The grift never ends. I often wonder why people bother to waste their money on stuff like this for their pets. The dog doesn't care if it's 87% Maltese Shepard, and all it does for you is give you...
The grift never ends. I often wonder why people bother to waste their money on stuff like this for their pets. The dog doesn't care if it's 87% Maltese Shepard, and all it does for you is give you something to brag about to your brunch friends over mimosas.
I did it with my dog. It’s just interesting to know if you have a dog from the pound. It also helps us with rental applications where the landlord wants to know what breed your dog is for their...
I did it with my dog. It’s just interesting to know if you have a dog from the pound. It also helps us with rental applications where the landlord wants to know what breed your dog is for their insurance.
As with human racism, all that matters here is what an uninformed person thinks the breed is by sight. I do get the fun aspect of knowing. And it could be informative for breed-specific health issues.
It also helps us with rental applications where the landlord wants to know what breed your dog is for their insurance.
As with human racism, all that matters here is what an uninformed person thinks the breed is by sight. I do get the fun aspect of knowing. And it could be informative for breed-specific health issues.
Cameras are expensive and if there's a shared dog area it's possible that one camera wouldn't catch the culprit. There may also be hallways or areas that aren't perfectly covered by cameras.
Cameras are expensive and if there's a shared dog area it's possible that one camera wouldn't catch the culprit. There may also be hallways or areas that aren't perfectly covered by cameras.
Usually just comes out of pet registration fees. The cost of testing is made up by fining the pet owner. Some people find it dystopian, but I personally hate dog owners that don't clean up their...
Usually just comes out of pet registration fees. The cost of testing is made up by fining the pet owner. Some people find it dystopian, but I personally hate dog owners that don't clean up their shit. It's clearly effective since the practice has had so much uptake.
Well apparently it's important to take that data with a grain of salt because some companies may just give you absolute bullshit instead of actually processing the sample. I guess nothing is a...
Well apparently it's important to take that data with a grain of salt because some companies may just give you absolute bullshit instead of actually processing the sample.
I guess nothing is a waste of money if you enjoy the benefit of it, but to me it just reeks of rich people getting "certified purebred" dogs that are actually just inbred to shit because they want to brag they have a purebred dog. Leaves a bad taste in my mouth because I know too many of the type of people who do exactly that. I shouldn't have generalized everyone who patronizes a service like this though.
FYI - Rich people don't get DNA tests to brag about their purebreed dog. Real "certified purebreed" dogs will come with paperwork verifying parentage. Dog DNA tests are for commoners with mutts,...
FYI - Rich people don't get DNA tests to brag about their purebreed dog. Real "certified purebreed" dogs will come with paperwork verifying parentage.
Dog DNA tests are for commoners with mutts, like me.
Our Labrador came with an entire organised file of FIFTY+ pages, which included: Parentage for the past 4 generations, lab test results for mom and dad (for hip displasia and other common breed...
Our Labrador came with an entire organised file of FIFTY+ pages, which included: Parentage for the past 4 generations, lab test results for mom and dad (for hip displasia and other common breed issues), proof of breed registration with the national dog registery for mom, dad and our puppy etc. etc.
There was not a single doubt that our idiot is a Labrador LOL
I just want to add to what @Markrs240b said below. Purebred dogs don't need DNA testing to tell that they're purebred, that's what the breed certification process is for. Additionally, there are a...
I just want to add to what @Markrs240b said below. Purebred dogs don't need DNA testing to tell that they're purebred, that's what the breed certification process is for. Additionally, there are a lot of very good reasons why someone might get a purebred dog that don't have to do with vanity.
Things like health, temperament, and intelligence are highly heritable in dogs. It doesn't form a whole picture obviously; each dog is unique and their own experiences and pure chance influenced those things as well, but genetics play a huge role.
Good pedigree programs help ensure that dogs are good around adults and children, aren't overly aggressive around other dogs, are intelligent, are obedient, don't have major genetic health problems, and are all around good companions instead of menaces that will hurt you or destroy your home.
Those breeding programs are why domesticated dogs even exist in the first place. They've obviously become more intentional and refined over the last 15000 years, but if dogs weren't continually selectively bred they'd very quickly revert back into wild feral animals that no one would ever want in their houses, or around their kids, which is basically what dingoes are.
Those breeding programs are what keeps mutts as viable options as pets. Most mutts have a purebred ancestor within a few generations, which is why they're still great pets. Virtually no one would want a feral dog or dingo as a pet though. Evolutionary pressure very quickly selects against the aspects that people find positive in pets.
Breed is not a reliable indicator of behaviour The best way to tell what a dog is like is to just live with the dog a bit. If you want to test for genetic diseases, ask your vet to do that....
The best way to tell what a dog is like is to just live with the dog a bit. If you want to test for genetic diseases, ask your vet to do that. Getting a result that your dog is 10% Dalmatian doesn't really help you know if it's carrying the defective gene that leaves them prone to deafness. These "gene testing" companies are at best non-science and at worst active scams.
"Breed" is something humans made up a few hundred years ago for collecting and show purposes, it's not something that actually exists. We really shouldn't be encouraging the idea it's a thing at all, because ultimately the whole concept is harmful to dogs. If people weren't such dicks about it (looking at you, Kennel Clubs) then it might be OK but the idea of 'breed' combined with humans love of collecting stuff and putting things in discrete boxes is why we have abominations like pugs.
Sorry, it's just it makes me really cross, the suffering which has been wrought in the name of breeding the 'ideal' of each breed. Breeds suck. Dogs are awesome.
I mean the article you linked basically says that breed is a pretty reliable indicator of potential behavior? and Even the title of the article seems a bit disingenuous with the content. While...
I mean the article you linked basically says that breed is a pretty reliable indicator of potential behavior?
"We found things like German shorthaired pointers were slightly more likely to point, or golden retrievers were slightly more likely to retrieve, or huskies more likely to howl, than the general dog population,"
and
"Genetics matter, but genetics are a nudge in a given direction. They're not a destiny,"
Even the title of the article seems a bit disingenuous with the content. While breed isn't 100% sure to determine behavior, breed seems to be a very good indicator of potential behaviors.
Exactly. Even if you don't believe that anecdotal evidence, believe the insurance companies. Insurance companies use real world data to determine the cost to insure properties with certain dog...
Exactly. Even if you don't believe that anecdotal evidence, believe the insurance companies. Insurance companies use real world data to determine the cost to insure properties with certain dog breeds living there. If certain breeds weren't more likely to cause injuries, there wouldn't be breed restrictions or price discrepancies on property insurance.
Statistics do not tell you exactly how each individual dog behaves. There are well-mannered dogs that are of traditionally violent breeds, and there are dangerous dogs that are of traditionally well-mannered breeds. Training is arguably more important than breed, but you still have to consider what behaviors a dog may be predisposed to.
Notably, though that isn't just about the temperament of the breed but as you said the "ability to cause injuries" which is why some of the small dogs that are temperamentally "little shits" don't...
Notably, though that isn't just about the temperament of the breed but as you said the "ability to cause injuries" which is why some of the small dogs that are temperamentally "little shits" don't get flagged as high risk pets.
So it's sort of useful, in certain ways, but still only gives you some of the information
Turns out that the insurance companies are maybe not interpreting their data correctly (or possibly not interpreting it in the way we might assume - ultimately it doesn't matter to them as long as...
(the researchers) concluded that whether the dog was a Saint Bernard, or a Dachshund, or a Chihuahua or a Labrador or a Lhasa Apso or an American Pit Bull Terrier, breed was “almost useless as a predictor” of where the dog would score on the continuum between “diffident” and “assertive.”
I suspect what the "real world data" is telling us has much more to do with what sort of person tends to have which kind of dog than what a dog is likely to do. For example, no wannabe hard-man is buying a golden retriever to swagger down the street with, they're getting a bull terrier. So bull terriers show up more in biting incidents because of the kind of person who has them, not because of anything inherent in the dog itself. Anecdotally, every bull terrier I've ever met has been soppy af.
To be fair, that’s a pretty responsible thing to do if you’re dead-set on buying a dog as a pet. There’s nothing worse than ignorant people buying a dog because they think it looks cool or because...
To be fair, that’s a pretty responsible thing to do if you’re dead-set on buying a dog as a pet. There’s nothing worse than ignorant people buying a dog because they think it looks cool or because they just want it only for them to realize that their new pet needs something they can’t provide. That’s how dogs end up being abandoned on the streets or in the woods/desert.
I’d much rather people buy dogs that suit their lifestyle because those dogs end up spoiled and loved and not abandoned.
I know this is off-topic, but it reminds me of this music video from a guy who appears to be the biggest wannabe hard man in history. First, he's from New Zealand, so the accent immediately ruins...
For example, no wannabe hard-man is buying a golden retriever to swagger down the street with, they're getting a bull terrier.
I know this is off-topic, but it reminds me of this music video from a guy who appears to be the biggest wannabe hard man in history. First, he's from New Zealand, so the accent immediately ruins the BAMF image. Second, the way he shows off his ferocious dog is to kneel down next to it while he and a child lovingly pet the dog. Third, why is he riding a horse through town? Finally, the lyrics are the most generic "I want to sound tough but I don't know how to sound tough" lyrics in history.
I'm not sure "slightly more likely to x" is the same as "reliably does x"; nor is "genes are a nudge not a destiny" the same as being "a very good indicator". They're not saying you can't make...
I'm not sure "slightly more likely to x" is the same as "reliably does x"; nor is "genes are a nudge not a destiny" the same as being "a very good indicator".
They're not saying you can't make some predictions, they're saying that most of the things people say about breed behaviour isn't correct, and those things that are right aren't very reliable. From the actual paper, not the (very short) article about it:
Behavioral factors show high variability within breeds, suggesting that although breed may affect the likelihood of a particular behavior to occur, breed alone is not, contrary to popular belief, informative enough to predict an individual’s disposition.
I have read elsewhere that the behaviours of working dogs tend to be more slightly reliably predictable, because we've been selecting for those useful traits like pointing and retrieving for thousands of years, long before breeds were a thing.
It's weird how much pushback this idea gets, despite the science being pretty clear. This isn't the only paper I've read on the topic, although I can't find the other right now there's plenty of information out there if you want to find it.
It doesn't seem very logical that a concept humans invented around 150 years ago (that of dog breeds) would have all that much predictability only a handful of generations later, especially given the vast majority of dogs aren't in breeding programs. Genetic influence on behaviour and the associated heritability is super complex and we are only starting to think about understanding it now, let alone for most of the times the Kennel Clubs have been selecting for dogs that can't breathe properly, or have distorted spines because that gives a nice profile.
Doesn't it mean if you have a thousand dogs you can say "this group of a thousand dogs is more likely to do X", but also that it tells you nothing useful about your individual dog?
I mean the article you linked basically says that breed is a pretty reliable indicator of potential behavior?
Doesn't it mean if you have a thousand dogs you can say "this group of a thousand dogs is more likely to do X", but also that it tells you nothing useful about your individual dog?
You're the second person to say that and I'm honestly not sure how one might read it that way, but the best thing to read is the paper the article links to, which goes into much more detail and I...
You're the second person to say that and I'm honestly not sure how one might read it that way, but the best thing to read is the paper the article links to, which goes into much more detail and I think is considerably less prone to ambiguity. It's not paywalled and it's not particularly long and it is quite interesting.
The link title I used is actually the title of another article about a different paper saying the same thing, which I wrote before failing to find a link for because I was in a bit of a rush and I think the article I'm thinking of has been locked behind a paywall. I will look again tomorrow.
We adopted a strange mix from a mill rescue organization and wanted to know specifics, not only for our alleged vanity but also for medical/veterinary purposes. Which turned out to be great, since...
We adopted a strange mix from a mill rescue organization and wanted to know specifics, not only for our alleged vanity but also for medical/veterinary purposes. Which turned out to be great, since the dominant breed is prone to seizures and we're now dealing with epilepsy in the mix. It was nice to have a bit of a heads up.
Now I'm curious, what Very Important Things do you brag to your friends about that are clearly not a waste of money? Or can we all sit down and enjoy our mimosas together?
One of my regrets is we never found out my second dog's heritage, because I swear we found the super mutt. She was incredibly smart, active, and lived to be ~19/20 with overall good health. She...
One of my regrets is we never found out my second dog's heritage, because I swear we found the super mutt. She was incredibly smart, active, and lived to be ~19/20 with overall good health. She warped my perception of dog age, her body only really started breaking down in the last month or so of her life. People were consistently shocked when they'd hear her age. We knew she was part sheltie, but guesses on the rest ranged all over.
I don't really agree with this. It's just something interesting to know. Would it change how I treat my pet? Absolutely not. But it's interesting in the same way looking at your own ancestry is...
I don't really agree with this. It's just something interesting to know. Would it change how I treat my pet? Absolutely not. But it's interesting in the same way looking at your own ancestry is interesting.
I've never done it, but I could see myself paying for it if I didn't already know my dog was a weird mix of Chihuahua and Keeshond (someone had to have held a dog up at one point, right?). I can...
I've never done it, but I could see myself paying for it if I didn't already know my dog was a weird mix of Chihuahua and Keeshond (someone had to have held a dog up at one point, right?). I can see how it's interesting to see what breeds make up your dog, even if it's largely unimportant. Almost in the same way that I found it interesting to do my own DNA test. It doesn't matter much and it doesn't change anything. It's just interesting data.
We didn't know what our Chi was mixed with, and we wanted to make sure we treated her properly, in terms of physical health. We got her DNA tested because we thought she might be part Dachshund....
We didn't know what our Chi was mixed with, and we wanted to make sure we treated her properly, in terms of physical health. We got her DNA tested because we thought she might be part Dachshund. We did this because she was an avid jumper as a puppy and despite our efforts, would jump as high as my waist and even our table if she was given the chance. For those that don't know, Dachshunds shouldn't be jumping at all, given their length. It could seriously injure their backs.
When we found out there wasn't any doxy, we still limited her jumping and trained her out of some of those habits, but we were less worried about the times she did jump.
We also found out that her natural instinct to dig and chase squirrels/rats is because she's part rat terrier, and it made so much more sense to us!
Not that we took the DNA test as gospel, but we thought it was a fun thing to do with our new puppy, and it was another way to welcome our rescue fur baby into our lives 5 years ago. I would do it again because it's fun, even if it isn't 100% accurate.
That is a bit short-sighted. We did it when we adopted a rescue dog so that we would be aware of any potential health issues that might come with a specific breed or combination of breeds. It was...
That is a bit short-sighted. We did it when we adopted a rescue dog so that we would be aware of any potential health issues that might come with a specific breed or combination of breeds. It was also just fun guessing which breeds we thought he was and then validating those guesses against the results.
Unlike the results in the article, though, we went with Embark which was a little more expensive but is widely regarded as being more accurate about breeds and more honest about unknowns and gaps (which, to be fair, is also true of one of the companies that correctly identified the human samples in the article as inconclusive in both tests).
It’s not always a grift and it’s not always a waste.
Edit: Looks like you’ve already gotten to a place of agreement in other threads thanks to other users. Another point for the discourse on Tildes.
Huh. I don't think this is a really big deal...? First of all, we share something like 80% of our DNA with dogs. Secondly, if the company is using PCR with dog DNA primers, it's not unreasonable...
Huh. I don't think this is a really big deal...? First of all, we share something like 80% of our DNA with dogs. Secondly, if the company is using PCR with dog DNA primers, it's not unreasonable to expect some positive results with human DNA. Annealing between the primer strand and the digested donor strand doesn't have to be perfect to get good amplification of that DNA segment. IIRC, accuracy increases with longer primers, so that is the main factor affecting precision - if they're using short primers (which are cheaper) it'll be easier to get annealing with human DNA strands. Might need a biochemist to double check as the exact mechanics of PCR aren't my field.
The response to the initial test ("Could not be human") sounds like a corporate worker without any understanding of the science, while in the second test they reported what they got while also saying that the sample "...failed to provide the data necessary to perform the breed ID analysis" which is a better response.
A bit of a nothing burger, no? Aside from being a bit on the cheap side of things, perhaps.
You have misattributed that quote, which originated from a different dog breed analysis company. In the second test, they sent the sample to three different companies. The first two said they were...
You have misattributed that quote, which originated from a different dog breed analysis company. In the second test, they sent the sample to three different companies. The first two said they were unable to detect a dog breed, while DNA My Dog said it was a mix of breeds without mentioning anything about the sample being difficult to analyse.
If the other two companies were able to figure out that there wasn't enough dog DNA in the sample to get a reliable result, why couldn't DNA My Dog?
Thank you for that clarification, I misread the articles and thought DNA My Dog was the name of a service provided by Orivet. Completely overlooked the third company of Wisdom Panel. Much...
Thank you for that clarification, I misread the articles and thought DNA My Dog was the name of a service provided by Orivet. Completely overlooked the third company of Wisdom Panel. Much appreciated.
I don't think it's such a big deal either, but it's not a given that they used PCR for genetic testing. They could have used other techniques, such as sequencing, single nucletoide polymorphism...
Exemplary
I don't think it's such a big deal either, but it's not a given that they used PCR for genetic testing. They could have used other techniques, such as sequencing, single nucletoide polymorphism phenotyping, short tandem repeat analysis etc. The length of primers isn't really an issue either, they're really cheap to synthesize, and are generally around 20-25 nucleotides long. If you use NCBI's primer designing tool, for example, it generally aims for 20 nucletoides long primers. For an example of the price, this company I found as the first result on a Google search, says they take around 50 cents per base (in the lowest quantity ordered, which should be enough for a single dog). Really cheap. It's probably cheaper for the company, because most probably they order in bulk, and use from the stock they ordered.
Furthermore, even if they have used PCR, the primers used should be specific enough to breeds to be identifiers. The shared DNA percentage doesn't matter. For genetic identification screening and such, designing primers for breed-specific areas is a must. The breeds are much closer to each other than humans, and if the primers used are so non-specific that they amplify the human genome, they are no good for any genetic identification screening.
We don't know if they used PCR, but I doubt it's due to a problem in the primers, or else there'd be many many more problems being reported. No matter the method they've used, the issue could've arisen from many potential issues, e.g. mislabeling in the lab, contamination of the sample, deviations from the protocol. They probably need to check the quality control protocols.
Whomever edited the post title, please edit it back to remove "US." The company is not American; it is Canadian. Also, this news isn't really local to Boston just because a Boston TV channel...
Whomever edited the post title, please edit it back to remove "US." The company is not American; it is Canadian. Also, this news isn't really local to Boston just because a Boston TV channel reported it so that tag is also misleading/confusing.
Not a big fan of some users being able to edit the titles of other people's posts, tbh, especially if OP can't change it themselves. Tags, sure, but titles are a much more important part of the...
Not a big fan of some users being able to edit the titles of other people's posts, tbh, especially if OP can't change it themselves. Tags, sure, but titles are a much more important part of the content and more closely associated with what the submitter wrote. Post authors should at least be able to approve/accept proposed edits, imho.
I like it. I really appreciate the constant title style and also the ability to tone down clickbait headlines. Knowing some of the users here, letting only users edit their own titles would result...
I like it. I really appreciate the constant title style and also the ability to tone down clickbait headlines.
Knowing some of the users here, letting only users edit their own titles would result in worse headlines, not better.
I didn't say *only* let the submitter edit, just that they should have some say-so too if it's their name on the result. "Clickbait" is a subjective thing and "toning down" is an editorial...
I didn't say *only* let the submitter edit, just that they should have some say-so too if it's their name on the result. "Clickbait" is a subjective thing and "toning down" is an editorial decision, and I don't like letting some users being able to essentially put words in other people's mouths without notification or consent. Quietly substituting one's own judgment like that feels kind of presumptuous. If there's a problem with a headline one should include the poster in addressing it, or just flag it for deletion and submit a better take.
Third-party editing would make more sense if this were a wiki format with explicitly collaborative posts, but structuring it as a blog where each post has an identified submitter implies some "ownership" which editing undermines, I think. At minimum there should be a more visible indication that the content is different from what the poster submitted, since the Topic Log is pretty easy to overlook.
They do. If any submitter disagrees with an edit, all they generally have to do is ask the person who edited the title (which can be seen in the sidebar Topic Log) or anyone else with title...
just that they should have some say-so too
They do. If any submitter disagrees with an edit, all they generally have to do is ask the person who edited the title (which can be seen in the sidebar Topic Log) or anyone else with title editing (such as myself) to revert the change or modify it further.
I'm curious why you think titles on a small community site shouldn't be collaborative? What benefit to 'ownership' of a title could there possibly be, especially most of the time when it's not...
Third-party editing would make more sense if this were a wiki format with explicitly collaborative posts, but structuring it as a blog where each post has an identified submitter implies some "ownership" which editing undermines
I'm curious why you think titles on a small community site shouldn't be collaborative? What benefit to 'ownership' of a title could there possibly be, especially most of the time when it's not even 'self-owned' content that's being shared?
Titling and tagging is a collaborative process on Tildes by design, just right now we lack any sort of system to promote moderators other than being selected by Deimos.
I'd be fine with collaboration, in the sense of OPs having the ability to edit their post info as well (to fix errors like above), or being asked for approval or at least notified so they're...
I'd be fine with collaboration, in the sense of OPs having the ability to edit their post info as well (to fix errors like above), or being asked for approval or at least notified so they're involved with any changes. But letting some users silently and unilaterally change a post without any input from the poster is not that.
Why are you so fixated on the submitter's ownership of a title? Ultimately I think that's what we are disagreeing on, and I fail to see any utility in it other than maybe someone's pride or ego...
or being asked for approval or at least notified
Why are you so fixated on the submitter's ownership of a title? Ultimately I think that's what we are disagreeing on, and I fail to see any utility in it other than maybe someone's pride or ego being at stake.
But letting some users silently and unilaterally change a post without any input from the poster is not that.
Titles should be (and are on Tildes) considered a community asset and moderated for everyone's benefit, not the submitter's. Everyone benefits from having titles adhere to a common style guide and reasonable window of accuracy and tone. It's collaborative because 9 times out of 10 the moderators are taking your tags and title and cleaning them up to meet a standard, not drastically altering any sort of meaning.
It's not complicated, I just think that any content attributed to a specific user should be what that person wrote, and any changes to that which remain attributed to that person should be done...
It's not complicated, I just think that any content attributed to a specific user should be what that person wrote, and any changes to that which remain attributed to that person should be done with them in the loop or at least the edit should be more obviously indicated. Doing otherwise opens the door to uninformed errors like the "incorrection" on this post or people substituting their subjective judgment on what the content should be. It's not huge stakes, but it does bug me.
Fair enough. I suppose we'll have to agree to disagree because imo the downsides are quite small compared to the upsides. To get consistent titles and style across all posts in a system where...
Fair enough. I suppose we'll have to agree to disagree because imo the downsides are quite small compared to the upsides. To get consistent titles and style across all posts in a system where users can co-edit their titles or requires user approval/consultation would honestly increase the moderator workload probably by a factor of 10 or more.
any changes to that which remain attributed
Just a clarification: First of all I don't think anyone pays particular attention to who wrote what title, but secondly and more importantly with the presence of the topic log this isn't even true: attribution can clearly be seen for anyone interested.
I'd like to note that I've used 3 cheers and mobile and desktop alike and this conversation and/or the one on tagging is the first I've heard about the topic log. I just switched to Mobile Web and...
I'd like to note that I've used 3 cheers and mobile and desktop alike and this conversation and/or the one on tagging is the first I've heard about the topic log. I just switched to Mobile Web and saw it in the sidebar which is not a thing I've ever looked at on a post to see changes. I absolutely would assume by default that the title is the listed submitter's unless there's a convo in the comments, which I find useful personally.
I'm not saying that I don't get the system, I struggle much more with the push pull of "users should tag better" while not actually teaching users to do better by making the process more transparent. And I'm not flipping tables or anything.
But I also think it's reasonable that the default assumption is that submitters authored the titles and that the topic log is not obvious/apparent to all users.
Yeah I’ve had to actually delete and repost something before because I wanted to edit the title but couldn’t. At the very least, a version history for title changes would be handy.
Yeah I’ve had to actually delete and repost something before because I wanted to edit the title but couldn’t. At the very least, a version history for title changes would be handy.
The grift never ends. I often wonder why people bother to waste their money on stuff like this for their pets. The dog doesn't care if it's 87% Maltese Shepard, and all it does for you is give you something to brag about to your brunch friends over mimosas.
I did it with my dog. It’s just interesting to know if you have a dog from the pound. It also helps us with rental applications where the landlord wants to know what breed your dog is for their insurance.
As with human racism, all that matters here is what an uninformed person thinks the breed is by sight. I do get the fun aspect of knowing. And it could be informative for breed-specific health issues.
Some apartments just keep DNA samples of all pets in the building to track down owners that don't clean up their pet waste.
That’s insane. What about just having cameras on site?
Cameras are expensive and if there's a shared dog area it's possible that one camera wouldn't catch the culprit. There may also be hallways or areas that aren't perfectly covered by cameras.
Is DNA testing dog waste not expensive?
Usually just comes out of pet registration fees. The cost of testing is made up by fining the pet owner. Some people find it dystopian, but I personally hate dog owners that don't clean up their shit. It's clearly effective since the practice has had so much uptake.
https://rentalhousingjournal.com/how-pet-poop-dna-testing-fixes-your-apartment-poop-problem/
If fine is bigger than DNA test...
Well apparently it's important to take that data with a grain of salt because some companies may just give you absolute bullshit instead of actually processing the sample.
I guess nothing is a waste of money if you enjoy the benefit of it, but to me it just reeks of rich people getting "certified purebred" dogs that are actually just inbred to shit because they want to brag they have a purebred dog. Leaves a bad taste in my mouth because I know too many of the type of people who do exactly that. I shouldn't have generalized everyone who patronizes a service like this though.
FYI - Rich people don't get DNA tests to brag about their purebreed dog. Real "certified purebreed" dogs will come with paperwork verifying parentage.
Dog DNA tests are for commoners with mutts, like me.
Our Labrador came with an entire organised file of FIFTY+ pages, which included: Parentage for the past 4 generations, lab test results for mom and dad (for hip displasia and other common breed issues), proof of breed registration with the national dog registery for mom, dad and our puppy etc. etc.
There was not a single doubt that our idiot is a Labrador LOL
I just want to add to what @Markrs240b said below. Purebred dogs don't need DNA testing to tell that they're purebred, that's what the breed certification process is for. Additionally, there are a lot of very good reasons why someone might get a purebred dog that don't have to do with vanity.
Things like health, temperament, and intelligence are highly heritable in dogs. It doesn't form a whole picture obviously; each dog is unique and their own experiences and pure chance influenced those things as well, but genetics play a huge role.
Good pedigree programs help ensure that dogs are good around adults and children, aren't overly aggressive around other dogs, are intelligent, are obedient, don't have major genetic health problems, and are all around good companions instead of menaces that will hurt you or destroy your home.
Those breeding programs are why domesticated dogs even exist in the first place. They've obviously become more intentional and refined over the last 15000 years, but if dogs weren't continually selectively bred they'd very quickly revert back into wild feral animals that no one would ever want in their houses, or around their kids, which is basically what dingoes are.
Those breeding programs are what keeps mutts as viable options as pets. Most mutts have a purebred ancestor within a few generations, which is why they're still great pets. Virtually no one would want a feral dog or dingo as a pet though. Evolutionary pressure very quickly selects against the aspects that people find positive in pets.
Meta - your last sentence exemplifies what I appreciate about the way people disagree here on Tildes
Breed is not a reliable indicator of behaviour
The best way to tell what a dog is like is to just live with the dog a bit. If you want to test for genetic diseases, ask your vet to do that. Getting a result that your dog is 10% Dalmatian doesn't really help you know if it's carrying the defective gene that leaves them prone to deafness. These "gene testing" companies are at best non-science and at worst active scams.
"Breed" is something humans made up a few hundred years ago for collecting and show purposes, it's not something that actually exists. We really shouldn't be encouraging the idea it's a thing at all, because ultimately the whole concept is harmful to dogs. If people weren't such dicks about it (looking at you, Kennel Clubs) then it might be OK but the idea of 'breed' combined with humans love of collecting stuff and putting things in discrete boxes is why we have abominations like pugs.
Sorry, it's just it makes me really cross, the suffering which has been wrought in the name of breeding the 'ideal' of each breed. Breeds suck. Dogs are awesome.
I mean the article you linked basically says that breed is a pretty reliable indicator of potential behavior?
and
Even the title of the article seems a bit disingenuous with the content. While breed isn't 100% sure to determine behavior, breed seems to be a very good indicator of potential behaviors.
Exactly. Even if you don't believe that anecdotal evidence, believe the insurance companies. Insurance companies use real world data to determine the cost to insure properties with certain dog breeds living there. If certain breeds weren't more likely to cause injuries, there wouldn't be breed restrictions or price discrepancies on property insurance.
Statistics do not tell you exactly how each individual dog behaves. There are well-mannered dogs that are of traditionally violent breeds, and there are dangerous dogs that are of traditionally well-mannered breeds. Training is arguably more important than breed, but you still have to consider what behaviors a dog may be predisposed to.
Notably, though that isn't just about the temperament of the breed but as you said the "ability to cause injuries" which is why some of the small dogs that are temperamentally "little shits" don't get flagged as high risk pets.
So it's sort of useful, in certain ways, but still only gives you some of the information
Turns out that the insurance companies are maybe not interpreting their data correctly (or possibly not interpreting it in the way we might assume - ultimately it doesn't matter to them as long as they make money)
I suspect what the "real world data" is telling us has much more to do with what sort of person tends to have which kind of dog than what a dog is likely to do. For example, no wannabe hard-man is buying a golden retriever to swagger down the street with, they're getting a bull terrier. So bull terriers show up more in biting incidents because of the kind of person who has them, not because of anything inherent in the dog itself. Anecdotally, every bull terrier I've ever met has been soppy af.
To be fair, that’s a pretty responsible thing to do if you’re dead-set on buying a dog as a pet. There’s nothing worse than ignorant people buying a dog because they think it looks cool or because they just want it only for them to realize that their new pet needs something they can’t provide. That’s how dogs end up being abandoned on the streets or in the woods/desert.
I’d much rather people buy dogs that suit their lifestyle because those dogs end up spoiled and loved and not abandoned.
I know this is off-topic, but it reminds me of this music video from a guy who appears to be the biggest wannabe hard man in history. First, he's from New Zealand, so the accent immediately ruins the BAMF image. Second, the way he shows off his ferocious dog is to kneel down next to it while he and a child lovingly pet the dog. Third, why is he riding a horse through town? Finally, the lyrics are the most generic "I want to sound tough but I don't know how to sound tough" lyrics in history.
https://youtu.be/QAwEUtBauxc
I'm not sure "slightly more likely to x" is the same as "reliably does x"; nor is "genes are a nudge not a destiny" the same as being "a very good indicator".
They're not saying you can't make some predictions, they're saying that most of the things people say about breed behaviour isn't correct, and those things that are right aren't very reliable. From the actual paper, not the (very short) article about it:
I have read elsewhere that the behaviours of working dogs tend to be more slightly reliably predictable, because we've been selecting for those useful traits like pointing and retrieving for thousands of years, long before breeds were a thing.
It's weird how much pushback this idea gets, despite the science being pretty clear. This isn't the only paper I've read on the topic, although I can't find the other right now there's plenty of information out there if you want to find it.
It doesn't seem very logical that a concept humans invented around 150 years ago (that of dog breeds) would have all that much predictability only a handful of generations later, especially given the vast majority of dogs aren't in breeding programs. Genetic influence on behaviour and the associated heritability is super complex and we are only starting to think about understanding it now, let alone for most of the times the Kennel Clubs have been selecting for dogs that can't breathe properly, or have distorted spines because that gives a nice profile.
Doesn't it mean if you have a thousand dogs you can say "this group of a thousand dogs is more likely to do X", but also that it tells you nothing useful about your individual dog?
"A competition to determine which dog looks most like a dog"
You're the second person to say that and I'm honestly not sure how one might read it that way, but the best thing to read is the paper the article links to, which goes into much more detail and I think is considerably less prone to ambiguity. It's not paywalled and it's not particularly long and it is quite interesting.
The link title I used is actually the title of another article about a different paper saying the same thing, which I wrote before failing to find a link for because I was in a bit of a rush and I think the article I'm thinking of has been locked behind a paywall. I will look again tomorrow.
We adopted a strange mix from a mill rescue organization and wanted to know specifics, not only for our alleged vanity but also for medical/veterinary purposes. Which turned out to be great, since the dominant breed is prone to seizures and we're now dealing with epilepsy in the mix. It was nice to have a bit of a heads up.
Now I'm curious, what Very Important Things do you brag to your friends about that are clearly not a waste of money? Or can we all sit down and enjoy our mimosas together?
One of my regrets is we never found out my second dog's heritage, because I swear we found the super mutt. She was incredibly smart, active, and lived to be ~19/20 with overall good health. She warped my perception of dog age, her body only really started breaking down in the last month or so of her life. People were consistently shocked when they'd hear her age. We knew she was part sheltie, but guesses on the rest ranged all over.
I don't really agree with this. It's just something interesting to know. Would it change how I treat my pet? Absolutely not. But it's interesting in the same way looking at your own ancestry is interesting.
I've never done it, but I could see myself paying for it if I didn't already know my dog was a weird mix of Chihuahua and Keeshond (someone had to have held a dog up at one point, right?). I can see how it's interesting to see what breeds make up your dog, even if it's largely unimportant. Almost in the same way that I found it interesting to do my own DNA test. It doesn't matter much and it doesn't change anything. It's just interesting data.
We didn't know what our Chi was mixed with, and we wanted to make sure we treated her properly, in terms of physical health. We got her DNA tested because we thought she might be part Dachshund. We did this because she was an avid jumper as a puppy and despite our efforts, would jump as high as my waist and even our table if she was given the chance. For those that don't know, Dachshunds shouldn't be jumping at all, given their length. It could seriously injure their backs.
When we found out there wasn't any doxy, we still limited her jumping and trained her out of some of those habits, but we were less worried about the times she did jump.
We also found out that her natural instinct to dig and chase squirrels/rats is because she's part rat terrier, and it made so much more sense to us!
Not that we took the DNA test as gospel, but we thought it was a fun thing to do with our new puppy, and it was another way to welcome our rescue fur baby into our lives 5 years ago. I would do it again because it's fun, even if it isn't 100% accurate.
That is a bit short-sighted. We did it when we adopted a rescue dog so that we would be aware of any potential health issues that might come with a specific breed or combination of breeds. It was also just fun guessing which breeds we thought he was and then validating those guesses against the results.
Unlike the results in the article, though, we went with Embark which was a little more expensive but is widely regarded as being more accurate about breeds and more honest about unknowns and gaps (which, to be fair, is also true of one of the companies that correctly identified the human samples in the article as inconclusive in both tests).
It’s not always a grift and it’s not always a waste.
Edit: Looks like you’ve already gotten to a place of agreement in other threads thanks to other users. Another point for the discourse on Tildes.
Huh. I don't think this is a really big deal...? First of all, we share something like 80% of our DNA with dogs. Secondly, if the company is using PCR with dog DNA primers, it's not unreasonable to expect some positive results with human DNA. Annealing between the primer strand and the digested donor strand doesn't have to be perfect to get good amplification of that DNA segment. IIRC, accuracy increases with longer primers, so that is the main factor affecting precision - if they're using short primers (which are cheaper) it'll be easier to get annealing with human DNA strands. Might need a biochemist to double check as the exact mechanics of PCR aren't my field.
The response to the initial test ("Could not be human") sounds like a corporate worker without any understanding of the science, while in the second test they reported what they got while also saying that the sample "...failed to provide the data necessary to perform the breed ID analysis" which is a better response.
A bit of a nothing burger, no? Aside from being a bit on the cheap side of things, perhaps.
You have misattributed that quote, which originated from a different dog breed analysis company. In the second test, they sent the sample to three different companies. The first two said they were unable to detect a dog breed, while DNA My Dog said it was a mix of breeds without mentioning anything about the sample being difficult to analyse.
If the other two companies were able to figure out that there wasn't enough dog DNA in the sample to get a reliable result, why couldn't DNA My Dog?
Thank you for that clarification, I misread the articles and thought DNA My Dog was the name of a service provided by Orivet. Completely overlooked the third company of Wisdom Panel. Much appreciated.
Definitely a problem then haha.
I don't think it's such a big deal either, but it's not a given that they used PCR for genetic testing. They could have used other techniques, such as sequencing, single nucletoide polymorphism phenotyping, short tandem repeat analysis etc. The length of primers isn't really an issue either, they're really cheap to synthesize, and are generally around 20-25 nucleotides long. If you use NCBI's primer designing tool, for example, it generally aims for 20 nucletoides long primers. For an example of the price, this company I found as the first result on a Google search, says they take around 50 cents per base (in the lowest quantity ordered, which should be enough for a single dog). Really cheap. It's probably cheaper for the company, because most probably they order in bulk, and use from the stock they ordered.
Furthermore, even if they have used PCR, the primers used should be specific enough to breeds to be identifiers. The shared DNA percentage doesn't matter. For genetic identification screening and such, designing primers for breed-specific areas is a must. The breeds are much closer to each other than humans, and if the primers used are so non-specific that they amplify the human genome, they are no good for any genetic identification screening.
We don't know if they used PCR, but I doubt it's due to a problem in the primers, or else there'd be many many more problems being reported. No matter the method they've used, the issue could've arisen from many potential issues, e.g. mislabeling in the lab, contamination of the sample, deviations from the protocol. They probably need to check the quality control protocols.
I suspect DNA microarrays (for SNP/allele profiling) would be used to get the most traits identified at a reasonable cost.
Yeah, I suspect the same as well. It makes sense to use a method like that that can analyze multiple samples.
Thank you very much for the informative post.
No problem!
Whomever edited the post title, please edit it back to remove "US." The company is not American; it is Canadian. Also, this news isn't really local to Boston just because a Boston TV channel reported it so that tag is also misleading/confusing.
Not a big fan of some users being able to edit the titles of other people's posts, tbh, especially if OP can't change it themselves. Tags, sure, but titles are a much more important part of the content and more closely associated with what the submitter wrote. Post authors should at least be able to approve/accept proposed edits, imho.
I like it. I really appreciate the constant title style and also the ability to tone down clickbait headlines.
Knowing some of the users here, letting only users edit their own titles would result in worse headlines, not better.
I didn't say *only* let the submitter edit, just that they should have some say-so too if it's their name on the result. "Clickbait" is a subjective thing and "toning down" is an editorial decision, and I don't like letting some users being able to essentially put words in other people's mouths without notification or consent. Quietly substituting one's own judgment like that feels kind of presumptuous. If there's a problem with a headline one should include the poster in addressing it, or just flag it for deletion and submit a better take.
Third-party editing would make more sense if this were a wiki format with explicitly collaborative posts, but structuring it as a blog where each post has an identified submitter implies some "ownership" which editing undermines, I think. At minimum there should be a more visible indication that the content is different from what the poster submitted, since the Topic Log is pretty easy to overlook.
They do. If any submitter disagrees with an edit, all they generally have to do is ask the person who edited the title (which can be seen in the sidebar Topic Log) or anyone else with title editing (such as myself) to revert the change or modify it further.
I'm curious why you think titles on a small community site shouldn't be collaborative? What benefit to 'ownership' of a title could there possibly be, especially most of the time when it's not even 'self-owned' content that's being shared?
Titling and tagging is a collaborative process on Tildes by design, just right now we lack any sort of system to promote moderators other than being selected by Deimos.
I'd be fine with collaboration, in the sense of OPs having the ability to edit their post info as well (to fix errors like above), or being asked for approval or at least notified so they're involved with any changes. But letting some users silently and unilaterally change a post without any input from the poster is not that.
Why are you so fixated on the submitter's ownership of a title? Ultimately I think that's what we are disagreeing on, and I fail to see any utility in it other than maybe someone's pride or ego being at stake.
Titles should be (and are on Tildes) considered a community asset and moderated for everyone's benefit, not the submitter's. Everyone benefits from having titles adhere to a common style guide and reasonable window of accuracy and tone. It's collaborative because 9 times out of 10 the moderators are taking your tags and title and cleaning them up to meet a standard, not drastically altering any sort of meaning.
It's not complicated, I just think that any content attributed to a specific user should be what that person wrote, and any changes to that which remain attributed to that person should be done with them in the loop or at least the edit should be more obviously indicated. Doing otherwise opens the door to uninformed errors like the "incorrection" on this post or people substituting their subjective judgment on what the content should be. It's not huge stakes, but it does bug me.
Fair enough. I suppose we'll have to agree to disagree because imo the downsides are quite small compared to the upsides. To get consistent titles and style across all posts in a system where users can co-edit their titles or requires user approval/consultation would honestly increase the moderator workload probably by a factor of 10 or more.
Just a clarification: First of all I don't think anyone pays particular attention to who wrote what title, but secondly and more importantly with the presence of the topic log this isn't even true: attribution can clearly be seen for anyone interested.
I'd like to note that I've used 3 cheers and mobile and desktop alike and this conversation and/or the one on tagging is the first I've heard about the topic log. I just switched to Mobile Web and saw it in the sidebar which is not a thing I've ever looked at on a post to see changes. I absolutely would assume by default that the title is the listed submitter's unless there's a convo in the comments, which I find useful personally.
I'm not saying that I don't get the system, I struggle much more with the push pull of "users should tag better" while not actually teaching users to do better by making the process more transparent. And I'm not flipping tables or anything.
But I also think it's reasonable that the default assumption is that submitters authored the titles and that the topic log is not obvious/apparent to all users.
Yeah I’ve had to actually delete and repost something before because I wanted to edit the title but couldn’t. At the very least, a version history for title changes would be handy.
That can be found in the topic log in the sidebar.
Oops I use mobile and it’s less obvious on here. Thanks for the tip!
Fixed!
How do you even get permission to edit titles and tags on posts? Is it an account age thing, or do you get awarded those powers by other people?
Deimos gives out the differing permissions based on his own judgement.