I’ve never been completely sure about the breed of any of the dogs I grew up with. It was always an observational (and sometimes educated) guess. And the spread of DNA kits has led to pet-specific ones like Embark’s Dog DNA Test Kit, which is on sale today only through Amazon’s Deal of the Day.
You’re saving $70 (or 35%) on an easy kit to test your dog’s DNA. Swab the cheek and send it in to find out which of more than 250 dog breeds your best friend falls into. Embark also promises to list “your dog’s family tree all the way back to great grandparents,” as well as lay out for you some similar breed mixes. If you grab the kit today and send in the swab, it’ll take between two weeks to a month to get all your results back, a longer lead time being typical for DNA kits. This is a great and quick way to put disagreements to bed when it comes to your dog’s breed and type, not to mention give you an evidence-based approach to researching its current and future needs. Different breeds, for example, have broadly known medical issues that you could research more confidently.
And while you should definitely visit your neighborhood veterinarian for health issues, the DNA kit will run your dog’s stats against others in its database and flag you to more than 165 potential hazards or risks Embark’s got in its datasets. That’s how I used the tips I got when I tested my own DNA — mostly as a trivial pursuit but definitely nice-to-know. To boot, the company partnered with Cornell University’s College of Veterinary Medicine.
Really, there’s little reason not to test your dog’s DNA. Learn more about your dog than you ever knew with a discounted and top-rated DNA kit today.
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