See how your favourite dog breeds are related to each other

Researchers from the National Human Genome Research Institute in the US analysed DNA from 161 breeds to create a dog-breed family tree. The tree groups breeds into categories according to their shared history. These groups, known as clades, reflect the fact that for much of their domestication history dogs were known only by the kind of service they offered humankind. 

The hunting dogs are a family including retrievers and setters, the herding dogs contain the shepherds and sheepdogs. The study also presented analyses revealing the shadows of cross-breeding hiding in modern “purebred” dogs.

While the genomes of all dogs are 100% dog DNA, a small amount of the genome varies among breeds. These parts are responsible for the impressive spectrum of variation in size, shape and behaviour in domestic dogs. The researchers sequenced dog genomes at thousands of these variable sites. When blocks of them are identical across two different breeds, this indicates historic interbreeding between them. These fresh results confirmed documented histories for some breeds.

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