Shelter Dogs Frequently Given Wrong Breed Labels: New study

FIREPAW

What’s in a name? Plenty say scientists who conducted a study involving genetic testing on shelter dogs. It turns out that many times the breed labels given shelter dogs are wrong. There are plenty of implications for this mislabeling, including insurance, renting ability, and even the ability for dogs to get adopted.

 

More than a label: shelter dog genotyping reveals inaccuracy of breed assignments

Scientists used genetic testing in over 900 shelter dogs to identify breed heritage in the largest study of its kind. The researchers found widespread genetic diversity: 125 breeds in the sample and an average of three breed matches per dog. (On average, most dogs were comprised of three different breeds, with some dogs having up to five breed signatures identified at the great-grandparent level.)
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The genetic diversity among shelter dogs can make it difficult for shelter staff to assess the breed heritage of dogs. ..When the researchers looked at whether either the assigned primary or secondary breed matched the information from the genetic profile of a dog, they found the shelter staff accuracy was 67%… The accuracy of shelter staff in identifying more than one breed in the dog’s heritage based just on physical appearance was only 10 percent.
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“The level of genetic diversity in the shelter dogs exceeded our expectations: we found 125 distinct breeds. We also found that just 5% of the shelter dogs were purebred, even though it is commonly assumed that up to a quarter of dogs in shelters are purebred.”
-Lisa Gunter, Maddie’s Research Fellow, Arizona State University, Department of Psychology
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Implications for adoption

Though breed labels are common in animal shelters, they can have unintended consequences. In a previous study… researchers found that dogs labeled as pit bulls waited over three times as long to be adopted. In the current study, researchers found that dogs in a San Diego shelter with a pit bull-type ancestry waited more than three times as long as other dog breeds.

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Journal Reference:  Lisa M. Gunter, Rebecca T. Barber, Clive D. L. Wynne. A canine identity crisis: Genetic breed heritage testing of shelter dogs. PLOS ONE, 2018; 13 (8): e0202633 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0202633