Kadi Thingvall

I got another DNA certificate in the mail today from AKC for one of my imports.

I know you can compare the certificates to determine if two dogs are the parents of a pup, but can you also compare them to see how "related" two dogs are? Statistically, although probably not very common, it would be possible for two littermates to have very few to zero alleles in common (ie mom is AB and dad is CD so pup1 is AC and pup2 is BD, yes I realize this is just one pair out of many but you can extend this out over the entire 13 provided). So would the certificates tell me that certain pups in a litter are more closely related then others? Would I be able to use the certificate to determine which pup in the litter was most closely related to a grandparent?

Would it be reasonable to expect that you could use the results from these test to try to predict outcome of future breedings?

What if I have two dogs that are cousins, will comparing their certificates tell me that they are very closely related (genetically) cousins or only barely related at all? How many alleles would you expect to see in common before you called it a close relation?

Could uniformity of a litter be predicted by using the certificates?

IE, are there really any uses for these certificates other then "yes, that's the sire/dam of my pup"?

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Kadi Thingvall
www.dantero.com
www.workingdogphotography.com