But even the biggest mini schnauzer snobs, with their luxuriant locks and fancy neckwear, have never confused him with a Pomeranian.

Yet the yap of a yellow dog's genes echo down the ancestral tree of our decidedly beardy little canine, according to the best reckoning of a $150 DNA saliva test.

There's apparently a distant dash of Australian shepherd in there too. Which certainly runs contrary to Colin's ability to, well, run.

So between the test and the dog, had we been sold a pup? And which one?

This is the fraught world of DNA dog testing: a place frequented by vets, breeders, and the occasional doting pet owner whose pooch has everything, including identity issues. Dog genetics might be cheaper and more accessible than ever before, but methods for breed identification – and their levels of success – can vary.

Colin's brush with gene science was just that – a simple cheek swab via Genetic Technologies' Animal Network "BITSA" test mailed back to the lab. Some other services use a blood sample collected and sent off by a vet.

Then there are the phantom poopers: dogs that recklessly volunteer samples all over public lawns and footpaths. These results have been of particular interest to councils.

"We get a lot of, heaps of them ... the dog poo one," says George Sofronidis, the managing director of Orivet Genetic Pet Care. "Does my head in."

Sofronidis, a molecular biologist by training, has successfully lifted a DNA profile from a saliva sample on a stolen rottweiler's lead. He can extract DNA from hair. Those suspecting foul play after the death of a dog often head his way too.

"They argue that 'I'm looking at these ashes, and they just don't look like the ashes of my dog'," says Sofronidis, who admits to finding the cremated to be beyond the help of science.

Sofronidis instead advocates the benefits of mixed-breed DNA tests as a way of understanding any breed-specific health issues or behaviours. He is less interested in settling the "barbecue bet", or the burning question in off-leash areas everywhere: what kind of dog is that?

"Why is it we always have to put a tag as to what breed they are?" Sofronidis says. "Twenty years ago people were happy just to go 'mongrel'."

Well, "you can't sit down and say, 'Tell me about your parents,'" says veterinarian Anne Fawcett from Sydney Animal Hospitals Inner West. "And if you love someone, you want to know everything about them."

Fawcett found out her rescue dog Phil, long suspected to be a Maltese-chihuahua, could drop the hyphen after his blood test results came back. "No chihuahua inside him, apparently," she says.

Others at Fawcett's clinic who had similarly turned to genetics to explore man's best friendship had uncovered some "interesting size differentials" among their dog's forebears. Although every test has its limitations, she adds. "One wonders how a Pomeranian makes love to a German shepherd."

With great deal of determination and innovation, responds Claire Wade, an animal geneticist at the University of Sydney.

However, the success of a breed identity test largely depends on the size of a company's library. Pieces of DNA, or "markers", collected from dog's 38 chromosomes are compared to a database of sample breed signatures to come up with a match.

"Now that sounds all well and good if breeds were really independent of one another, but they're actually not," Wade says.

Breeds that come out of Europe share significant pieces of their DNA, for instance. "So you can't tell for sure whether that's a basset marker or if that's a boxer one," she says.

Using lots of different markers can help whittle down the likely results, but Wade warns this predictive method is still not foolproof – particularly with mixed-breed dogs.

"How are you ever going to know they're wrong, right?"

It never hurts to ask. Genetic Technologies' Animal Network said it "cannot disclose our testing procedures" following Colin's results, which failed to determine his primary breed. Pomeranian was detected in "secondary" amounts.

But the company did point out what Colin's owner missed - its website's claim to identify "95 per cent of the dog population" was accompanied by a list of 62 breeds, which did not include any kind of schnauzer. "As we do not have a breed signature for miniature schnauzers, we are unable to detect it," the company said.

Sofronidis says his "scientifically validated" test covers more than 245 breeds and could have detected whether Colin contained schnauzer. But even without the DNA results to support it, we're happy to say he is one.

Genetics can't tell you everything about the relationship between people and their pets, after all. Sofronidis reckons you can work out plenty from a person's phone manner though.

"We're always able to work out if they're the breeder of a Staffy or cattle dog or labrador or whatever based on the way they communicate on the phone," he says. "We're pretty good at it."