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A black-and-white photo of a man dressed in warm furs crouching down next to Balto, a dog that appears to be a dark-furred husky type dog. Behind them is a brick building.

Balto's genome reveals famed sledge dog was a mutt

27 April 2023

Balto had a varied ancestry, sharing genes with Siberian huskies, Greenland sledge dogs, Vietnamese village dogs and Tibetan mastiffs

Labrador dogs gene edited and cloned to prevent inherited hip disease

3 August 2022

CRISPR gene editing has been used to try to prevent a genetic disorder in dogs for the first time, in this case a common condition called hip dysplasia

Gene-edited dogs created from cloned skin cells for the first time

22 July 2022

New gene-editing approach could be used to eliminate disease-causing mutations from pedigree dog breeds or even from clones of individual dogs

'Dogor', an 18,000 year-old wolf puppy from Yakutia which was included in the study

Dogs are descended from two populations of ancient wolves

29 June 2022

Modern dogs have ancestry from wolves in Asia and Europe, according to a study analysing DNA from 72 ancient wolves going back 100,000 years

Dogs have two gene mutations that explain why they are friendly

9 June 2022

A genetic and behavioural study has identified two mutations in a gene called melanocortin 2 that help explain why dogs are so social to humans

Australian labradoodle is more poodle than Labrador, according to DNA

10 September 2020

The Australian labradoodle is a cross between a Labrador and a poodle, but after 30 years of breeding it’s the poodle DNA that dominates the labradoodle genome

Squished faces aren’t the only cause of bulldog breathing difficulties

16 May 2019

A gene mutation present in English and French bulldogs may be partly responsible for their breathing problems

Puppies treated with CRISPR show improvement from muscular dystrophy

30 August 2018

Gene editing has improved muscle function in dogs that have the mutation that causes Duchenne muscular dystrophy in people, and could lead to new treatments

The first Americans had pet dogs 1000 years earlier than thought

18 June 2018

There were domestic dogs in North America 10,200 years ago, according to a re-examination of an ancient dog skeleton that looks like a small English setter