A pet company has twice sent back dog breed results for human swab samples, prompting doubts surrounding the accuracy of dog breed tests.
On Wednesday, WBZ News reported its investigations team receiving dog breed results from the company DNA My Dog after one of its reporters sent in a swab sample – from her own cheek.
According to the results from the Toronto-based company, WBZ News reporter Christina Hager is 40% Alaskan malamute, 35% shar-pei and 25% labrador.
Hager also sent her samples to two other pet genetic testing companies. The Melbourne, Australia- and Florida-based company Orivet reported that the sample “failed to provide the data necessary to perform the breed ID analysis”. Meanwhile, Washington-based company Wisdom Panel said that the sample “didn’t provide … enough DNA to produce a reliable result”.
WBZ News’ latest report comes after its investigations team sent in a sample from New Hampshire pet owner Michelle Leininger’s own cheek to DNA My Dog last year. In turn, the results declared Leininger 40% border collie, 32% cane corso and 28% bulldog.
“Some people would agree with that at times, but no, no,” Leininger joked to WBZ News.
At the time, DNA My Dog told WBZ News that it only found canine DNA on one of Leininger’s two cheek swabs.
“The second sample did in fact yield canine DNA … The results provided would not be possible on a human sample,” the company said.
The global dog DNA test market, which was valued at $235m in 2022, is projected to grow to $723m by 2030, according to Zion Market Research. The industry’s main players include DNA My Dog, Orivet and Wisdom Panel, among others.
But faulty results have cast doubt on the accuracy of the DNA tests.
Speaking to WBZ News last year following Leininger’s results, Lisa Moses, a Harvard Medical School veterinarian and bioethicist said: “I think that is a red flag for sure … A company should know if they’ve in any basic way analyzed a dog’s DNA, that that is not a dog.”
Moses went on: “There isn’t necessarily a gold standard answer for what your dog is … A breed is something that we’ve decided, which is based upon essentially the way a dog looks … But that doesn’t necessarily mean that we’re going to know what their genes look like.”
In response to WBZ News’ latest reporting, people aired their doubts on social media.
“It would be interesting to see what the results would be if they sent dog DNA to one of the human DNA genealogy testing sites,” one person said.
Someone else said: “Throw money at something like this? Never!! Would never trust it.”
“Lol some folks may wanna check their family tree,” another person wrote.
