Howdy, Sophie here! I noticed a couple of claims here that I wanted to clear up. First, let me say, we firmly believe that the best cure for a disease is
prevention, and that's why we created our non-profit, The Doberman Diversity Project. To prevent a genetic disease, we need to know the genetics involved. Now, out of ALL the genetic testing possibilities in the world, we specifically chose to align with Embark because: #1 they offer the highest resolution DNA results on market #2 they graciously agreed to partner with us as a research initiative, which allows all Doberman owners enrolled in the Doberman Diversity Project to purchase tests at a discounted rate, making genetic testing
much more affordable and lowering the barrier for Dobe owners/breeders #3 their quality control demands that they do not include anything on their panel unless it has
>99% call rate, 100% specificity/sensitivity when a genotype is called. If you understand sensitivity/specificity, these are high standards! #4 they've agreed to take on Dobermans as a special project and help generate a Genome Wide Association Study to further explore the genetic underpinnings of Dobe-specific diseases. This is a golden key to understanding Doberman genetic diseases, like DCM. SO, with that all said, I think this helps to explain a couple of the issues brought up here:
1) All Dobermans are run on chips with vWD1. Due to Embark's high quality control (see above), they were still validating vWD1 at the time of their listing with OFA. Now that they've done that, all Dobes are run on chips with it.
2) DCM2 is not on the chips because the results of DCM2 haven't yet been published and cannot yet be validated by the scientific community. Remember, it's all about truth and quality control!
3) Is it only good for research? Nope. In addition to receiving your individual dog's gene-carrier status, you will also receive detailed analyses of your dog's inbreeding, including a karyogram (graphic of your dog's chromosomes) showing you exactly where in the DNA is your dog more or less inbred compared to the breed.
You know how folks always say: You can make an incredibly outbred dog with 2 inbred dogs? This is how. Dobe breeding has never been this smart. AND every dobe contributes to the Genome Wide Association Study for overall Dobe health research.
4) Breed mix ancestry: In the past, genetic testing labs were using a limited number of genetic markers, and it is possible, in the past with other companies, that breed mixes were misidentified. However, Embark is probably the most accurate identification tool because of its resolution and detail (see above). For more info on genetic markers and such, we hope to have answered it on our FAQs page:
FAQs - THE DOBERMAN DIVERSITY PROJECT
As always, questions/concerns/ideas? I'm always here to chat!