What is Benji's breed?

When we first adopted Benji from Waggytail Rescue, he was listed as a Westie mix. Which is believable because he does have a lot of similarities to a Westie, the light hair color, pointed ears, long hair. Still, out of curiosity, I wanted to know exactly what he was made of and any genetic history that might be helpful to know. To do so, I decided to look into dog DNA tests. I ended up finding Embark Vet DNA tests. Now note, we did buy this test ourselves and this is not sponsored. They did give us a referral link which will get you $50 off your test if you buy one (and it gives us $10 to support Benji's Guide!).

So on to the meat! What is Benji?

After swabbing Benji's mouth and sending it off, a few weeks later we got his results.

We were slightly surprised by some of the results, but others made perfect sense. The first time Benji visited the vet, they told us they didn't think he was a Westie but a Schnauzer, and they were right! The main three pieces make perfect sense to us. His body looks totally Schnauzer, his ears are definitely from his Yorkie side, and his coloring from the Maltese. The only part that doesn't really show up in him is the Miniature Pinscher, but I recently learned Pinscher translates to Terrier, so it just adds to his spunky personality, I guess!

In addition to finding out what breeds he was, the test also shows genetic relatives and any health risks he might have. Benji showed up with two potential health traits to look out for, one that he could potentially pass on to offspring, so we don't have to worry about that one as he is neutered, and one that could potentially make a lab result higher than expected, so we sent that over to our vet and know to be on the lookout if we ever get that test done.

Benji's Relatives:

As for relatives, every dog that has showed up so far has been 100% Miniature Schnauzer, which makes sense seeing as that one of Benji's parents was a full Miniature Schnauzer, but we were hoping to find some dogs from his other side, or maybe even a brother or sister! Hopefully one day someone with a dog that looks like Benji gets their DNA done too and we can find a close relative!

Overall, we thought this was an awesome investment and worth it if you are wondering what your adopted mixed breed dog is made up of! I have seen other people's reviews where they got multiple tests done from other companies and get slightly different results, so just note that these results might not be 100% accurate but they are still pretty close!

So if you're interested, use our referral link to get your $50 off now!

Also check out Benji’s Embark profile here.