Tag is a standard poodle registered with the American Kennel Club. He served as our “if you can’t get this one right, give it up” test subject. His owner is Karen James, membership services and operations director at VIN.

James submitted samples of Tag’s DNA to five test regimes: Wisdom Panel Professional, Wisdom Panel Purebred, Wisdom Panel Designer Dog, Wisdom Panel Mixed Breed and Canine Heritage. Tag was given pseudonyms and assigned to different owners (friends of James’s) so as not to tip off the laboratories. Tag went by the names Graffiti, Little Bug, Comic, Turnip and Rumblefish. Despite our efforts to disguise him, the people at Wisdom Panel noticed on successive tests that they'd analyzed Tag before, based on his DNA.

Each of the tests correctly identified a strong standard-poodle signature, although not all declared him to be a purebred poodle. When submitting the Wisdom Panel designer dog sample, James was asked on the form to identify which two breeds she wanted to confirm. She wrote “standard poodle” and “Labrador retriever.” The test rightly could not confirm that Tag had a purebred Labrador retriever parent, but the pedigree it drew for him shows a purebred Lab as a great-grandparent and a couple of mixed-breed ancestors. The mixed-breed test provided an ancestry chart that shows his mother and father as poodle plus unspecified mix.

In appearance, Tag is all-poodle. James describes him as 43 pounds and playful, faithful, easy to train, with moderately high energy. She notes that unlike the breed norm, Tag is not sensitive or alert to the people around him. He’s tolerant, if not overly social, good with children and cats and has a strong drive to retrieve and hunt.

What he is: What the tests said: Photos courtesy of the American Kennel Club

View results : Wisdom Panel professional results to vet | Wisdom Panel professional results to owner | Wisdom Panel purebred results | Wisdom Panel mixed breed results | Wisdom Panel designer results | Canine Heritage certificate