Frequently Asked Questions

 These puppies cannot be registered with the AKC. If you are looking for a “show dog” these puppies are not for you. 

New owners are provided a copy of the puppy's DNA results. It is notable that Embark is a helpful resource in testing the dogs and providing education. Please see the quoted statement from an Embark representative regarding “unresolved” DNA and non-matching genetic sequence.  

 First, I'd like to cover what exactly unresolved ancestry means. When determining breed ancestry, we compare your dog's raw genetic data against a database of over 25,000 carefully curated reference dogs to find segments that are likely to be identical by descent. The lengths of these matching segments of DNA help us model their most likely breed of origin, which we report as a percentage of overall ancestry. These segments can get shorter and shorter every generation, so we tend to report breed ancestry to the great-grandparent level.
 
When fragments of DNA that we use to determine ancestry are too short to confidently assign to any one breed, a dog may be assigned an 'Unresolved' percentage. This could be the result of genetic recombination breaking those long stretches down after many generations of mixing until they are too short to confidently map to a reference. Alternatively, it could be because your dog has some genetic diversity that isn't represented in our reference database yet. In this case, because there is nothing in our reference database to confidently match to, they may be returned with an 'Unresolved' percentage.
 
In some cases, it is possible for a dog to test with us as having unresolved genetic ancestry while having a close relative whose genetic ancestry is fully resolved or as having a breed present that is not present in either Embark-tested parent. This can happen for a few reasons. 
 
First, it is possible that the dogs have been tested on different versions of our reference panels. We are continually working to add new breeds and genetic diversity to our panel, so dogs who are tested against different reference sets may have differing results despite being directly related. For example, a dog tested on an older version of our panel who has unresolved ancestry may have a close relative that, when tested on a more recent version of our panel, does not have any unresolved ancestry or two parent dogs testing on an older version of our reference panel may produce a puppy who has a different breed in their ancestry. This could be due to the addition of more genetic diversity and an updated algorithm that allowed us to identify the breed ancestry more definitively in the dog more recently tested. 
 
It is also possible for some dogs in a family group to have unresolved genetic or breed ancestry that is not present in their siblings and/or parents. This is due to a process called genetic recombination. While each parent passes down 50% of their DNA to each offspring, the exact DNA that they pass down is randomized and individual for each puppy in a litter. As a result, some offspring may inherit unresolved ancestry while others may not. You can learn more about genetic recombination and inheritance here.
 
Additionally, it is possible for two parents with fully defined genetic ancestry to produce offspring with unresolved ancestry or to produce offspring that have a breed not present in their recent ancestry results. This indicates that each parent may have had a small portion of this unresolved or breed ancestry, but it was below our detection threshold when they were originally tested. As a result of recombination, these small segments of DNA can be inherited from each parent at a large enough amount by an offspring that, when tested, is now above our detection threshold and now able to be identified using our current reference set.
 
We hope this helps to clarify why your dog may have different genetic ancestry results than those of their direct relatives, and please let us know if you have any additional questions.”  

We do not.