So this wonderful dog of mine has had me puzzled about what breeds he actually is, so I sent off to have him DNA tested.
He is from Macedonia and they thought at the rescue that he has part Sarplaninac or a Yugaslarvian Shepheard, however, looking at him I certainly thought he had some Labrador and Malamute/Husky in there.
I thought this because the shape of his nose is very labrador and so is his temperament, the Malamute/Husky is because his coat is so soft and the widow's peak mark on his head. However, after analysing Husky vs Malamute I decided he must be Malamute due to the size of his head and the colour pattern on his coat is this brown Wolf Sable coat. Only Malamutes, not Huskys come in the brownish colours that Lino has.
One aspect of his appearance I couldn't put my finger on was his leg flares or feathers, those lovely bits of furr which drag mud everywhere.
Anyway onto the results breakdown
Yay! My guesses were correct he is part Lab and Malamute!
However, I am shocked to see that he that much labrador, I thought maybe 5%, not his main breed.
Also, The Golden Retriever would explain his leg feathers.
Lino's family tree is very interesting as well. It appears as if one parental line is relatively pure following the labrador side, where has the other parent is right heinz57 mix of Malamute, Samoyed,German Shepherd. So maybe someones pet labrador ended up having a family with a street dog Malamute/husky mix? I say this because has was abandoned as young 8-week old puppy outside the shelter.
In addition, it appears that his closest relatives which is matched via DNA are purebred labradors. I won't share their information as I haven't contacted them to ask if I can.
Maternal Lineage
This is one of the most common maternal lineages they see in western dogs.
Paternal Lineage
According to the research, his father's line is rather rare.
"C is a relatively rare paternal lineage. The dog populations which bear C are a disparate bunch. The Akita and Shiba Inu are Japanese breeds, the former of which seems to have roots in the Jomon population of hunter-gatherers which were present in the islands of Japan before the ancestors of the modern Japanese arrived. The New Guinea Singing Dog, Samoyed, and Alaska Malamute are all disparate breeds that also represent the C lineage. One village dog from Peru also bore this lineage. This wide distribution and diversity suggest C is not a recently expanded lineage. It likely represents a canid lineage which diversified sometime around the Last Glacial Maximum, when the dogs of Siberia and Oceania split off and went their separate ways."