The Paw Print Genetics Blog

Providing a unique DNA profile to identify a dog or performing paternity to qualify a sire is not new. In both humans and canines, these services have been around for decades, but so has the technology.  The use of microsatellite markers has been the mainstream technology for identifying people and dogs since the early 1980’s.  However, these particular markers are best used to exclude a suspect or exclude a sire, but trying to prove identity or prove that a sample is from the one and only possible sire is much more difficult.

Welcome to the 21^st century!  The old microsatellite markers were just not good enough, in some cases, to distinguish a sire from his sons or brothers from one another.  And in true Paw Print Genetics fashion, we are just compelled to do everything better than anyone else! Introducing single nucleotide polymorphisms, or SNPs. These are small changes in the DNA that tend to be different between individuals, including relatives.  Paw Print Genetics is using a proprietary set of 99 distinct SNPs found in different locations throughout the canine genome to uniquely identify individuals and better qualify sires.

Take a look at the ‘heat map’ that is generated from these SNP results. The photo shows results for four different dogs. Each SNP result is displayed as a different shade of blue. You can see in the photo that these four individuals vary at many of the SNPs and produce these unique ‘bar codes’ of color, each one unique and distinct from any other individual.  Our unique set of SNP markers allows us to have higher confidence in our parentage results and more useful DNA profiles that enhance our ability to uniquely identify individual dogs. Using this set of markers, the odds of finding the exact same profile in another dog is 1 in 12,655,555,055,665,300,000.  So, in other words, unless your dog is a twin, there is not another dog on planet Earth with your dog's same profile!

This new set of markers will now be used for every DNA Profile and Parentage order.  If you ordered DNA Profiling or Parentage from us in the past, we can still use that old set of data, so it remains the same that once you have tested your dog with us for Parentage or Profiling, you never pay for that particular dam or sire again.

Please let us know if you have any questions. You can contact us at AskUs@pawprintgenetics.com or call us at 509-483-5950. Please note that the Paw Print Genetics DNA Profiles are not a breed identification test and are not accepted by the American Kennel Club (AKC). If you want an AKC DNA Profile, you must order through them.