Where did your dog come from?

The largest genetic analysis to date of domestic dog breeds has figured out how those breeds came to be, which ones are really closely related, and what makes some dogs more susceptible to certain diseases Where did your dog come from? New tree of breeds may hold the answer

"Elaine Ostrander and Heidi Parker, geneticists at the National Human Genome Research Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, and their colleagues spent 20 years going to dog shows, writing dog fanciers, and getting help from all corners of the world to collect DNA samples; in some cases they used already collected data. They weren’t interested in determining how and when dogs were domesticated, but how all the breeds developed. Their sample now includes 1346 dogs representing 161 breeds, or not quite half of all kinds of dogs. By comparing the differences at 150,000 spots on each dog's genome, they built a family tree. "The scope of the analysis is very impressive, [a] tour-de-force on breed evolution," says evolutionary biologist Robert Wayne of the University of California, Los Angeles, who was not involved with the work."

Cell Reports the whole study and amazing graphics Genomic Analyses Reveal the Influence of Geographic Origin, Migration, and Hybridization on Modern Dog Breed Development

A DNA comparison helped put 161 dog breeds into larger groups (various colors) based on their common ancestries.