Dingo West
132 Dingo Wests in the atlas. Every number on this page has a source.
132 Dingo Wests in the Sniff Atlas. Population-genetic snapshot, Mendelian carrier frequencies from Donner 2023, and the data substrate's release version, sample sizes, and evidence tier on every claim.
In the atlas, the Dingo West clusters consistently as Dingo West (100% of the 132 dogs here). Genetic diversity is low (mean heterozygosity 0.1363), suggesting a tightly-related local population. At the trait loci, RSPO2 runs lower than average (6% here vs 55%); STC2 runs lower than average (40% here vs 74%). This is a densely populated region, many genetically similar dogs are sampled.
Ranks 1 of 107 on the bottleneck severity scale, among the most genetically contracted breeds in the atlas. Mean heterozygosity is 0.136, low even for a closed-stud breed. High breed predictability score (3.52), individual dogs of this breed reliably cluster together genetically.
Closest genetic neighbors in the atlas: Dingo Captive, Dingo South, Dingo East, Dingo Bigdesert, and Dingo Hybrid.
What the genome says about Dingo West
Computed from the 18,477 research dogs in the Atlas.
- Dingo Captive3.56
- Dingo South6.14
- Dingo East6.44
- Dingo Bigdesert6.53
- Dingo Hybrid26.24
Frequency of the alternate allele in this breed at each locus's representative SNP.
| IGF1 | – |
| HMGA2 | – |
| SMAD2 | – |
| LCORL | 96% |
| STC2 | 41% |
| ADAMTS17 | – |
| FGF4·CFA18 | 99% |
| FGF4·CFA12 | – |
| RSPO2 | 7% |
| FGF5 | – |
| KRT71 | – |
| MC1R | – |
| MSRB3 | 100% |
| BMP3 | 100% |
| SMOC2 | – |
What does the genome say about how a Dingo West looks?
Dingo Wests look the way they do because of a small set of fixed and near-fixed morphology genes that, taken together, define the visible breed. Each translation below pairs the gene with the trait an owner actually sees, the breed's allele frequency at that locus, and a one-clause causal phrase.
Size and build
IGF1 is at 0% for the small-body allele, leaving the breed firmly in the larger end of the dog body-size spectrum.
HMGA2 is at 0%, leaving most of the size signal to other loci in the panel.
SMAD2 is at 0%, leaving the height signal mostly to other size genes.
LCORL is near-fixed at 96%, the NCAPG/LCORL height locus that is one of the strongest single contributors to canine body size.
STC2 sits at 41%.
ADAMTS17 is at 0%, the lower-frequency allele in this breed.
Leg length
The FGF4 retrogene on chromosome 18 is near-fixed in this breed at 99%. This is the leg-length variant. The breed is fully committed to the long-legged form rather than the short-legged Corgi-and-Dachshund body plan.
The FGF4 retrogene on chromosome 12 is at 0%, leaving most of this breed clear of the chondrodystrophic intervertebral disc disease risk.
Coat type, length, and color
RSPO2 is at 7% for the furnishings allele. The breed does not carry the eyebrows-and-mustache pattern of Wheatens, Schnauzers, or wire-haired terriers.
FGF5 is at 0% for the long-coat variant, which keeps the breed in the short-coated form.
KRT71 is at 0% for the wavy/curly variant, leaving the breed's coat straight.
MC1R is at 0% at the representative SNP, leaving the breed in the black-to-brown coat range under the dominant E allele.
Ears
MSRB3 is at 100% for the drop-ear allele, the genetic basis of the breed's signature dropped ear set.
Skull shape
BMP3 is at 100%, contributing to the breed's brachycephalic skull shape.
SMOC2 is at 0%, leaving the breed in the long-headed dolichocephalic form.
Where every number on this page came from.
This page draws on three primary data sources. Carrier frequencies for the Mendelian section come from Donner et al. 2023 (CC-BY-4.0). We grade these data at evidence Limited because the cohort is a direct-to-consumer ascertainment, which biases toward owners who chose to test their dogs. The panel also uses tag-SNP proxies for some variants rather than direct causal-variant assays. Limited is a study-design grade, not a quality grade: the Donner cohort is the largest open canine-genotype dataset in existence and we are grateful for it. We rate the confounding MEDIUM.
Population-genetic dimensions (heterozygosity, intra-breed PCA distance, nearest neighbors, trait-locus frequencies) come from CanVAS (Brundage 2026), harmonized through the Sniff Atlas. The exact release date and verification commit are pinned at the bottom of the page so a researcher can trace a number back to a specific snapshot. The disease-gene-variant graph comes from OMIA (Online Mendelian Inheritance in Animals; Nicholas, Tammen, and the Sydney Informatics Hub at the Sydney School of Veterinary Science, The University of Sydney; retrieved April 2026, DOI 10.25910/2AMR-PV70).
What this page does not yet have. Inheritance modes and per-disease penetrance evidence from Donner 2023 are now in the structured data for every variant the panel covers. Mondo, OMIM, Ensembl, and HGNC cross-references on gene pages remain pending — they arrive in December 2026 alongside the imputed 9.67M-variant CanVAS dataset via the OMIA SQL dump absorption. Until then, gene IDs carry NCBI Gene and OMIA phene URLs only; the wider human-homolog and disease-ontology cross-reference set fills in with that release.
How to cite this page. The computed dimensions on this page are derived from the open Sniff Atlas v1.0.1 (Gehring 2026, doi:10.5281/zenodo.20566358, CC-BY 4.0). Full citation formats including BibTeX, RIS, and CITATION.cff at sniff.world/cite.
We have 132 dingo wests. We do not have yours.
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- Donner J, Anderson H, Davison S, et al. (2023). Frequency and distribution of 152 genetic disease variants in over 1,000,000 mixed-breed and purebred dogs. PLOS Genetics 19(2):e1010651. doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.1010651
- Brundage J, et al. (2026). CanVAS: a harmonized canine variant atlas. bioRxiv. doi:10.64898/2026.04.13.718238
- Nicholas, F.W., Tammen, I., & Sydney Informatics Hub. (2026). Online Mendelian Inheritance in Animals (OMIA) [dataset]. The University of Sydney. https://omia.org. doi:10.25910/2AMR-PV70 (retrieved April 2026).