What is Supermutt?

Supermutt refers to a portion of ancestry that is from significantly far back in their family tree and therefore can not be as confidently identified as more recently inherited breed(s)

Our ancestry algorithm works by finding long identical segments of DNA between your dog and the purebred dogs in our reference dataset. These long identical stretches of DNA are more likely to reflect recent ancestry, whereas shorter segments reflect more distant ancestry.

Many dogs descend from other dogs that were themselves mixed breed. The further in the past, your dog has purebred ancestors, the smaller the identical DNA segments matching our reference dataset are. 
In some cases, the best matches to our reference dataset are so small (reflecting very distant ancestry) that they can no longer be as confidently assigned to any one particular breed. Instead, these are assigned to the "Supermutt" percentage.

You can see which breeds are most likely to be distant ancestors within the “Supermutt Analysis” on the “Breed and Ancestry” tab. 

Have questions? Your MyEmbark account includes information about your dog's sample status, your dog's results, and many other helpful resources. Log in to your account here!