Even the dog experts only ID'd 28% correct on average
July 26, 2018 2:49 PM   Subscribe

Can you identify the breeds in a mutt? Darwin's Dogs, now Darwin's Ark, a project of the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, and U-Mass Medical School, posted a quiz to help with their project in "conducting ancestry research on thousands of dogs, analyzing DNA saliva samples to tell us the genetic history of our canine companions." The Mutt Mix quiz was given to a self-selected group of participants, some with claimed expertise, some who just wanted to help out. Average users showed a 25% correct ID of at least one breed, self-described experts were only marginally better with a 28% correct response. How well would you do? Take the new Pup Quiz Hint: Wow, some dogs do not look like you think they would.

The MuttMix Project survey has come to a close and we received an astounding 34,969 accounts created and 10,204 actual surveys completed for all 31 dogs! This gave us 432,743 questions answered from the participants! In our first pass through these results, we’ve made interesting observations across our 31 mutts and many participants.

The breeds guessed most frequently by participants were Labrador Retriever, German Shepherd Dog, Golden Retriever, Beagle, and Border Collie, respectively. Least frequently guessed were French Bulldog, Bulldog, West Highland Terrier, Pekingese, and Yorkshire Terrier.

Of the breeds detected in the DNA of our mutts, the most common included Chow Chow, German Shepherd Dog, Staffordshire Bull Terrier, Golden Retriever, and Labrador Retriever.

HOW ACCURATE ARE THOSE DOG DNA TESTS? INSIGHTS AND CHALLENGES IN DECODING DNA

Sign up to register your animals on Darwin's Ark My Laboratory, and you can take additional surveys about their behavior. You can also get a DNA kit for $249 per beast.
posted by drossdragon (31 comments total) 9 users marked this as a favorite
 
One of my destress techniques is to go on petfinder.com, ogle the cute pups, and laugh at some of the breed identifications of rarer breeds. Today I saw a pup labeled "chihuahua & greyhound mix." No fam, just no.
posted by muddgirl at 2:53 PM on July 26, 2018 [1 favorite]


Oh god, I am so bad at this despite loving doggos so much.
posted by corb at 2:56 PM on July 26, 2018 [5 favorites]


We have three mutts. I only scored about 25% on the test, I had 8 where I got two breeds correct, and 7 where I got no breeds correct. I, too, suck at this.
posted by drossdragon at 3:01 PM on July 26, 2018


Oh, and the Italian Greyhuahua is not as rare as you might think.
posted by drossdragon at 3:07 PM on July 26, 2018 [6 favorites]


The Italian Greyhuahua- for all your trembling needs!
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 3:09 PM on July 26, 2018 [29 favorites]


I don't know much about breeds but I have a 100% rate of spotting good dogs.
posted by seraphine at 3:12 PM on July 26, 2018 [26 favorites]


I luvs multiple choice questions with 50 sometimes indistinguishable answers.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 3:21 PM on July 26, 2018 [7 favorites]


I just now realized that all the dogs my family ever had were purebreds. They were all rescues or hand-me-downs, but still.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 3:24 PM on July 26, 2018


I'm crap at this, but I blame it on them offering unusually difficult dogs. Admittedly, I'm not familiar with all the dogs on their list, but I don't think that's the whole story.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 3:31 PM on July 26, 2018 [1 favorite]


Yes, there are quite a few italian greyhound + chihuahua mixes, but that's not how these pups were labeled.
posted by muddgirl at 3:48 PM on July 26, 2018


I suspect that some of the genes that make purebred dogs distinct are likely recessive or additive with other alleles in ways that would be difficult to really spot.
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 3:53 PM on July 26, 2018 [1 favorite]


I'm apparently *really, really* good at identifying the 4th most prominent breed in these dogs. Frustratingly so.

Also I really want to pet them all.
posted by Ufez Jones at 4:09 PM on July 26, 2018 [5 favorites]


I've never not minded failing at a quiz so much.
posted by BrotherCaine at 4:11 PM on July 26, 2018 [3 favorites]


But like how can you tell if those ears are coming from a Lab, a Chesapeake or a Golden Retriever?
posted by Grandysaur at 4:26 PM on July 26, 2018


I imagine that some breed characteristics like an extremely short muzzle or extreme coloration are the genetic equivalent of rolling a yahtzee and are only maintained through selective breeding. I also suspect that without human intervention, mutts tend to drift toward a mean similar in shape and color to wolves, coyotes, and carolina dogs.
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 4:39 PM on July 26, 2018 [4 favorites]


I am suspect *any* time I see a dog labeled greyhound mix. There just aren't that many purebred greyhounds out there that aren't still in racing (and thus literally never encounter any dogs other than greyhounds) or in the hands of an adoption group or adopter (and thus have been spayed/neutered). In 2008, there were 183 greyhound puppies registered by AKC and therefore outside of the racing industry. I realize that's not the be-all and end-all of dog breeding and the systems aren't perfect, but you can see on the table here how low they are on the list of popularity. There just aren't a lot of intact greyhounds out there running around breeding with other dogs.

But any skinny, tall dog with a deep chest on Petfinder? Greyhound mix.
posted by misskaz at 4:49 PM on July 26, 2018 [7 favorites]


Yeah but I'm so curious and I cant do math... I guessed one breed correctly for 18 of the dogs and 2 breeds correctly for 9 of them (I didnt get all three of any of them). Lets see how do we figure this out. If there are a total of 93 possible choices and I guessed 27 properly, then Im doing pretty well right? Or no, am I not figuring that out correctly?
posted by WalkerWestridge at 5:00 PM on July 26, 2018


Yeah, a lot of hound mixes are just that- hound mixes. Greyhounds are sight hounds, and I suspect 90% of greyhound “mixes” have hound *in* them but just not greyhound for the above reasons.
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 5:02 PM on July 26, 2018 [2 favorites]


There's a pretty standard regression to the mean typed mutt look that you get after a few generations and I don't feel at all bad that I can't identify the genetics of a floppy-eared medium-sized yellow dog because that's what all dogs wind up looking like eventually.

But they're all good dogs, Brent.
posted by soren_lorensen at 5:06 PM on July 26, 2018 [2 favorites]


They're all good dogs, but the best dogs I have ever known in my life, were all are floppy eared medium size yellow dogs. All hail the mutts!
posted by elizilla at 5:22 PM on July 26, 2018 [6 favorites]


My strategy of choosing "Labrador retriever" and "pit bull" as part of every mix would have been better if I had picked "chow" and "German shepherd". As the test went on, the googling of "double coat" and "dew claw" marginally improved my scores.
posted by acrasis at 6:48 PM on July 26, 2018 [2 favorites]


Years ago, when I was in college, my family adopted a mutt that we only knew as part pug because of his underbite. We thought, because of the size and shape of his head, that he had some terrier in him, but it was a mystery.

My mother used to say, "His mother was a wayward pug and his father was a scoundrel!" My father brought out the old saw about the dog being "Heinz" (57 varieties)

So consider my astonishment when, somewhere around 35 years later, I ran into his doppelganger being walked on my street! I stopped the human companion to ask whether he knew the ingredients of his friend and he told me this boy was a "Chug" -- Chihuahua/Pug mix. Crazy! Chihuahua? But as soon as I got in front of a screen I googled chug and damned if it wasn't spot on. There seem to be two groups, one comprising the majority who look like our old friend, and a significant minority who certainly do not.

Accordingly, I have learned my lesson and won't be trying to identify the ingredients in any canine varietals any time soon, thanks very much.
posted by janey47 at 9:23 PM on July 26, 2018 [3 favorites]


I'm so awful at this, I gave up on dog #4. If it were sexing cats, I would be better than 50%.
posted by fiercekitten at 9:58 PM on July 26, 2018 [1 favorite]


Always wanted to get one of these tests for my dog, but they're so darn expensive for the good ones.
posted by dobbs at 10:06 PM on July 26, 2018


I just would like to know where all the damn chow chows are hiding? Or is there just a handful of really virile males traveling the country, cuz damn, just like shelter dogs, there is a disproportionate number of chow chow mixes compared to the numbers of chow chows owned.
posted by [insert clever name here] at 11:17 PM on July 26, 2018 [2 favorites]


We had a dog when I was a kid who looked very much like a corgi. Except his mother looked very much like a beagle and while his father wasn't 100% clear, we lived in a town with only 250 people, somewhat fewer dogs, and certainly no corgis or anything that resembled a corgi. Dog genetics are weird.
posted by jacquilynne at 5:06 AM on July 27, 2018


I'd be interested to know the history that led to this. I don't even know what a chow looks like; I'm about to ask google since now I am curious. Were chows wildly popular in, say, the Roaring 20s, and then large numbers of them ended up on the streets when the Depression hit, and they had some advantage over other breeds when reproducing as strays?
posted by elizilla at 6:17 AM on July 27, 2018


I seem to remember Chow Chows being really popular in the 80s, then they kind of developed a reputation for being aggressive, and (I could be misremembering this part) then they started getting lumped in with Rottweilers and pitbulls as "dangerous" dogs.
posted by lazuli at 6:41 AM on July 27, 2018


This article also shows that Chows were indeed the third-most popular dog in the US in the 20s!
posted by lazuli at 6:43 AM on July 27, 2018


Huh. turns out I rescued a rare Italian Greyhuahua off a golf course once. who knew. She ended up getting adopted in the big city by a nice lady with big eyes and the same color hair. So yay
posted by domino at 6:46 AM on July 27, 2018


I'm so awful at this, I gave up on dog #4. If it were sexing cats, I would be better than 50%.

I got a100% on the catsexing test. What am I even doing in this thread meow meow meow.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 10:53 AM on July 27, 2018 [2 favorites]


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