The second member of the Venter household to make it into the history books is the black poodle Shadow, whose draft genome was published in Science on 26 September 2003.

The draft is very rough — there are millions of gaps in the 2.4-billion-unit genome — but it is good enough to draw certain conclusions about the nature of dogginess (The New York Times), and the difference between the 400 or so dog breeds, from St Bernards to pugs (The Daily Telegraph).

The DNA blueprint will enhance our understanding of the genes that cause canine disorders and their human counterparts, as well as highlighting the genetic origins of traits such as aggression and loyalty. It will also allow breeders to select dogs with the healthiest genetic profiles (The Times).

So, what have we learned from the sequence so far? Although the human sequence is larger than that of the dog, humans share about three-quarters of their genes with dogs, and the two are more similar to one another than either is to the mouse (The Times).

Another goal of the project was to see how much could be learned from a small DNA-sequencing effort. Although Venter's team decoded the poodle genome just one-and-a-half times instead of the usual eight or more, the sparse coverage is “surprisingly good” (The New York Times).

So, the stage is set for understanding the genes that are involved in determining the way border collies chase around herding sheep and labradors feel compelled to fetch an object (The Times).

Meanwhile, researchers at the Whitehead Institute, Massachusetts, are busily decoding the genome — the complete one this time — of another breed, that of a boxer called Tasha (The New York Times).