Embark Veterinary Reviews 156

Literally the worst customer service I've ever encountered. Cannot believe this company still exists after the unbelievable experience I had trying to buy one of their products. Needless to say I won't be buying anything from them, now or ever.

I wish I could give zero stars. I purchased an age kit to help me learn more about my adopted dog. The birthday they provided to me was AFTER he was adopted, which is clearly physically impossible.

I also have vet records of his first visit, showing he was a fully grown adult when I adopted him, which means that even their claim that his estimated birthday would be within one year of the date they provided is inaccurate.

I requested a refund and was told they do not provide refunds for “scientifically sound work”. So, telling me my dog was born after I adopted him is scientifically sound work?

This company is a total scam that capitalizes on the attempt to manipulate pet parents who love their adopted rescues and want to learn more about them. Absolutely disgusting business practices.

Now I am attempting to dispute the charge with my credit card company as they refused to refund me. I would stay far away from this company.

Totally bogus results, save your money !

This is an absolute scam.
My dog’s result came back as village dog. I know that my dog has a beagle cross.
This seems like a very big bag to put everything and call it legit. The health test is also a sham, the results were extremely vague and didn’t make a connection to the extensive form you are asked to answer when activating a kit.
What an absolute waste of money and a terrible experience, since EmbarkVet keeps hipping your expectations with marketing and their update emails.

I thought it'd be worth investing in an Age Test kit from Embark to learn my rescue dog's approximate birthday, but it was a complete waste of money after waiting 2 months to receive impossible results. Embark's results determined that my dog is only 7 months old and that she was born AFTER I adopted her. My dog was NOT a puppy when I adopted her; our vet confirmed she was already a young adult. The results I received are useless and Embark's customer service was not helpful at all. I regret not listening to similar reviews about the Age Test and am now questioning the accuracy of the Breed Test results that I received from Embark. I certainly will not be recommending Embark's products to anyone/will advise against it.

I took multiple DNA tests for my dog. His father is known to be a German Shepherd. But the results from Embark are different and they say it's a 'village dog' while he actually is a German Shepherd, jack Russel, husky and some other breeds - mix. They still stand with their results and that's fine but I totally wasted my money on this one. Orivet genetic pet care is much better! And the people who have siblings from my dog also tested their dog and they all got the same results. I do want to mention that the costumer support from Embark is really good. They do give you a quick answer so thank you for that.

Embark has nothing updated. Their website is horrible. It is so challenging to withdraw EAP their online request denies and if try to call after waiting for hours call drops. They need to improve there services. Very disappointing!!

Much like a lot of the reviews here (which I wish I read in advance), this is a bit of a scam. 100% village dog and most common other dogs include "village dogs". A reverse image search on Google would probably give you a better result

We finally got our dog's age test back after a very long wait. And.... drum roll... it turns out we adopted her when she was still a fetus! Well done embark [insert hand clapping here]. Test result: apparently, our dog is 6 years and 3 months old. Turns out, we actually adopted her almost exactly 6 years and 3 months ago, and at that time she was not only fully grown, but she had already had puppies!

Sooo.... this test isn't just off by a few days or weeks... No, it's a total SCAM.

I got my baby girl Gertie during the pandemic. We were told she was a schnoodle mix when we bought her, but just couldn't be sure. She seemed to be all Shnauzer and no Poodle from her looks so we were skeptical!

Doing the Embark test was super easy, it took about 2 weeks to get results, and it turned out she was all schnoodle! I'm giving these to all of my family this year for Christmas!

Don’t waste you time and money. They give a prepaid label to return the swab back to them that doesn’t work (they use recycled tracking numbers). My package got lost and they took zero responsibility for giving a faulty label.

I had to pay for them to then ship me a replacement swab, that showed up with a return label that was AGAIN defective and not eligible to ship back to them from Canada (USA only even though I told them multiple times I’m in Canada)

They said if I paid AGAIN a third time for shipping back to them that they’d reimburse me, so I paid for it. They then refused to reimburse me as promised since I was no longer in contact with the person who gifted me the original kit, even though the extra charges were related to the replacement order that I paid for??

Their customer service is totally frustrating to deal with and don’t even read your emails, just tell you there’s nothing they will do to help. Based on my experience alone I doubt their business is reputable or trustworthy at all. I should have read these reviews first because it sounds like the results aren’t even trustworthy….

When we rehomed our dog we were told she was Akita cross northern Inuit. We assumed she had other breeds so wanted to dna test her to get results. When we did her dna test with you her results came back with no northern Inuit. This was surprising to us but understand it was a possibility that we were told the wrong breeds when we rehomed her. However just to be certain we also dna tested her and her son on another dna testing site and both her and her son have come back with northern Inuit dna in them… meaning my results from you are incorrect. I’m not happy about this considering the amount of money spent on her test with you and if we hadn’t decided to retest her and her pup we would never of known that she did in fact have northern Inuit in her.

They then came back to us saying northern Inuit isn’t in the list of dogs they test for? 350 + breeds even COYOTES?! But not northern Inuit… even so, they gave me results where the percentages added up to 100% meaning there was no other possible breed missing! Which isn’t true as northern Inuit was missing.

When we asked for a refund as we didn’t receive the service we paid for they then stopped replying to any emails and ignored any further emails despite us trying to contact them multiple times. Disgusting customer service

I had my rescue pup's DNA tested a few years ago, when I first got her. I was very happy with the results.
I retested her DNA now, just to confirm the company's trustworthiness and they came up with COMPLETELY different results. They didn't even find her in the system (normally, they're supposed to show you with which dogs in the system your dog shares some DNA so technically, they should have noticed that they had already tested her DNA).
We wrote an email complaining but they backtracked like crazy and what they said didn't even make any sense. They said that both the results from 2019 and the ones from today are correct, but the results blatantly contradict one another (the first time, it said she was 50% purebred Brittany and the second time, it said that she shared 0% of ANY purebreed DNA, aka she's a "village dog"). So either it's one or the other, but she can't have no purebred blood, but also have 50% purebred blood.
Also, at the same time that we got her DNA retested, we also tested the DNA of our new rescue pup and they also just came back with "village dog" as a result. That's not a breed...
And Embark's comment on that was that only 1% of all the dogs they've tested are village dogs so that's super neat. Sure, less than 1%, but both dogs I own are village dogs? How convenient. 🙄
I'm disappointed to say the least.
So please please please save your money and don't buy this nonsense.
Just love your dog and give them a good, long, happy life ❤️

We adopted a rescue dog (named Loco) that is 12 inches tall at the shoulder and approximately 23 inches long from the tip of his nose to the tip of his tail. He weighs 13 lbs. He was identified as a long-haired chihuahua mix by the agency we adopted him from, and because of his size being essentially double that of a full-blooded chihuahua, we wanted to find out what the mix was. We were willing to try a DNA-based breed identification from Wisdom Panel, Embark, Accu-metrics, or DNA My Dog. We selected Embark Veterinary and sent his DNA sample in for analysis.

Embark Veterinary conclusion was... SURPRISE! Embark Veterinary claims to have identified Loco as a 100% purebred Maltese. Loco has NO characteristics of a Maltese but has all of the characteristics of a Long haired Chihuahua except for size. His size is essentially double that of a full-blooded chihuahua and much bigger than a Maltese. We understand that visual ID is not infallible, however he really looks nothing like a Maltese dog including color!

We let Embark Veterinary know what happened in case there is somewhere a 100% Maltese Embark Veterinary customer out there with a DNA test report advising a Chihuahua / Corgi mix or the like. Embark Veterinary responded that 'many single-breed dogs do range far outside the breed standard for appearance' and 'Maltese typically have a trait called furnishings which gives them a furry face and curlier fur. Loco does not appear to have this trait which is likely why he looks so different from the standard Maltese.'

Disappointed, we requested a re-test or refund. Embark Veterinary did not respond to the refund request though they said they reviewed the test results to be sure. Subsequent research located a CBC investigation into dog DNA breed ID service companies. This article is online and can be located with a search for: CBC dog DNA. Until these companies' processes are validated and perhaps even regulated, a customer can receive a result with no guarantee of accuracy.

Our recommendation: Don't waste your money.

We toke the DNA for fun and the result was a mix of four breeds. Three of the breeds did I more or less expect but the seven percent Rottweiler was a surprise, but we can absolutely see it in her body shape.

They did not clearly say that international shipping was not free to return the kit. They DO NOT provide a return label if you live outside of the US as they only provide a USPS label. If you don’t live in the us plan another expense on top of that already expensive kit.

I called this company and told them I have a German Shepherd mix dog I know has a recent ancestor that was 85% pure Timber Wolf and just want to know what percentage Timber Wolf is in his DNA. I asked if it can identify to me how much TIMBER WOLF is in him. I told them I want the percentage of Timber wolf genes are specifically identified and the CS I spoke to guaranteed me they can would identify that information as Timber Wolf DNA.

This is the result they gave me!

Timber
Mixed Breed
69.1% German Shepherd Dog
20.1% Siberian Husky
10.8% Supermutt
EMBARK SUPERMUTT ANALYSIS
What's in that Supermutt? There may be small amounts of DNA from these distant ancestors:
• Collie
• Belgian Sheepdog
• Alaskan Malamute

I know for a fact since this dog came from my family’s breeding over years that there is no collie, Belgian Sheepdog, or Alaskan Malamute in his line and they didn’t identify any of his make up as Timber Wolf. One look at him and you can tell he has Timberwolf in his background.

So I complained and asked for a refund multiple times and never got any response. Not even an explanation.

Obviously they lied to me just to get me to spend my money. I don’t even care if some or any of the results are accurate, they lied when they told me the test would definitely identify presence of Timberwolf DNA. I made it very clear that was all I was interested in and they lied. I wish I had read these actual customer reviews before getting played. They obviously are charlatans peddling test information that most people can never verify. All they care about is collecting an exhorbinant fee no matter what promise they need to give.

Given what they did to me how or why would you care to trust anything they say?

Awful customer service - results were inaccurate. Got a second test which came back completely different yet they refused to refund me for the first because it was ‘scientifically sound’ work. Use Wisdom panel - cheaper & more accurate in my experience.

The biggest waste of $109. I feel like I got robbed. I assume a DNA test will tell what combinations of what breeds my American bully has a mix of and which are higher than others. Nope. 100% American bully is all they say. And I've seen the other 100% American bullys and they don't look the part mostly. What a scam. I hope there is a class action I can join soon.

Really not worth the money if you have any sort of rescue dog from the streets. This is better for testing pure breeds or North American mixes (I'm assuming - don't know how accurate that would be either though!). The results just come back as "100% village dog". Waste of money.