Every day I bring you an item on Amazon that I personally use or has been purchased by many members of the audience and I have researched enough to recommend.  I brought this one around today because it has been years since I got the result and made them part of Lucy’s training, so I have updated this review with that in mind.

Today’s TSP Amazon Item of the day is the Wisdom Panel 3.0 Breed Identification DNA Test Kit.  I used this kit on Charlie and learned that he was a Pitbull (no surprise there) crossed with a Pointer (big surprise there) and that has gone a long way into knowing how to work with and train him on the farm.

I have misplaced Charlie’s results and my old account at Wisdom Panel doesn’t seem to work so I can’t share his report but I also did Lucy’s DNA test and once again I was really surprised at the results, yet when I got them it helped me to see the traits in her as I know what to look for.

First up here is our rescued little gal, Lucy Lu Spirko, what do you think she is?

The most common guesses we have heard are Shepard mix and also Kelpie.  Now Kelpie’s are expensive dogs and a truly Australian breed, so I had my doubts but when I looked up the breed, it did seem plausible, look at this Kelpie here, looks a lot like Lucy Lu doesn’t it?

As to Shepard, sure some of the pattern matches but she is so light bodied and so damn fast, I mean the last dog I had that was this fast was Lakota, a Siberian husky, can’t be though right?

Um, well here is a PDF of Lucy’s breed certificate and a more detailed report of the full test.  She is fricken half Husky, in fact here is what Lucy Lu is made of…

• 50% Siberian Husky
• 37.5% American Stafford Terrier
• 12.5% Dalmatian

I have to say when I first got the results I was dumbfounded, but now it makes sense.  The speed this dog has and her agility are fitting with all the breeds but her light body weight really makes sense with husky blood.

Huskies typically look a lot bigger than they are due to all that fluff, but mix in two short hair breeds like Dalmatian and Stafford and you get a short haired Husky dog.  Take another look at my girl there, imagine she has blue eyes and longer hair.  Take that tail she always carries up and fluff it out, you have a dark colored husky.

It all made sense once I had the results!  The stubborn attitude, the vocal objections to not being given a treat, the vocal greetings, the ru rur ru ru rrrrr rr ruh, when ever she wants anything including attention.  It is Lakota all over again.

So what does all this mean?  Well it means I have a stubborn dog when it comes to training her and I had to accept that and use my knowledge of dealing with Huskies in the past in dealing with her training.  It means on some things she is gonna be really smart and others a bit of a dim bulb, that is true of Huskies and Dalmatian’s as well.  It means she is going to be what we already knew about her, absolutely in love with children and protective of them.

Also now that I know she has Stafford in her, I worked hard to bring out more of her courage, it is in there and it has become evident.  She is the beta of the group, she was abandoned, not well cared for when we found her was quite timid but I had seen the courage come out.   She is so docile with everyone but when my bee mentor Jason had his half bee suit on and dared walk through the back yard I saw a different dog in her, I now know what it was.

Since getting these results I have worked with her on proper aggression as I call it.  Meaning she is aggressive when strangers try to get on the property and friendly when you allow them on property.  Many of you have been here and you know how aggressive Charlie is on this front, unless someone lets you in, or you have been let into his circle of trust, you don’t get in and you get your ass bit if you try.  Between the work I did with her to desensitize her to fear of noises and unknown situations, Lucy has come a long way.

Charlie did the real work though.  Once I got her past her fears, what I call canine transference did the rest.  It is now common to see Lucy aggressive defending the front gate, Charlie standing back in reserve all calm and ready for action only if necessary.  He has passed the baton as the initial aggressor.

Side note, this is why

1.  Training your first dog is so critical to your next dog.
2.  You correct problem behaviors in any dog before getting a second dog

Over three years since running this test by knowing what to encourage, what to discourage and what to simply accept I now have a dog who has reached her full potential.  She will never be what she could have been had I gotten her as a pup, but she is a damn good do, with some limitations.  She is always going to be a digger, she is always going to be vocal and her attention span will always be short.

She has surprised me though.  I figured she was never going to be a dog that I can trust to move birds only one I could train to not attack them.  We had to get there first but the other night I had duck anarchy on my hands.  I went to close the coop and no ducks, they were across the property in the dark, bedded down in the food forest.  Not good and herding ducks after dark is a pain in the ass.  Lucy came along and was extremely helpful in pushing them birds while controlling her own instinct.  She can be trusted with the command “get those ducks off the porch”.  I don’t know if I could have gotten her there without Charlie as a guide in his own behavior, but man she is really a great dog now.

There is a lot of high strung nature in the Husky breed, you can turn them on or off to something but when it is on, it is on full bore all the way on.  It took work, a lot of work but by knowing why I was able to see the progress and stick with it.  I knew what to look for to see progress is really the key.

The real thing though is it is just good and fun to know exactly what you have.  The added bonus is the Wisdom Panel 3.0 Breed Identification DNA Test Kit also tests for the MDR1 Gene which makes certain medications potentially deadly to dogs.  Lucy is luckily free of this gene but it should be tested for before dogs go on a variety of medications including heart worm medications containing ivermectin.

This is something no vet ever told me about, it means that I risked every dog’s life I ever owned by just testing them for heat worm and putting them on the medication.  It annoys me that many vets want to annually test for heart worms which is totally unnecessary for a dog that has never been off treatment, yet won’t do this simple test to see if the medication itself may kill your dog.

I checked into it and a test for MDR1 is usually 35-45 dollars, half the price of the Wisdom Panel test that includes MDR1 and a complete breed ancestry.  You can learn more about the MDR1 mutation here.

In any event the Wisdom Panel 3.0 Breed Identification DNA Test Kit to me represents a great value at 80 bucks with same day free shipping on Amazon Prime.  The process takes about 3 weeks once you send your sample in.  The test is easy to administer, both when I did Charlie and Lucy I was worried about how they would react.  You take two swabs and put them inside their cheek and turn them back in forth.

I was sure both dogs would go berserk and would have to be held down by one person and swabbed by the other, in both situations they just sat there like what is this all about.  I can’t promise your dog will do the same I am just saying it was easier than I expected.

So if you have a mixed breed dog of unknown origins check out the Wisdom Panel 3.0 Breed Identification DNA Test Kit, I personally feel it will give you a much better handle on dealing with your dog.  I know it has done so for me with both Lucy and Charlie.  And it will include the important MDR1 test and frankly it is just fun to know your dog’s actual breed make up.

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