We think it’s a Labrador or Catahoula or….?

The phone rings. Someone says, “Hi! What kind of dog is the brown dog that  you just posted on Facebook?”

And naturally, we respond, “We think it’s a Labrador or Catahoula or….?”

We have this conversation or at least one along the same lines over and over. In most cases, it really doesn’t matter; people are just curious. But in other circumstances, the answer can be the difference between the life and death for a dog.

A study from the Maddie’s Shelter Medicine Program at the University of Florida has shown that expert assessments are unreliable. We already knew this to be true, but findings are far reaching and affect everything from apartments to insurance companies. We know visual breed identification is unreliable at best, what can we do about it?

We take measures to try to identify dogs by methods other than breed identification. We typically agree on a couple things like calling the dog a brown dog or it’s a small dog. It’s an American Shelter Dog.

Looks can be deceiving.

What do you think? Here is the link to the DNA Survey.
https://sheltermedicine.vetmed.ufl.edu/library/research-studies/current-studies/dog-breeds/dna-results/



Thank you for reading.
Shonna Harvey, Director

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