Foxy, left, a mixed-breed with brown eyes and Sunny, a mutt with husky heritage and heterochromatic brown and blue eyes. Credit: Ramat Gan. \ Dafna Maor - Tel Aviv, Israel 
Why Israel Is Thronged With Blue-eyed Dogs
Scientists detect the genetic cause of blue eyes in huskies, a mutation in chromosome 18 now appearing in the Israeli dog population
Never mind your Neanderthal heritage, consumer genetics is all the rage among the pet set as well. Now scientists working for a doggie-DNA sequencing company have apparently discovered why huskies have blue eyes: a duplicated sequence on chromosome 18.
Science already knew about two other genetic variants associated with blue eyes in some dogs, such as Dalmatians, Border Collies, and Shetland Sheepdogs, but they didn’t apply to Siberian Huskies.
The discovery by the U.S.-based company Embark Veterinary was based on DNA tests on 6,070 dogs and people’s own testimony and photographs of what their loved ones look like. The study was published Thursday in the prestigious journal PLOS Genetics.
Why would anybody have their dog sequenced? Partly for the same reasons we test our own genomes: hoping to find out where we came from, and whether we harbor the potential for genetic illness.
"By genotyping their dogs with Embark, our customers can learn more about the ancestry of their dog: what breeds are in its ancestry if it is a mixed breed," Dr. Aaron Sams, senior scientist at Embark, told Haaretz.