{"id":1817,"date":"2018-08-31T14:42:42","date_gmt":"2018-08-31T14:42:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/naiaonline.org\/blog\/?p=1817"},"modified":"2018-08-31T14:44:08","modified_gmt":"2018-08-31T14:44:08","slug":"genetic-breed-testing-of-shelter-dogs-counters-commonly-repeated-myth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/naiaonline.org\/blog\/shelter-rescue\/genetic-breed-testing-of-shelter-dogs-counters-commonly-repeated-myth\/","title":{"rendered":"Genetic Breed Testing of Shelter Dogs Counters Commonly-Repeated Myth"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>HSUS and other fundraising groups have repeated the mantra that &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.humanesociety.org\/issues\/pet_overpopulation\/facts\/pet_ownership_statistics.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">25% of dogs in shelters are purebreds<\/a>&#8221; for so long, it has become a commonly accepted truth. Because the statement never matched up with the experiences of our board members, volunteers, and supporters who work in shelters, we felt the need to investigate the issue. This led to our 2015 survey, which found that <a href=\"http:\/\/shelterproject.naiaonline.org\/purebred\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the number of purebred dogs in shelters is closer to 5%<\/a>\u00a0(5.04%).<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/naiaonline.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/ShelterProjectStudyFinal.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-1239\" src=\"http:\/\/naiaonline.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/ShelterProjectStudyFinal-300x194.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"194\" srcset=\"https:\/\/naiaonline.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/ShelterProjectStudyFinal-300x194.jpg 300w, https:\/\/naiaonline.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/ShelterProjectStudyFinal-1024x661.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/naiaonline.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/ShelterProjectStudyFinal.jpg 1235w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>This week, another study on shelter dog populations was released out of Arizona State: <a href=\"https:\/\/journals.plos.org\/plosone\/article\/file?id=10.1371\/journal.pone.0202633&amp;type=printable\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>A canine identity crisis: Genetic breed heritagetesting of shelter<\/em> dogs<\/a>, and its findings were quite interesting (emphasis ours):<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center; padding-left: 60px; padding-right: 60px; font-size: 11.5px;\"><em>We found that over 100 breed signatures were identified at each shelter in our genetic breed testing with over 91 breeds shared between sites. Breed ancestries ranged from having one to five unique breed signatures identified (7%). <strong>On average, purebreds represented less than 5% of dogs tested with individuals most often having three breed signatures identified within their genetic heritage. In order of prevalence at AAWL and SDHS, American Staffordshire Terrier, Chihuahua, and Poodle were the most common breeds identified<\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>This is a thorough and well-written study in its own right, but what is so fascinating and valuable about this to us is that two different groups, using different methodologies came to nearly identical conclusions. Finding solutions to the issues facing pets and animal lovers becomes much easier when we know the truth of what we are dealing with.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1819\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1819\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-image-1819 size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/naiaonline.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/DogAtFence-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/naiaonline.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/DogAtFence-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/naiaonline.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/DogAtFence-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/naiaonline.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/DogAtFence-1024x683.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-1819\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><center>Dispelling myths surrounding the issues facing animals and the people who care for them makes finding positive solutions much easier!<\/center><\/p><\/div>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On average, purebreds represented less than 5% of dogs tested with individuals most often having three breed signatures identified within their genetic heritage.<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on wp_trim_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on wp_trim_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naiaonline.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1817"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naiaonline.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naiaonline.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naiaonline.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naiaonline.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1817"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/naiaonline.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1817\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1825,"href":"https:\/\/naiaonline.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1817\/revisions\/1825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naiaonline.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naiaonline.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naiaonline.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}