Finally there’s a use for dog drool: this spring, a new startup called Embark plans to launch a DNA testing kit for dogs that will tell owners about their canine’s ancestry, and disease risk. That’s not all the founders have in mind though; they may be aiming at human diseases by enlisting our longtime best friends.

Soon, interested pooch lovers will be able to swab their dogs’ slimy cheeks and mail in the sample. By extracting DNA from the swab, Embark’s founder says they’ll be able to trace a dog’s ancestry on a global level. The "Embark Dog DNA Test Kit" will also look for genetic variants that are associated with more than 100 diseases, and inform owners if their dog has a higher than average chance of developing one of them. The kit will also tell owners if their dog is likely to pass disease-associated mutations to a pup — which will likely be valuable information for breeders. Because of this, Embark’s founders say their product will be the most complete kit of its kind. At least, that’s the idea that Embark’s founders will be pitching today at SXSW.

For the company’s founders, the real objective will be the research they’ll be able to conduct with the DNA samples; that became clear when I spoke to two of Embark’s founders on the phone last week. They spent the first 10 minutes of the call talking about the potential of dog genetics to deliver advancements in human health. In fact, they were so enthusiastic about their future research that I had to interrupt them to steer the conversation back to the product we were supposed to discuss.

Dogs and humans "suffer from many of the same kinds of conditions," says Ryan Boyko, a computer scientist and one of the company’s co-founders. So, by studying the genetics of diseases in dogs, scientists may be able to figure out how these originate in humans. "This platform, by engaging mass numbers of dog owners, will provide us with data that will enable us to unlock the potential of the dog as a model system," Boyko says. That appears to be the real idea behind Embark. Its founders have figured out that it’s a lot easier to fund research if study participants — or their owners — pay for the privilege of taking part in a study. Cornell University School of Veterinary Medicine has already agreed to be an Embark research partner, and the company intends to conduct its own studies, under the guidance of Adam Boyko, Embark's chief science officer, a dog geneticist at Cornell University, and Ryan’s brother.

Embark isn’t the first company to develop a DNA test for dogs. DNA My Dog already offers a test that deciphers a dog’s breed composition. And Mars Veterinary’s Wisdom Panel identifies both breed composition, as well as certain genetic mutations. Unfortunately, it’s not clear how reliable dog genetic testing is. Last year, Fortune compared DNA My Dog and the Wisdom Panel, and found that the breed results didn’t match up. That’s why Embark won’t be handing out breed estimates just yet; the failure rate is too high, Ryan Boyko says. Instead, the kit will take what scientists already know about dog evolution and migrations and attempt to trace a dog’s ancestry. "We’ll tell you the story of how your dog got from a wolf 15,000 years ago to the dog [it is now]," Ryan Boyko says. Combined with disease risk information, the kit will "give owners that peace of mind and allow them, at the same time, to contribute to research than can help their dog and can help all dogs."

Embark’s approach isn’t out of the ordinary for consumer genetics. "People who would like to collect large data set have realized that it’s easiest to do under what might be a called ‘recreational genomics’ framework where you tell users about their ancestry," says Arthur Caplan, a medical ethicist at New York University who often writes about consumer genetics. The human genetics company 23andMe, for example, makes some of its money by providing pharmaceutical companies like Genentech and Pfizer with anonymized and aggregated data for research; the company conducts its own studies as well. And Ancestry.com has partnered with Alphabet’s Calico to study aging. So what Embark is doing falls in line with other companies. It essentially amounts to crowdsourcing dog genetic research, Caplan says. Still, the approach is a little more opaque than your typical Kickstarter. "They aren’t saying send me $5,000 to fund my research on dogs — but in the end, that’s what they’re doing. And I think it might be better if they just fessed up," he says.

Trying to gain insights into human health by studying dogs isn’t a new idea. Dogs were used in a number of key diabetes and anemia studies in the 1920s. And dogs are still the preferred model animal for hemophilia research. But the canine hasn’t been as popular among scientists of late. Mice and rats — animals that humans care less about — are now the default for most labs. That could change of course; as DNA research becomes faster and cheaper, the dog model of human health could make a comeback, at least as far as identifying mutations involved in disease. And Embark could be the company to make that happen.

"My fear is that the owners of dogs reported to have an increased risk of developing a particular disease will not breed with that dog, thus possibly reducing the genetic diversity of that breed," Mellersh says. Owners may also "worry, maybe unnecessarily, about their dog throughout its lifetime and, possibly, have trouble insuring their dog against possible disorders."

Urs Giger, a veterinarian and geneticist at the University of Pennsylvania, agrees. "Genetic counseling is extraordinarily important in guiding pet owners, as well as breeders, in the management of an animal at risk for a certain disease or being considered for a certain breeding," he says. "[Embark’s] tests may provide some scientific information, but it clearly has to be presented with the appropriate background information." If companies figure out how to do that, Giger thinks DNA tests for dogs will be good for the species. They can be used to select parents for the production of healthy puppies, he says — a practice he says would minimize suffering.

When the first tests come out in the spring, Embark will begin researching dog behavior and nutrition, Adam Boyko said in an email. The Embark team is also developing studies to tackle environmental and genetic risk factors for autoimmune diseases — as well as "more light-hearted" researchers projects, he says. Among them will be a study that will attempt to identify the genetic basis for the number of nipples a dog has.