Why is my dog like this? Current DNA tests won’t explain it to you.
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I think in my dog’s case genetic tests would go a great way towards explaining his behavior or lack thereof. I suspect he is genetically at least 50% potato.
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One of the biggest problems is that using a survey instrument for behavioral traits of something like dogs is a very blunt instrument. Some of those breed traits are behavioral (such as German Shepards have strong herding instinct) but with dogs particularly the traits are so greatly overshadowed by the environment, and are they not doing a task because they have the equivalent of dog ADHD (if there is one) and hop from task to task, for instance if you use your German Shepard for herding well then it's going to hone that, and an owner will note high levels, but the fact that it might run around the grand kids playing in the back yard seeming to herd them, is also how it may be trying to join in to the humans' game play not quite understanding the rules. In humans we have language which lets us understand a lot more about behavior, from the subject, here the problem is doing or not doing the behavior is for any number of reasons. Also dogs like people need to be taught by their elders. Try taking a dog with "high herding instinct" and put them in a paddock and sure they'll run around the sheep, but not usefully, now when they are young put them with an experienced herding dog for 3-6 months and now they can suddenly effectively herd.
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Albino_Boo
Ars Praefectus
My dog is behaves like she does because she is spoiled rotten. I wouldn't have any other way
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Would we expect to find a single gene marker for greedy people? Altrusistic? Jokester? Loner?
Eye colour... sure.
Behaviour? No way. Mood alone in an existing individual derives from a storm of hormones and chemicals. There's no way there are single genes to lock in dog behaviour. Yes, different breeds with different packages can be observed to have certain traits, but you're not going to find just one.
Eye colour... sure.
Behaviour? No way. Mood alone in an existing individual derives from a storm of hormones and chemicals. There's no way there are single genes to lock in dog behaviour. Yes, different breeds with different packages can be observed to have certain traits, but you're not going to find just one.
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What about those of us whose eye color has changed a couple of times over the years? Does this happen in dogs too?
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Exactly. Dogs have about 20,000 genes. That's not a lot of blueprint to run a dog with each gene only doing one thing. Humans are in the same spot. Really, outside of bacteria the 1 gene: 1 function idea really doesn't work well.
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Dog genomics is light years behind humans. Yeah, 151 is way too small a number, but there aren't enough dog genomes to get to the level of SNPs you have in humans.
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The 151 SNPs are just the ones associated (with wildly varying evidence) with behavioral traits.
Among the hundreds of thousands that may be tested in human direct-to-consumer genetic testing, only a tiny fraction are associated with behavioral traits (or health outcomes). The vast majority of those SNPs are functionally neutral and not even linked to any known, substantial trait. Those neutral SNPs can be used for inferring ancestry though.
This is a nice reminder that all direct-to-consumer genetic testing is for entertainment purposes only. You send your sample and money and you get a pretty report with some personal trivia you can share at your next Christmas gathering. Any information that the test provider claims is linked with health outcomes should be actually confirmed by clinical genetic testing and discussed with a genetic counselor.
(Source: I work in clinical genetic testing, and have fielded requests like "omg my 23andme test told me I have [incoherent babble about genetic disorder], why doesn't your clinically validated test say the same thing!?")
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What's the state of wolf genomics for comparison purposes?
The notable plasticity of dogs, in a relatively short period of time, is quite interesting; but I'm always intrigued by just how successful the, seemingly absurd, "I'm going to genetically engineer this wolf to produce unconditional love" program was.
The notable plasticity of dogs, in a relatively short period of time, is quite interesting; but I'm always intrigued by just how successful the, seemingly absurd, "I'm going to genetically engineer this wolf to produce unconditional love" program was.
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In certain areas of pop-sci, people do expect that. They send in for 23 & Me or whatever genetic testing and get very excited when they get back a report which claims that their genetics indicates an X% probability for this behavioral trait and Y% for that. It all comes off as a bit eugenics-y.
It almost feels like we as humans have this deep-set default belief that behavior must be genetic, and so trying to convince people otherwise is rolling a rock up a hill. Maybe it's genetic...
(Just kidding. If I had to guess, there are two main factors: 1) Saying behaviors are genetic is an "easy", science-flavored answer that appears to abrogate personal responsibility of the individual or the need for the community to invest in support, and 2) because there is money in convincing people to buy "genetic reports")
edit: clarity
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I have a 60+ lb. goldador (The Universal Flow, or Flow for short) that stuffs herself into the bottom level of a cat tower because she was raised by our cats. No genetics involved there. Just nurture.
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We have two Old English Sheepdogs that are half brothers but are more different from each other than the other 5 (all unrelated) we have had since 1981. Just one data point but there its is.
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I thought that a lot of behavior patterns in my old dog were specific to her. Turns out, they were specific to the breed and watching a few youtube videos of that breed made that very clear.
I'm guessing the biggest problem is expecting behavior/attitude to be tied to a single gene or that such things add linearly with a bunch of "adjust this attitude up such a way" genes. The second problem is trying to get dog owners getting tested to accurately describe their dog to get the data needed for these results.
I'm guessing the biggest problem is expecting behavior/attitude to be tied to a single gene or that such things add linearly with a bunch of "adjust this attitude up such a way" genes. The second problem is trying to get dog owners getting tested to accurately describe their dog to get the data needed for these results.
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I hear you, but I have an refinement to the theory: marketing.
These services have marketing that excites people to find out they're related to someone who did something "great". The implication is that such a relationship has meaning, that is what people are interested in.
If the marketing was solely "find out what diseases you should be checking for", far fewer people would get involved. The "find out who your ancestors were" aspect is trivia at best, but "normal" people want to believe there's "greatness" in them, and will spend money on anything that might show a link.
(A large subset of) people are insecure, and these services prey upon that.
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Congratulations, you've described the typical greyhound... and a lot of people's dogs-as-housepets.
(Seriously, if you're dying of boredom driving from Kansas City to Denver, stop in Abilene and visit the "Greyhound Hall of Fame". They have (or had when we visited there) a number of retired racing dogs living there. They love the attention of the visitors and the occasional chance to cut loose and run like they used to... so much so that the staff only let them off their leash in a large, open and completely fenced areas. Otherwise? Dedicated couch potatoes. And we've heard the same description from owners of greyhound rescue dogs.)
It may also describe the typical whippet, Italian Greyhound and other sight hounds, but I have had less experience with those breeds.
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The issue here is that most people don't look into how genes actually express. It's exceptionally synergistic with a multitude of factors that come into play involving nutrition, environment, health (both physical and mental) AND the presence or absence of other genes which determines what genes express and how they express. Some are more deterministic than others, but they're not all on the same level of reliability. It's ALL probability, with some just being much more likely than others to express in a reliable way, depending on that multitude of other factors.
So, if someone claims that gene X WILL cause effect/trait Y, they're bullshitting you with that certainty. At BEST one can truthfully say one is "predisposed" to a trait based on the presence of a gene, but that "multitude of other factors" will decide if that trait expresses and often how as well.
With a critter as genetically diverse as a "dog" in so many ways, there's no telling what mixed bag of nuts you're going to end up with - other than it will be mostly furry, probably have four legs, might have a tail, and will probably drool at some point.
So, if someone claims that gene X WILL cause effect/trait Y, they're bullshitting you with that certainty. At BEST one can truthfully say one is "predisposed" to a trait based on the presence of a gene, but that "multitude of other factors" will decide if that trait expresses and often how as well.
With a critter as genetically diverse as a "dog" in so many ways, there's no telling what mixed bag of nuts you're going to end up with - other than it will be mostly furry, probably have four legs, might have a tail, and will probably drool at some point.
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My dog would chime in but she's too busy snoring next to me on the sofa with her head on a pillow and a blanket wrapped around her.
Has anyone tracked a gene in humans for spoiling pets rotten?
Has anyone tracked a gene in humans for spoiling pets rotten?
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I've been to a conference by (essentially) a dog psychiatrist a few years ago, she was explaining a study that found out that a dog's breed corresponds to around 10% of the behavior, on average.
That figure is a lot higher for work dogs than for companion dogs, because the former have been selected and trained to do a task for a very long time. We've had sledge dogs (chukotka) for at least 2500 years, and for centuries we've had hounds, retrievers, shepherds, or guard dogs.
Dogs as companions are a 200-year-old thing, less than that in large parts of the world. We just haven't had enough time / discipline to breed dogs that are excellent companions.
We also know dogs can evolve based or education and/or trauma. The weakest dog in a litter, the one who ends up with the scraps, is more likely to protect its food. A dog that was beaten by humans might need a long time for a trusting relationship to appear - and might defend itself should a stranger try to pet it.
On top of all that, there's a bit of a Simpson's paradox - people will pick a breed that they think matches their needs then train the dog that way, so we end up will lots of golden retrievers taught to interact with kids, and lots of German shepherds taught to bark at strangers - plus a bit of confirmation bias (a golden that bites is a quickly-forgotten anomaly, unlike a pitbull that bites which will make local news for a week).
I believe it was this study https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abk0639
Edit: hey several of the authors participated in both this study and the one covered in the article.
That figure is a lot higher for work dogs than for companion dogs, because the former have been selected and trained to do a task for a very long time. We've had sledge dogs (chukotka) for at least 2500 years, and for centuries we've had hounds, retrievers, shepherds, or guard dogs.
Dogs as companions are a 200-year-old thing, less than that in large parts of the world. We just haven't had enough time / discipline to breed dogs that are excellent companions.
We also know dogs can evolve based or education and/or trauma. The weakest dog in a litter, the one who ends up with the scraps, is more likely to protect its food. A dog that was beaten by humans might need a long time for a trusting relationship to appear - and might defend itself should a stranger try to pet it.
On top of all that, there's a bit of a Simpson's paradox - people will pick a breed that they think matches their needs then train the dog that way, so we end up will lots of golden retrievers taught to interact with kids, and lots of German shepherds taught to bark at strangers - plus a bit of confirmation bias (a golden that bites is a quickly-forgotten anomaly, unlike a pitbull that bites which will make local news for a week).
I believe it was this study https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abk0639
Edit: hey several of the authors participated in both this study and the one covered in the article.
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I suspect that "behavioral phenotype" is more a self fulfilling prophecy than a scientific tool. If you expect your pit bull mix to be dangerous and aggressive ( and especially if this is what you want), you are likely end up with an aggressive and dangerous dog.
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A mere anecdote, but we had an Australian shepherd that was the sweetest most gentle dog. We ended up using him as a therapy dog at Children's hospitals, university campuses, elementary schools and started a "paws to Read" program at the local library. We were fortunate to rescue his mom and she too, was sweet and gentle. When she passed we were able to get one of her granddaughters and the first dogs, niece hoping to get the same personality. Nope. She was all spit and vinegar and although she loved people (against (breed type"), she was aggressive toward other dogs. No way we could use here as a therapy dog. But she was somehow more endearing to us than the first two.
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My cat goes out for walks with me, chases sticks, though unlike one of my grandfathers cats, he doesn't bring them back and drop them at your feet.I have a 60+ lb. goldador (The Universal Flow, or Flow for short) that stuffs herself into the bottom level of a cat tower because she was raised by our cats. No genetics involved there. Just nurture.
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I understand how science progresses but it’s very funny that some people had life changing revelations based on their own genetic testing, then 23 and Me or whatever is like “we’ve reevaluated everything a bit and actually that 30% Uzbek ancestry was from just a variant from where all your other British Isles ancestors are from whoops”
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I think the cause is that genetic links are predispositions but how the puppy is raised has a lot more to it (it's the whole "nature vs. nurture" debate).
Labs, for example, have a genetic defect where in the general population, half of them lack the ability to feel full. Anyone who's owned a lab knows they are voracious eaters and you really cannot leave food out for them - they have a very strong food drive. Meanwhile, the disposition of labs used as service animals is close to 75% cannot feel full. This doesn't mean labs are friendly and docile, but it can lead them to be because a friendly and docile dog gets more treats. And it also leads them to be easily trainable because being obedient again, leads to more treats. So they end up friendly, docile, easy to train and willing to please simply because they get more treats that way.
Meanwhile small dogs often get away with behaviors that bigger dogs can't - a small yappy Chihuahua is much cuter overover all than a rottweiler barking at you, giving rise to the "napolean syndrome" where small dogs can bark/bite/etc and have behaviors that woud send a bigger dog to the pound. (Indeed when I had labs, they had to be trained to not bite people, but a little dog taking a nip? Cute!).
So I wouldn't be surprised if how they were raised covers a lot of the issues and many bigger dogs were trained that bad behaviors were unacceptable. It's why you can take dogs from the bully family (pitbulls, etc) and they can be exquisitely sweet family pets who won't harm a human, versus the stereotype "junkyard dog" because they were raised to be aggressive and fierce.
Labs, for example, have a genetic defect where in the general population, half of them lack the ability to feel full. Anyone who's owned a lab knows they are voracious eaters and you really cannot leave food out for them - they have a very strong food drive. Meanwhile, the disposition of labs used as service animals is close to 75% cannot feel full. This doesn't mean labs are friendly and docile, but it can lead them to be because a friendly and docile dog gets more treats. And it also leads them to be easily trainable because being obedient again, leads to more treats. So they end up friendly, docile, easy to train and willing to please simply because they get more treats that way.
Meanwhile small dogs often get away with behaviors that bigger dogs can't - a small yappy Chihuahua is much cuter overover all than a rottweiler barking at you, giving rise to the "napolean syndrome" where small dogs can bark/bite/etc and have behaviors that woud send a bigger dog to the pound. (Indeed when I had labs, they had to be trained to not bite people, but a little dog taking a nip? Cute!).
So I wouldn't be surprised if how they were raised covers a lot of the issues and many bigger dogs were trained that bad behaviors were unacceptable. It's why you can take dogs from the bully family (pitbulls, etc) and they can be exquisitely sweet family pets who won't harm a human, versus the stereotype "junkyard dog" because they were raised to be aggressive and fierce.
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While I wouldn't expect single genes to show up in dog behavior (other than some catastrophic single gene medical disorder), I would expect that purebred dogs of certain types would very reliably have certain behaviors, and that the basis for most of those behaviors is genetic. Not "dog culture". Not 100% penetrance of course, but definitely statistically significant. For instance, I have never met a pure bred Golden Retriever which didn't love everybody they met (although some will still guard, as in bark at people walking by their houses), a Labrador that didn't love to swim (although I have heard they do exist), or a Malinois that didn't appear to have both OCD and a big dose of Meth on board. If the study couldn't pick up this sort of low hanging fruit it mostly just shows deficiencies in the experiment, not "genes don't matter".
Did the study include mixed breeds? Their behavior is much harder to predict. Also breeders sometimes change their "target". For instance, when I was a kid Miniature Schnauzers were vicious little a**holes to other dogs and had to be spaced far apart when lined up at a dog show so they wouldn't attack each other. Ours routinely and idiotically charged dogs much larger than he was. In the intervening 50 years the aggressiveness seems to have been largely bred out of them. My point being that even for some purebred breeds if some breeders are selecting for behavior "A", and others for "B", lumping them together will not be helpful. For instance, "German Shepherd Dogs" might be working line, or the ones bred as show dogs, and the latter are notorious for having hip problems while the former are not. Surely there is a genetic component to that, but classifying them both as "German Shepherd" would be counter productive in determining what those genes might be.
Did the study include mixed breeds? Their behavior is much harder to predict. Also breeders sometimes change their "target". For instance, when I was a kid Miniature Schnauzers were vicious little a**holes to other dogs and had to be spaced far apart when lined up at a dog show so they wouldn't attack each other. Ours routinely and idiotically charged dogs much larger than he was. In the intervening 50 years the aggressiveness seems to have been largely bred out of them. My point being that even for some purebred breeds if some breeders are selecting for behavior "A", and others for "B", lumping them together will not be helpful. For instance, "German Shepherd Dogs" might be working line, or the ones bred as show dogs, and the latter are notorious for having hip problems while the former are not. Surely there is a genetic component to that, but classifying them both as "German Shepherd" would be counter productive in determining what those genes might be.
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When I move my pup off the couch so I can sit, he growls for a bit until he realizes it's me, then crawls on my lap.
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I was pretty liberal with my dog (very little to almost no training) and let her get ay with lot of stuff. However, I never tolerated her growling at me. She kind of a monster as a puppy, so you had to put your foot don sometimes or else she would have been a raving lunatic. I know this because I got her from a friend's dog litter, and to different people wanted to return the pups because they where so headstrong.
The same dog turned into one the best dog I ever had. Practically potty trained herself, very few things destroyed as a puppy*got along great with other people and dogs, great in the car, really smart and wouldn't hurt anyone (except the squirrel that teased her, but that as her mortal enemy).
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Are you sure is not a very weird cat?
Now more seriously if you didn't train your dog before it was two years old it is now basically untrainable, congratulations.
I always kicked my dogs from the couch from a young age, and if they miss behaved to outside the house to the backyard they went.
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There is also more than one way to try to get at genetic differences and their impact on behavior. There was a study that showed that some goldens and labradors have specific mutations in the oxytocin receptor gene that make them more interested in human contact and more responsive to human attention in response to externally-supplied doses of oxytocin. Other studies have quantified that dogs release oxytocin as they interact with humans.
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