Welcome Back to SPARCS + 2018 Conference
You may have noticed that the SPARCS Initiative is now maintained by National Canine Research Council. ...
What type of dog is that? Can you tell just by looking?
When a dog’s pedigree is unknown, how do people typically talk about its ancestry? In special circumstances DNA testing is performed, but in day-to-day life, at shelters, rescues, veterinary offices, dog parks, and in our homes, we primarily rely on guess ...
How to Use National Canine Research Council's Website
National Canine Research Council is happy to announce our new website, complete with both familiar & new research and resources. Included in the change is an evolution into a canine behavior science and policy think tank. ...
Breed-specific legislation in Australia: a cruel mandate imposes big costs
The City of Monash has spent almost $100,000 defending itself in court cases involving dogs targeted by the breed-specific provisions of Australia’s Domestic Animals Act. Cardinia, a suburb of Melbourne, spent $80,000 on a single case involving a dog that ...
Incoherent definitions confound attempts to label dogs as “pit bulls”
Most animal shelters continue to assign breed descriptors to dogs whose origin they do not know[1], even though current university research has shown that breed identification based on visual inspection correlates poorly with DNA breed signature, and that ...
Florida animal services agency strikes breed labels from kennel cards and website
Evidence has mounted in recent years that guesses as to a dog’s breed or breeds usually do not correspond with breed identification using DNA technology. Different observers, even those engaged in dog-related professions, frequently disagree with each oth ...
Animal professionals shown to disagree with each other when assigning breed(s) to dogs of unknown parentage.
Summary A survey of more than 900 people in dog-related professions and services showed that they frequently disagreed with each other when making visual breed identifications of the same dog, and that their opinions may or may not have correlated with DN ...
How long before we discard visual breed identification? A new survey confirms that even dog experts can’t tell just by looking.
In the 1960’s, John Paul Scott and John L. Fuller showed that mixed breed dogs may bear little or no resemblance to their purebred ancestors.[i] In 2009, Dr. Victoria Voith and colleagues from Western University published a short report indicating a low a ...
Article 'Rethinking dog breed identification in veterinary practice' available in JAVMA
As far back as the 1960’s, there was clear photographic evidence that mixed breed dogs could look nothing like their purebred parents and grandparents. [i] More recently, surveys conducted by university researchers on both coasts have shown that guesses b ...
'What kind of dog is that?': Dog experts needed to participate in new University of Florida survey regarding visual breed identification
Assisted in part by a grant from the National Canine Research Council, the Maddie’s Shelter Medicine Program at the University of Florida’s School of Veterinary Medicine is conducting a national survey of dog experts (breeders, trainers, groomers, veterin ...