Years ago, when we adopted our dog Diego, we were told by the pound that he was “70% Pomeranian”. We never quite knew what that meant, or how it was determined. It was in the dark ages, back before anyone was doing genetic screening of dogs.
He looks pretty much like a Pomeranian to our admittedly uneducated eyes…but he’s larger than most Poms, and has a snout (most Poms have pretty flat faces).
A few weeks ago I broke down and ordered a canine DNA test kit from Wisdom Panel. Today we got the results, and it’s official: Diego is a Pomeranian. In fact, the evidence is consistent with him being a fairly purebred Pom (click on any image or chart to enlarge it):
Which goes to show there’s a broader range of Pom body types than I knew.
I found some of the other test results more interesting. Here’s how Diego fits into the two recognized Pomeranian breeds (US and UK):
He’s pretty much in the most common cluster of registered US Poms.
He’s also pretty distant from most other breeds:
But he looks to be somewhat closer to the German Spitz, from which Poms were derived, and which look like larger Poms with more pronounced snouts, than your typical Pom:
But most interestingly of all, his genetic diversity (i.e., degree of “non Pom ness”) shows him as an average Pom:
Meaning there doesn’t appear to be much other than Pom in his background. Which makes me wonder how in the world he ended up on the streets of Redwood City as a two month old puppy (that being where and when he was found by animal control).
