a docked tail, so I wouldn’t think he’d be a littermate to Reggie’s dam.


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## Liz (Oct 2, 2010)

RedonRed said:


> That makes much more sense. Embark labeled the relationship as the dogs being brothers or father and son, which is why I questioned it. Unfortunately I don’t know the other dog’s sire, but line breeding is a definite possibility.


With one line breeding you can get an expected value of 75% (higher with repeated line breedings), which opens up so many possible relationships it's impossible to predict.


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## RedonRed (Jan 26, 2020)

Wow! I had no idea it could get that high just from one line breeding. Genetics are so interesting and complicated!


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## MaizieFrosty (Apr 12, 2019)

Embark is NOT always accurate. Frosty's results came back that he was a mix of Beauceron and mixed breeds the first time. I laughed and asked them to retest the sample! Then he came up as mostly poodle and part Barbet. I told them okay people, you have one more shot at this! He came back as a poodle. All the other information on health testing was accurate (healthy as a horse, related to some awesome spoos, which were listed under "Relatives"). But the breed thing was bizarre. 

I have found, based on a small sample size, the Wisdom Panel is much more accurate for detecting breed.


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## Streetcar (Apr 13, 2014)

The boys' results reminded me of the VGL interrelatedness testing UC Davis created, and that many great Poodle breeders are using, I think mostly with Spoos. I remember a few years ago here on PF a delighted post from Arreau. In a litter she had one little girl's results come back as a very special outlier, meaning she could help fight the bottleneck effect and offer greater diversity to the breed.

And that was compared to her littermates. So that one girlie somehow reached back in history and grabbed some genes that had not been around much in a while. I guess in a way, at least. I'm no scientist and certainly not a geneticist, but I've always remembered Cherie's happy post.


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## Starla (Nov 5, 2020)

Below are Diego’s wisdompanel and embark results. I believe embark was better for him because I don’t see any bulldog in my long legged lanky boy.


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## 94Magna_Tom (Feb 23, 2021)

Hmmm🤔


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