[pstinard]

Jen emailed me the link to Minnie's test results and asked me to post them with personally identifiable information (full name and address, etc.) removed, and here are the first 4 pages. The last two pages will follow in a separate post. Because the only breed detected in Minnie's DNA was Yorkshire Terrier, they did a FREE purebred test (thanks MARS!). Minnie does indeed test as a purebred Yorkshire Terrier. That said, she does fall on the edges of the Yorkie group in the PCA analysis (the two pages that will be in my next post). In other words, Minnie doesn't fall in the middle of the group of typical Yorkies, but doesn't fall completely outside the group either. I'm sure that the other Yorkies in the MARS database conform reasonably well to breed standards (I sent an email to MARS asking how they chose the Yorkies they use as a DNA standard in their database, but they haven't replied yet). My conclusion is that Minnie's unusual appearance is due to a few single gene mutations that were either carried by her parents (most likely), or arose spontaneously (less likely, but still possible). If anyone has questions, please ask! Jen, I recommend that you send an email to the MARS Lab's customer service along with a photo of Minnie and ask for their explanation of Minnie's appearance as well.