I was eating a salad today in the kitchen and our crazy poodle was going bonkers. I told him he was a carnivore but it didn't appease him so I fed him some of my lettuce and tomatos and he ate the portion of tomato that I gave him. It got me to thinking..and excuse my ignornace of biology, but, I noticed that many dogs are not the best hunters around....and that they live off of meat. If man was not around to help dogs survive would many speecies of dogs, say like poodles, wiender dogs, pughs ect ect..survive or be extinct?

Most dogs would survive because they would eat anything to keep alive. That doesn't mean some of them wouldn't make it. Dogs are omnivores I believe.

Dogs are omnivores I believe.

what non meats do they eat that come from nature (ie beside stuff in the trash or dog food which is manufactured by man instead of nature).

Through breeding, dog have become domesticated and they lose that ability since it ins't necassary. Also, with selective breeding, evolution isn't based on best traits for survival, it's "what looks cute." Even if it could harm the animal.

Dogs are omnivores I believe
Canines are carnivores, but through domestication and adaptation, they have somewhat modified their diet, but it's still mostly meat
If man was not around to help dogs survive would many speecies of dogs, say like poodles, wiender dogs, pughs ect ect..survive or be extinct?
Dogs will have the natural ability to survive on its own after a few years of caring, like a 1-year-old baby human cannot take care of him/herself, but a 12 or more likely 18-year-old person can. Besides, according to the theory of evolution and natural selection, when the environment suddenly changes, only the strongest or most flexible or adaptive will survive. because they all have different genetic makeup, not all will die off, and not all will necessarily survive. It's all about evolution and changing and adaptation :)

Most domestic dogs couldn't survive in the wild.
They've evolved with humans. A pitbull for example could never survive in the wild because it would see a 1000lbs grizzly bear and think 'cool I'm gonna kill this thing', and run up and start tearing into it, only to be smashed by a giant paw. They are too brave because man has bred specifically for that trait whilst keeping them safe from the natural world. They don't have the 'flight' response that is essential for a wild animals survival, its all fight.

Also, with selective breeding, evolution isn't based on best traits for survival, it's "what looks cute." Even if it could harm the animal
Well thats not true for most breeds, people don't realise today that nearly all breeds were bred to perform a task. Even poodles were originally hunting dogs. Dachsunds were used for getting badgers out of burrows. Pugs I think are one of the true 'toy dogs' meaning they were simply bred to look a certain way and sit on ladies laps.
But most dogs had to earn a living working for man and their selection required that they exceed at that task. Be it hunting, tracking, pulling carts, fighting, rescueing people, whatever.
Its just working for man instead of nature. Same basic idea though. They were sculpted to be best suited to their lifestyle.
Most couldn't survive in the wild, some like the dogo argentino could merely as a byproduct of the kind of work they were bred for. But most are suited to working for man and being given food after they perform the task they have evolved to be perfect for performing. Thats the lifestyle they have evolved to suit so its a big ask to try and make them survive in the wild. Be like putting you in the ocean and telling you to survive there.

I think that most Breeds could probably survive.

Like the Wild Dogs of Africa or the Dingo of Australia they would return to Hunting in Packs.

Through breeding, dog have become domesticated and they lose that ability since it ins't necassary. Also, with selective breeding, evolution isn't based on best traits for survival, it's "what looks cute." Even if it could harm the animal.But sometimes with domestication, being cute is the most important survival trait.

I've heard once that the maned wolf (Chrysocyon brachyurus not actually a wolf, since isn't lupus, not even Canis... but still a canid, anyway) is 60% carpophagous... that was a quite surprising, but I only heard once and didn't looked for confirmation, I'm not sure...

this is a kinda off-topic, isn't? :D

DNA analysis in the past couple of years has proven that dogs and wolves are actually the same species. In effect, wolves are simply one breed of dog: the oldest.

However, it's been 12,000 years since the first wolf pack and the first human clan made a mutual decision to hunt together because their skills complemented each other nicely. That's about 9,000 dog generations, a lot of opportunity for selective breeding. (In contrast it's only a few hundred human generations.)

The differences between the various dog breeds seem major, but in fact they're easily obliterated in a couple of generations of mongrelization. What remains are a few fundamental differences between the domesticated population of Canis lupus or Canis familiaris (depending on which name the single species is going to inherit) and the remaining, successful, widespread wild population.

1. Behavior. Dogs like people and the majority of them defer to humans as pack leaders. They treat us as fellow pack members, meaning cooperation, friendship, protection of the young, sharing food, as well as playing, fighting, and seeing who gets the best spot on the bed.

2. Diet. Wolves are carnivores. They will forage for berries and even rustle through garbage if they have to, but they prefer to hunt if given the opportunity to do so. Dogs are omnivores. They enjoy a good hunt but they are quite at home scavenging. Cleaning up our trash was one of the traits that got them invited into our campsites. This feeds back into 1. Behavior, because scavengers are easier for most of us to live with than hunters. We much prefer a dog begging from the table than going out and killing the neighbor's chickens. This trait also feeds into. . . .

3. Teeth. Wolves have very keen teeth about halfway back that are good for tearing flesh. Dogs don't have them because they don't need them to chew bread, bananas, kibble, and cooked meat. It would be very difficult for a dog to make a life as a hunter because he would have difficulty eating his kill if it were anything bigger than a rat. The diet also feeds into. . . .

4. Brain size. Brains require a lot of protein. Wolves get a lot of protein because they eat mostly meat. Dogs get less protein because they eat a lot more carbohydrates. As a result, dog brains are a bit smaller than wolf brains. Not so much that any individual dog might not be just as smart as a wolf, but as an average, the dog population is not quite as clever as the wolf population. Another mark against their being able to survive as hunters. Wolves are more clever about finding and catching prey than dogs are, who know exactly when to expect the sound of a can opener.

DNA research that was just published in the Washington Post last week turned conventional assumptions about dog breeding on their heads.

The first voluntarily domesticated wolves originated in China around 10,000BCE. All dogs are descended from this bloodline. They did not arise independently in different places. The dogs from China rapidly spread all over the world with humans. They were probably traded from tribe to tribe for other livestock or goods.

The first distinct breeds arose about 7,000BCE, in Africa and Asia. Right around the dawn of civilization, but well after the development of Stone Age agriculture and animal husbandry. Some of them were the hard workers and predator hunters we expected to find in this group, such as the Malamute, Husky, Samoyed, Saluki, and Afghan. But surprisingly this group also includes the Lhasa Apso, Pekinese, Shizi (or Shih Tzu as people insist on spelling it), Akita, Basenji, Maltese, and Shar-Pei.

The second group came a couple of millennia later, ironically bred for hunting, the skill that brought the original wolf ancestors into our homes in the first place, such as Mastiffs, Bulldogs, Rottweilers, and German Shepherds. (Obviously they must have been called something else because there were no Germans yet.)

The third group included livestock herding and guardian dogs such as Collies, Sheepdogs, and Anatolians, as dogs had been developed who could be trusted not to eat domesticated game animals, but it also included some surprises such as greyhounds, which had previously been thought to be one of the oldest breeds.

The fourth group included dogs for various types of guard duty, such as terriers for keeping pests away, and some of the more specialized hunters such as spaniels and pointers.

Finally, in very recent times, an explosion of breeds occurred as dog breeding became a hobby and a sport. This includes some real surprises, such as the Pharaoh hound. Statues of identical dogs are found in Egyptian tombs, yet the Pharaoh's DNA shows it to be just a few centuries old. Apparently the dog had been extinct for millennia and a few enthusiasts managed to recreate it by selectively breeding sighthounds with big ears and small necks.

Dog Food Ingredients

Dry dog food brands are listed in alphabetical order. You will need to scroll from left to right, as well as down, to read the page in its entirety. None of the dog foods on this page contain Ethoxyquin, and they all meet or exceed AAFCO Nutrient Profiles for dog foods. For information on the ingredient definitions, visit the AAFCO Definitions of Dog Food Ingredients page. Also, if you would like ingredients listings for even more dog foods, these food comparison charts has a good variety of brands.


Return to: What to Feed Your Puppy Dog
Bil Jac California Natural
Natura Pet Foods Flint River Ranch Innova
Natura Pet Foods Nature's Recipe (Lamb Meal, Rice & Barely)
Top Five Ingredients (listed in order)

1. Chicken By-Products (Organ Meat Only)
2. Chicken
3. Corn
4. Chicken By-Product Meal
5. Dried Beet Pulp



1. Lamb Meal
2. Brown Rice
3. White Rice
4. Sunflower Oil
5. Vitamin E Supplement



1. Chicken Meal
2. Wheat Flour
3. Ground Rice
4. Poultry Fat
5. Ground Wheat



1. Turkey
2. Chicken
3. Chicken Meal
4. Whole Ground Barley
5. Whole Ground Brown Rice



1. Lamb Meal
2. Ground Rice
3. Cracked Pearled Barely
4. Animal Fat
5. Lamb Digest

Bil Jac California Natural
Natura Pet Foods Flint River Ranch Innova
Natura Pet Foods Nature's Recipe
Preservatives
(Please note that all of these dog foods contain a form of vitamin C as a preservative. There are some studies that show Vitamin C may be harmful to dogs, however I have yet to find a better alternative except for home-made dog food.)

* Sodium Propionate
* Vitamin E Supplement
* Ascorbic Acid
* BHA



* Vitamin E Supplement
* Vitamin C Supplement



* DL-Alpha Tocopherol Acetate (Source of Vitamin E)
* Ascorbic Acid (Source of Vitamin C)




* Vitamin C (calcium ascorbate)
* Vitamin E Supplement



* Vitamin E Supplement
* Ascorbic Acid

Other Ingredients

* Chicken Liver
* Brewers Dried Yeast
* Cane Molasses
* Eggs
* Salt
* DL-Methionine
* L-Lysine
* Vitamin A Acetate
* Vitamin D3 Supplement
* Vitamin E Supplement
* Roboflavin Supplement
* Niacin
* Biotin
* Choline Chloride
* Folic Acid
* Thiamine Mononitrate
* Pyridoxine Hydrochloride
* Vitamin B12 Supplement
* Menadione Sodium Bisulfate Complex (Source of Vitamin K)
* D-Calcium Pantothenate
* Manganous Oxide
* Inositol
* Iron Sulfate
* Copper Sulfate
* Zinc Oxide
* Cobalt Carbonate
* Potassium Iodide
* Sodium Selenite



* Zinc Sulfate
* Vitamin C Supplement
* Monosodium Phosphate
* Niacin
* Calcium Pantothenate
* Vitamin A Supplement
* Manganous Oxide
* Vitamin B1 Supplement
* Vitamin D3 Supplement
* Riboflavin (Source of Vitamin B2)
* Vitamin B12
* Vitamin B6 Supplement
* Vitamin K Supplement
* Folic Acid
* Cobalt Carbonate
* Sodium Selenite



* Lamb Meal
* Dried Whole Egg
* Lecithin
* Fish Meal
* Brewers Dried Yeast
* Wheat Germ Meal
* Dried Kelp
* Dehydrated Alfalfa Meal
* Salt
* Potassium Chloride
* Monosodium Phosphate
* Choline Chloride
* Ferrous Sulfate
* Zinc Oxide
* Selenium Supplement
* Manganous Oxide
* Riboflavin Supplement (Vitamin B2)
* Copper Sulfate
* Amino Acid Chelates of Zinc
* Iron
* Manganese
* Copper and Cobalt
* Niacin
* Vitamin B12 Supplement
* Vitamin A Supplement
* Calcium Pantothenate
* D-Biotin Supplement
* Pyridoxine Hydrochloride (Vitamin B6)
* Calcium Iodate
* Thiamin Mononitrate
* Folic Acid
* Vitamin D3 Supplement



* Whole Steamed Potatoes
* Ground White Rice
* Chicken Fat
* Herring Meal
* Whole Raw Apples
* Whole Steamed Carrots
* Cottage Cheese
* Sunflower Oil
* Dicalcium Phospage
* Alfalfa Sprouts
* Whole Eggs
* Whole Clove Garlic
* Probiotics (Freeze Dried Streptococcus Faecium Fermentation Product, Freeze Dried Lactobacillus Acidophilus Fermentation Product, Freeze Dried Lactobacillus Casei Fermentation Product, Freeze Dried Lactobacillus Plantarum Fermentation Product)
* Vitamin A Supplement
* Vitamin D3 Supplement
* Niacin
* Claium Pantothenate
* Manganous Oxide
* Vitamin B1 (Thiamine Monoitrate)
* Vitamin B2 (Riboflavin)
* Vitamin B12
* Vitamin B6 (Pyridoxine Hydrochloride)
* Vitamin K (Menadione Sodium Bisulfite)
* Folic Acid
* Cobalt Carbonate
* Sodium Selenite
* Biotin




* Tomato Pomace
* Potassium Chloride
* Choline Chloride
* Yeast Culture
* Yucca Shidigera Extract
* Ferrous Sulfate
* Zinc Oxide
* Zinc Proteinate
* Vitamin A Supplement
* d-Activated Animal Sterol (Source of Vitamin D3)
* Niacin
* Calcium Pantothenate
* Riboflavin (Vitamin B2)
* Manganous Oxide
* Copper Sulfate
* Copper Proteinate
* Thiamine Mononitrate
* Pyridoxine Hydrochloride
* Folic Acid
* Biotin
* Vitamin B12 Supplement
* Calcium Iodate and Sodium Selenite

Dogs, it sems, eat a better balanced diet than humans! LOL!

http://www.doggiedoor.com/ingredie.htm

We have twelve dogs. Feeding them commercial feed would cost a fortune. In addition, several of them have mild allergies that seem to be triggered by something in the feed.

We throw whole chickens in the pressure cooker, then use the food processor to turn them to paste -- bones and organs and all, lots of good calcium and other stuff. We mix that with cooked pumpkin, cooked rice and a bit of whatever my wife has handy that week, in a ratio that she knows; I'd say the result is about 25 percent chicken. We supplement that with 1/5 to 1/4 kibble in case we missed some vitamins and minerals, except for the dogs that are allergic to kibble. (Innova, in our experience it's the best.) They also get a dog biscuit every day for additional variety and nutrition, and beef bones every week or so for their teeth.

It's been working great for about fifteen years. We have not had to put any dogs on those incredibly expensive prescription diets. Their health has been better than average, even into old age. Their teeth are good. Most of them don't eat stool, although there's always one or two that just seem to be programmed for it. Except for those two, their breath is fine.

And it's cut our dog food bill down by about 75 percent.

Pugs I think are one of the true 'toy dogs' meaning they were simply bred to look a certain way and sit on ladies laps.

I had a friend with a pug for a pet. He always claimed that pugs were bred as war dogs in a land where size is a premium. I did a quick search on the net and haven't come up with any corroborating sites. Most of the sites simply mention that the pugs come from China and the history really begins when they reach Europe. The war dog aspect seems somewhat ludicrous, but they have been altered since coming to the west, so who knows.

I used to have a Yorkshire Terrier. The best dog I ever owned. Good ol' Ratt Dog. Extremely intelligent and personable. He also had a strong territorial instinct. I've seen him chase Mastiff's out of the yard. I think the animals are confused when he starts going apeshit on them. He starts barking and twitching and his starts flying. I don't think they know what to do, so they leave. I think that even these toy dogs were originally bred for a purpose, that of chasing rats. I miss that old bastard.

I have no doubt that the breed would not long survive without the aid of humans though. Can you imagine a pack of wild Yorkies terrorizing the countryside? :p

Actually without man many dog breeds would not even exsist. Sooo if we were to now abdon our dogs...It really would be a 'Dog Eat Dog' type of world. Man bred dogs for years, breeding two different breeds for certain traits to get one ideal dog for wahtever suits you [hunting, herding , ect.] So without man the beagles would not exsist [Hmm became a offcial breed around the 1600s sometime]. And damnit sometimes I wish they didn't...-glares at dog who is now chewing on a purple pen-.

Oh and dogs usually only eat vegtables and such [like eating grass] is when they are having stomach problems :(

I used to have a Yorkshire Terrier. The best dog I ever owned. Good ol' Ratt Dog. Extremely intelligent and personable. He also had a strong territorial instinct. I have no doubt that the breed would not long survive without the aid of humans though. Can you imagine a pack of wild Yorkies terrorizing the countryside? :pTerriers were bred to chase small animals. Usually pests rather than game, just keeping the bothersome wildlife out of the yard or off the farm. Often burrowing animals, most of them have the size and shape to chase gophers and such down into their holes and even keep digging to get at them. This means that if you eat rabbits, you can probably get any of several breeds to chase rabbits and drag them out of their burrows for you.

Like all dogs -- the domesticated population of Canis lupus, as opposed to the still-wild population of the same species, the wolf -- terriers lack the strong teeth about halfway back on both jaws that enable wolves to rip flesh efficiently. (As I mentioned in my first posting in this thread.) Terriers can catch rats and moles and eat them up pretty good. But when they catch something bigger like a hare or a badger, they might be strong and ferocious enough to kill it, but they'll be pretty slow at eating it. That would be their problem if humans died off and left dogs to fend for themselves. They wouldn't be able to eat their kill fast enough before the scavengers got there to fight them for it.

The larger ones and/or the most aggressive ones would occasionally get lucky and crossbreed with a wolf or a coyote (or even a jackal) instead of being eaten. The hybrids would rapidly bridge the gap between the two populations and integrate them into a rather varied global pack. Different breeds with varying amounts of wolf/coyote/jackal DNA and sturdier teeth would specialize in the game in different parts of the world left behind by the vanished humans. The terriers' descendants would be tearing up the English countryside, competing with the foxes for vermin and small game. The larger dogs would be bringing down sheep and cattle. Since there are no wolves or bears in England, they'd probably be left in peace to eat their kill at their slow pace. In America the biggest dogs would have to hybridize with wolves and coyotes to get their teeth back because the wolves and coyotes have that ecological niche to themselves and will not share it happily with anything smaller than an Irish Wolfhound, St. Bernard, or Anatolian Guardian. Asia has been so overrun with humans and the large predators hunted almost to extinction, that the dogs would probably not have a lot of competition except from cats, who still have their ancestral hunting equipment.

... you can probably get any of several breeds to chase rabbits...

I saw him chase a rabbit a couple of times. He definitely had the instincts. Zigged and zagged as good as the rabbit. I doubt that he would have known what to do with it once he caught it though. The rabbit would have most likely kicked his ass in any real battle. He might have a chance with a gang of Yorkies.

But, what Ratt really liked to go after was frogs. Crazy dog would bite and chomp at frogs all night long. My buds and I would be hangin' out at night in summer and Ratt would come up to the picnic table, frothing at the mouth like a mad dog, and bark at me until I got up to round him up another frog to persecute. He never killed them, he just liked to play. I always wondered if he wasn't getting addicted to the poison. :p Funny that he couldn't round them up himself. He probably just knew it was easier for me to do it. Had me trained, so to speak. :p

Of course, my Yorkie wasn't one of the really tiny ones. Some are so small they probably couln't even kill a rat. Toys indeed.

very interesting natural history of dog domestication, thank you.

i would appreciate any reference you or the Post can provide.

if you will allow, i will correct minor errors.

DNA analysis in the past couple of years has proven that dogs and wolves are actually the same species. In effect, wolves are simply one breed of dog: the oldest.

No. That may have been suggested, and it is a testable hypothesis, however DNA analysis has proven nothing of the kind, and I don't think that it's possible to prove it that way. To ask, "How much DNA differentiation does it take to make a species?" is meaningless, because species are not defined by the amount of genetic differentiation.

Currently the Canidae taxonomy is as below.
Canidae
* Alopex
* Alopex lagopus (Arctic fox)
* Atelocynus
* Atelocynus microtis (small-eared dog)
* Canis
* Canis adustus (side-striped jackal)
* Canis aureus (golden jackal)
* Canis familiaris (dog)
* Canis latrans (coyote)
* Canis lupus (gray wolf)
* Canis lupus baileyi (Mexican gray wolf)
* Canis lupus chanco (Mongolian wolf)
* Canis lupus hodophilax (Japanese wolf)
* Canis lupus pallipes (Indian wolf)
* Canis lycaon (eastern Canadian wolf)
* Canis mesomelas (black-backed jackal)
* Canis mesomelas elongae (eastern African black-backed jackal)
* Canis rufus (red wolf)
* Canis simensis (Ethiopian wolf)
* Canis sp.
* Chrysocyon
* Chrysocyon brachyurus (maned wolf)
* Cuon
* Cuon alpinus (dhole)
* Dusicyon
* Dusicyon thous (crab-eating fox)
* Lycaon
* Lycaon pictus (African hunting dog)
* Nyctereutes
* Nyctereutes procyonoides (raccoon dog)
* Nyctereutes procyonoides koreensis
* Nyctereutes procyonoides procyonoides

* Otocyon
* Otocyon megalotis (bat-eared fox)
* Pseudalopex
* Pseudalopex culpaeus (culpeo fox)
* Pseudalopex griseus (Argentine gray fox)
* Pseudalopex gymnocercus (pampas fox)
* Pseudalopex sechurae (Sechura desert fox)
* Pseudalopex vetulus (hoary fox)
* Speothos
* Speothos venaticus (bush dog)
* Urocyon
* Urocyon cinereoargenteus (gray fox)
* Urocyon littoralis (island gray fox)
* Vulpes
* Vulpes chama (cape fox)
* Vulpes corsac (Corsac fox)
* Vulpes macrotis (kit fox)
* Vulpes macrotis zinseri
* Vulpes velox (kit fox)
* Vulpes vulpes (red fox)
* Vulpes zerda (fennec fox)
* Vulpes sp.

4. Brain size. Brains require a lot of protein. brains require a lot of fat! to make the myelin sheaths. when you have children, that's the diet thing pediatricians remind parents of constantly, lots of fat for brain develpment.

Wolves get a lot of protein because they eat mostly meat. Dogs get less protein because they eat a lot more carbohydrates. As a result, dog brains are a bit smaller than wolf brains.
I don't think that's true. Could you please provide a reference that concludes that differences in brain size between wolves and domestic dogs are attributed to the amount of carbohydrate in the diet. I suspect it's merely a matter of body size difference, i.e. allometric differences.

But surprisingly this group also includes the Lhasa Apso, Pekinese, Shizi (or Shih Tzu as people insist on spelling it),
you mean Shizi Gou, from;
http://www.encyclopedia4u.com/s/shih-tzu.html

I had originally posted this in an edit, but by the time I was done Paul had already posted. This kinda adds to my last post.

You know what would likely happen? As you said [fraggle], the larger dogs would have to mix with the wolves to find a niche. The smaller dogs would likely gang up together in their various breeds, forming a smaller mixed breed pack. In effect, recombining the genes that were seperated in the various breeds. It's possible that some larger dogs would also join this smaller group rather than wolves, but there would have to be a point where the larger dogs begin to look at the smaller as prey rather than buddies.

That is if the small dog niche would even survive. They would face competition with cats. Didn't cats evolve later than dogs? I remember reading that dogs don't compete well against cats. I guess the cougars never out-competed the wolves. But housecats are a bit different. Although they are still somewhat solitary, they have been known to form large colonies, like lions. So what might happen in this regard is housecats mixing with the smaller wildcats and possibly even evolving into a size that could compete with wolves. America's big cats are rather solitary and don't compete with wolves. Are there any species of wildcat in Europe? Probably not, huh? It would take time, of course, and the wolves already have a head start. But I could easily see them forming competition for the small dog niche. The only thing is, I don't know how interbreedable the various cat species are.

And don't forget that the rat and mouse species would have to readapt as well. Although they are not domesticated, they feed off human civilization perhaps even more than dogs or cats. Without humans they'd have to find new niches to take advantage of. It would be an interesting evolutionary battle. Rodents are generally evolutionary more suited to win, the only reason they have been kept down in their scavenger niches is because they evolved after most niches had been filled. With the damage we humans have done to the natural order, there is a void that will be filled by the best evolutionary tactic. The rodents might have the edge in Europe. In America we still have wild species and the rodents would have more of a challenge.

What a complicated web it would be. Too bad no one would be around to watch it unfold. I bet we could learn a lot from it.

I a way dogs are perfectly adapted to their enviroment. Their enviroment is of course human society. They have proliferated tremenduously together with the human species. They did well to choose to live with humans (although it wasn't an active decision on their part).

Sadly the downfall of the human species will probably also mean the end of most dog breeds. However one might venture to guess that with all the genetic diversity going around in the dog population (i am just guessing here that there is quite a lot of diversity based on phenotypical diversity, although this doesn't have to be the case), one would suspect that it might be possible that a certain (new) dog breed will survive the human species.

I would say in conclusion that the dog is perfecty adapted to its current environment and has at least a good shortterm prospect of survival.

I've never heard this stuff about the teeth. I know dogs don't usually eat animals they kill but I did once see my neighbours sharpei catch, kill and begin to eat a possum(before being chased with a broom). Also I've heard dogo argentinos are unusual because they will eat their prey if left to their own devices. They are used for hunting wild boar so I can only assume thats what they are eating. If you can shear the meat of a wild boar you can shear it off just about anything.
I always thought its simply that most dogs have forgotten the connection between killing and eating, not that they didn't have the hardware for it. But like baby cheetahs might know to catch a gazelle but then be stumped on what to do with it. They need to be taught. Dogs too probably just need to be shown that after you kill whatever you need to eat it. I think they'd figure it out if they had to.

Also, even wolves will only generally be successful if they are in packs, so we shouldn't be asking more from dogs. I think a pack of dogs could be fairly successful, if the right types of dogs were in the pack.

A common belief is that ALL dogs are toned down weaker version of wolves. This certainly is not the case, there are dogs that would be dominant over any wolf. Wolves are far from the 'toughest' dog, they are the dog most perfectly suited to survival in the wild (in the environments they inhabit), but there are plenty of domestic dogs that will kill a wolf. While the ancestry of most of todays breeds involved man taking wolves and toning them down, the ancestry of some dogs involved man taking wolves and breeding them to be stronger and meaner.
All dogs are wolves that have had their evolution specialised to varying degrees on different tasks. They all gave up the well roundedness of the wolf to have their 'stat points' focussed on something in particular. In many cases this made the dogs meeker than the wolf, sighthounds had their evolution focussed on speed and in doing so gave up alot of the strength and tenacity of the wolf, but some were bred for combat, and they gave up other traits like speed and hearing and whatever else in favour of strength and tenacity. The result being animals that are actually more formidable than any wild canine.
Plenty of dogs would have the grit and power to be a wild animal, some would be even better than wolves at bringing down large prey. But there is just so much more than that to living in the wild, so many attributes required, and by not being wild, the different domestic breeds each lost different groups of those attributes to render them inadequate at wild survival. Domestic dogs as a whole didn't really lose anything in particular, each breed lost something different, and in most cases gained something in its place. Something to make them better at whatever task they needed to perform for man, but this inevitably made them worse at the original task being survival in the wild.

There aren't many breeds i can think of still well equiped for wild survival, rather than breeds the 'type' of dog that would come closest are boar hunting dogs. The demands of that task are similar to what would be required in the wild and I think a good pack of boar dogs could probably do ok for themselves out in the wilderness.

On pugs being war dogs;
If there is a sceric of truth in that it would just be referring to how mastiffs were used to get that 'pug' look. Ancient mastiffs were used as war dogs, and in the creation of the pug they may have been used to a minor degree in the breeding to accomplish the desired phenotype.
No dog like the pug was ever used in wars. Even the mastiffs of today who descend from the dogs of war aren't really anything like the actual dogs that were used in wars and the colliseum etc. Pugs were definately designed specifically to be non-working pets.

And by the way, here's a quick thought. When speaking of dogs interbreeding back into the wild and also in talking about dogs being brought from the wild, the only animal mentioned so far is the wolf. Don't forget the Coyote. It's possibly more likely for dogs to interbreed with coyotes than wolves. Their lifestyles are a bit more similar. Are there other wild canine species? Of course theere's the Dingo in Australia. Theres also a breed of dog that is commonly looked at as the closest to the "original" dog. It looks rather like a dingo. Also kind of like a Welsh Corgie. It's the short legs I think.

There's an article I read recently about an island in the South Pacific. On this island there's a large group of these wild dogs. No one on the island owns the dogs. The dogs just roam around, getting fed door to door, escorting people down to the beach, etc... I'll have to see if I can dig it up. I think it also talked about how the process of domestication brings out certain traits in animals. Short legs, limp ears, splotchy coloration of the fur. It mentioned a domestication of a fur fox going on in Russia for the last 50 years or more. The animals start to gain all the "cute" attributes we see in dogs today.

I think the surviving dog will not be from a single breed but a mixture of the dog genepool.

A mutt.

I think we can all agree on that. I also speculate that there will be more than one surviving line of dog. The small dog which will prey on rodents, the large dog which will join with wolves, and possible a third dog in between. It all depends on if the small dog niche will just gravitate towards the coyote.

I found the article about the dogs on the island. The island is called Rarotonga. The article was in the latest issue of Discover magazine. They have a web site where you can read some of the articles, but only the lead article of each month is free. I think it's free anyway, I linked to an article in another thread to one that was free. It wasn't until I looked up the dog article did I find you have to register for some. Anyway, enough about the magazine. The Raratonga article isn't available for free, so it's besides the point. If anyone's interested, I could go through the article again and glean any relevant content.

There's a statement that summarizes the article nicely, "Rarotonga's dogs live in a state of pleasant anarchy. They wear no leashes and few collars; they are not so much owned by someone as by everyone." So it speaks of a sort of camp follower domestication. It does indeed mention the fox being domesticated in Russia. "In 1959, Russian geneticist Dmitry Belyaev took a colony of wild foxes from a fur farm and began selecting them for docility. After only 20 generations or so, he had peibald, droopy-eared animals that were not so different from border collies." ... "Did feral dogs give rise to all the dog species in the world, or did all those dogs just contribute their DNA to the feral gene pool? Hard to say: The Balinese dogs don’t seem to have especially ancient DNA sequences, and dingoes and pariah dogs have had their gene pools watered down by interbreeding." It's a possibility that the earliest dogs (well after 20 or more generations) were more of a "toy" dog than the bigger dogs we have today. By toy, I don't mean the real toy dogs. But rather the funny little dogs like the welsh corgie and such. It's possible that we had to breed the largeness back into them.

I've attached some pics of the dogs from article. They came from the website, but I don't want to link direct to it.

http://www.sciforums.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=2906&stc=1
http://www.sciforums.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=2905&stc=1
http://www.sciforums.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=2907&stc=1
http://www.sciforums.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=2908&stc=1
http://www.sciforums.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=2909&stc=1

Also, I think the singing dog of Borneo or whatever is a similar dog. Note the singing aspect. Very coyote-ish. Wolves howl, but I think there's an aesthetic difference in singing and howling.

So, what does this have to do with anything? Well, the similarity in the dogs seem to point towards either a.) a general dog design led to by domestication which has as it's main features short legs, droopy ears, and piebald fur or b.) the dog design mentioned above is a mongrelization of presently diversified dog breeds. So, it might be said that in areas where the wild canine species no longer exist for feral dogs to interbreed with then they will likely end with a dingo/corgie style dog; but in areas where wolves and coyotes still survive, there might be two or more dog styles surviving, depending on exactly how many niches exist and how fast they adapt to the new niches.

And in the case of the fox, it would be interesting to take some of these foxes and reverse the process. Allow them to go wild again and observe the effects. Would need to place them somewhere where there are no wild species to mix with or the results would be obvious and most likely quick. Might be interesting to try three batches. The domestic, solitary wild, and mixed wild. See if this "domesticated" fox would introduce any interesting features into the wild fox or if they would all be buried. Of course, all these experiments would depend on a large enough supply of the domesticated fox, which I don't think exist. So realistically, the only one that can be pulled off is the continued domestication. Introducing some new wild foxes in every now and again to prompt diversification of the gene.


On a different note, there is also a type of dog in the US whose name I can't recall right now. There are only a very few of them and the breed was getting very inbred. So inbred that it was feared the line would be lost. So the owners had to go overseas and try to find dogs of the same type to reinvigorate the bloodlines. The originals were in the middle east. This is another dog with ties to our deepest past according to what I've heard. It's also a terrier type dog. I'm sure someone here knows the dog I'm talking about.



Edit: Oh, and by the way, the article goes on to theorize on how selecting for docility has affected humans. We have been, for the most part, selecting for docility (at least conformity) for quite some time. And not many people have the ability to wiggle their ears. :p (They need an ear-wiggling smilie.) But, then again, do chimps have the ability to move their ears significantly?

And by the way, here's a quick thought. When speaking of dogs interbreeding back into the wild and also in talking about dogs being brought from the wild, the only animal mentioned so far is the wolf. Don't forget the Coyote. It's possibly more likely for dogs to interbreed with coyotes than wolves. Their lifestyles are a bit more similar.I did mention coyotes (as well as jackals, the other member of genus Canis) in my posting yesterday. I notice that when these threads get longer than one page, it's hard for people to read the whole thing.

Anyway, in southern California at least, coyote-dog hybrids are fairly common. Shelters are full of them. At an average weight of 30 lbs, they're a much better mating match for smaller dogs, which a 100-lb wolf would just as soon eat.

I've always been baffled at the fact that there's a huge community of people who breed wolves and keep them as pets and crossbreed them with dogs, whereas there's virtually nothing like this with coyotes. The coyote is a major figure in the lore of the Southwest, the Indians called him "The Trickster." They're quite intelligent, and have adapted to the advance of civilization a whole lot more readily than wolves have. In L.A. they've learned to carry their tails high like dogs, instead of hanging down like wolves. A casual observer just thinks they're stray dogs and leaves them alone. Since the ARFs have gotten so much political power, municipal governments have backed off from their coyote abatement programs. You can see coyotes walking right down the middle of the main street of an L.A. suburb in broad daylight.

You're right that coyotes and dogs have a lot in common behavior-wise. Coyotes have adapted to the scavenger's life quickly and happily. They root through trash cans and eat the occasional cat or small dog, mostly traveling singly or in pairs, unlike wolves who prefer to hunt as a pack and therefore are easy to spot and need to find large food sources.

A friend of mine who worked for the L.A. Public Works dept. once found a young dog wandering around a construction site. He opened the door of his truck and called the dog over so he could take him somewhere out of danger. The dog happily hopped in and sat there with his tongue hanging out, watching the scenery, just being calm and having a great time. Then my friend got where he was going and took a good look at the "dog" and discovered it was a coyote! He carefully opened the door and the animal jumped out and loped off into the shrubbery looking for garbage cans. Are there other wild canine species?Yes, as I mentioned, the last member of the genus is the jackal. We're not as familiar with them because their range is limited to Africa and southwestern Asia. They have a much different look, you'd never mistake one for a dog, wolf, or coyote, they look more like a fox on steroids. They are rather like coyotes in temperament and behavior, primarily scavengers but opportunists that will eat anything or anybody they can sneak up on or run down. I have no data on efforts to crossbreed them with other canids, but it ought to be pretty easy.There's also a breed of dog that is commonly looked at as the closest to the "original" dog. It looks rather like a dingo.I suspect you're referring to the feral dogs that result from crossbreeding various breeds of domestic dogs when humans come upon hard times and let their dogs run wild. They rather quickly reassume the shape and size of their original ancestor, which, as you say, looks pretty much like a dingo. I don't know how the dingos got to Australia, since dogs hadn't yet been domesticated when humans first landed there about 40,000 years ago. Perhaps they were brought over later during commerce between the indigenous Australians and the peoples of southeast Asia, after dogs had become domesticated but while there was still only the single ancestral breed.I think it also talked about how the process of domestication brings out certain traits in animals. Short legs, limp ears, splotchy coloration of the fur. It mentioned a domestication of a fur fox going on in Russia for the last 50 years or more. The animals start to gain all the "cute" attributes we see in dogs today.There's an exhibition about the dog at the National Geographic headquarters in Washington DC going on right now. What you mentioned was discussed in the materials. Even domestic cats sometimes develop those same physical traits. An interesting point about the experiment with foxes: After about ten generations of very selective breeding, he got foxes who were 100 percent tractable. They liked people, were happy to be inside buildings, wouldn't try to eat the babies, enjoyed being petted, etc. But the one thing they had not yet developed was a PREFERENCE for being domestic. If they were turned loose and ignored for a couple of days, they would go right back to their original wild lifestyle.

Dogs aren't like that. Most abandoned dogs put quite a bit of energy into finding a human settlement and trying to join another multi-species pack. The actual psychological makeup of the dog has been slowly changed from that of the ancestral wolf.

I did mention coyotes (as well as jackals, the other member of genus Canis) in my posting yesterday. I notice that when these threads get longer than one page, it's hard for people to read the whole thing.

I did read it, but must have missed it or forgotten it after reading everything else. I did come to the thread late and had to read to catch up, it's difficult sometimes to not miss something. I'll try harder next time. :p

I suspect you're referring to the feral dogs that result from crossbreeding various breeds of domestic dogs when humans come upon hard times and let their dogs run wild.

Yup, those are they. I posted a bit more plus some pics in my last post.


I suppose a lot of what I contributed is somewhat off-topic, but I think it's important to understand the process of domestication to have a better understanding of the reverse process. And also the other processes that would be in effect at the same time, other species, available ecological niches, etc...

I did read it, but must have missed it or forgotten it after reading everything else. I did come to the thread late and had to read to catch up, it's difficult sometimes to not miss something. I'll try harder next time. :pDon't feel so bad. It's tough keeping up with these threads. Some of them spurt from two pages to six if you don't check them for a few days. Who's got enough time to read all that?I suppose a lot of what I contributed is somewhat off-topic, but I think it's important to understand the process of domestication to have a better understanding of the reverse process.If you're interested in the process of domestication, you should study the psittacines (the order of parrots). We used to breed them and there is some incredible stuff going on.

In the wild, like most birds, many different species of parrots will flock together and eat side by side. Yet when it comes breeding season, they all mate with members of their own species. Only when populations dwindle and they can't find one of their own kind, they might consider crossbreeding.

At which point the stranest thing happens, at least with conures (the Brits and Aussies confuse us by calling them New World parakeets, but they're similar and closely related to the mini-macaws). Two species of conures come into contact and interbreed. Since conures are rather colorful, even for parrots, they produce some amazing colored hybrid offspring. Then in a few years when the offspring reach sexual maturity, they will only choose other hybrids that look like them, rather than members of either ancestral species. If there's more than one type of hybrid around, they will even avoid each other!

But in captivity, none of this happens. Hybridized parrots, macaws, cockatoos and parakeets are abundant. Most domestic parrots are taken from their nests when their eyes open after about seven days, and are hand-fed by humans. They then do what is called "imprinting", meaning they think that they are one of whatever species raises them. But this is a classic case of cognitive dissonance. Even though they can't see themselves very well, somewhere in their brain they know not only that they are a parrot, but more specifically a blue-and-gold macaw or a red-lored Amazon or a whatever. When they see another member of their species, they recognize it.

But. . . . domestically bred parrots have no taboos about interspecies dating. You raise a male blue-and-gold macaw with a female scarlet macaw so they get used to playing together, and chances are they will mate when the time comes. You get a rather gorgeous hybrid that's been named the Catalina macaw. The offspring are similarly unbound by tradition and will mate with another just like them, or a member of the ancestral species, or a different species. Breed a Catalina macaw back to a Scarlet and you get a "Camelot" macaw that is bright orange. Breed that one back to another Scarlet and you get a lovely Lavender macaw. At seven years per generation nobody's gotten to the next level yet. But they sure play havoc with our traditional concept of the "color wheel"!

The Greens (people, not parrots) freak out when they see us doing stuff like this. They scream that these hybrid birds might get loose in the rain forest and pollute the gene pool. They don't seem to understand that their natural habitat has already shrunk so badly that for quite a few species, there are more breeding pairs in American hobbyist and commercial aviaries than there are in the wild. The future of these birds is in domestic life.

The gene pools we have to work with are so small that it's healthy to interbreed them. You don't get the weakness that comes with inbreeding that way. And anything you can do to make them even more popular as pets means that their domestic population will continue to increase, assuring their survival. I think that's more important than keeping the extremely minor differences between closely related species purely defined.

Besides, these birds do hybridize outside of captivity: among the populations that have less fear of humans and hang out on the edges of human settlements, taking up the easy life of scavenging. Animals that can adapt comfortably to proximity to other species such as humans and dogs are the curious, adventurous ones that are more likely to be interested in interspecies dating. Check out the macaws that dive bomb your table and steal your Big Mac at the Iguassu McDonald's (goddess I hope there isn't really one there but you get my point) and you're likely to see some riotously colorful hybrids that the ornithologists never see because they go way out into the forest where the bird population has a different attitude.

Many animals seem to more readily interbreed in proximity to human settlements, I think my theory that if you can stand hanging out near a city you're probably also curious about other species of mates is true. Wolves and coyotes have hybridized in the northeastern USA, the first region to be heavily populated and drive off the individuals who were shy about multi-species socialization. So have many kinds of birds. The western black-headed grosbeak and the eastern rose-breasted grosbeak run into each other near the Mississippi river, now that the forest that used to separate their habitats has been replaced by farms. They interbreed rather commonly. We spotted a hybrid of the two species at our bird feeder -- in Los Angeles! Two thousand miles west of the place where they first met, and clear on the other side of the Rocky Mountains. It must have taken fifty generations of migration and interbreeding for that bird to show up that far away from his pure-species ancestors.

Our neighbours had a dog, it was a kind of a sheperd, the size of a German sheperd. He looked mightily big and dangerous.
The dog really liked me, and went with me when I went jogging in the wood. If we met other people or dogs on our way, he would hide behind me.

It was really weird ... I mean, he was such a big and dangerously looking dog, and yet he would hide behind me.


[No, please, if you are going to imply that I am some sort of a monster that anyone would feel safe behind me, then don't make that comment. Okay.]

i've noticed that not all dogs realize how big they are, it could be the whole dog years and human years difference. I guess in there mind they think of themselves still as pups.

The coyote is a major figure in the lore of the Southwest, the Indians called him "The Trickster."

I forgot to add to this statement you made before. The coyote is seen as the trickster, but not in the sense that Loki was a trickster. The coyote is a teacher. He teaches you with his tricks. The best way to learn in my opinion, by coming to the understanding on your own (dealing with the tricks). If you're interested in this kind of thing, I'd recommend the book Seven Arrows. It's an excellent book about the indians oral teachings. I don't remember the author's name. It was a girl that's all I can remember.

No, please, if you are going to imply that I am some sort of a monster that anyone would feel safe behind me, then don't make that comment. Okay.

You sound insecure, Rosa. I'm sure you're a beautiful woman. After all, your icon is lovely.

i've noticed that not all dogs realize how big they are...

And then you have the little dogs that think they're the kings of the world.

I've noticed that most dogs display their bravery through pack behavior. One dog (not always) is usually somewhat cowardly. It takes several dogs for their courage to really show. There are exceptions to this behavior, so don't jump on me about it. Other factors come into play as well, such as defending territory and loved human packmates.

After all, your icon is lovely.

Thanks. :) Spuriousmoneky made it.
***

How come that well-domesticated dogs are so easy to guide?

First of all, I'm afraid of dogs, to death. Those teeth and those paws aren't there just like that.

But the other day, I went jogging to the woods -- and a dog came to meet me. Big, bulky creature with sharp teeth. I slowly made myself on the way out of the wood, but the dog was encircling me in big rounds, but apparently not with the intent to bite me. Then I figured that he must have gotten lost. I heard some voices outside of the wood, and I thought that the dog's owners must be looking for the dog.
So I (who I am so afraid of dogs!) called the dog, and have him follow me -- and he did. I asked around the neighbourhood whose dog it could be, and got directed to that house. And the dog went with me -- not closely by me, but he followed me, it was about a half a mile through the village. Until we reached his home, where his owner was already looking for him.

Strange huh? Is this just dog pack behaviour?

Your lucky that he wasn't violent. Dogs sense fear, it's a sign of prey.

I'd have to say that it probably was a sort of pack behavior. It might have just been scouting you out to see what you were, pack or prey. If the dog was lost, he probably assumed that you would be able to help him find his way back home. If not, maybe you would at least break out some alpo for him. I'm sure Fraggle could come up with several other reasons. He seems to be the local dog expert.

Some dogs are so well socialised they've gotten used to 'strangers' in general. That dog probably grew up with many people coming in and out of his owners house and meeting strangers etc and probably hasn't had a negative experience with people and just sees people in general as friendly things. Dominant over him yet friendly.
He's basically learned to think of everyone as a pack member because that is how he's been raised. By the sounds of things.
In contrast you get dogs who will just never become friends with a stranger. The fila brasiliero is famous for this. Their owners just have to lock them away when someone visits because they will see anyone who isn't in the immediate family as a dangerous intruding threat. Well socialised and trained ones will still always resent strange humans, but they might begrudgingly tolerate their presence. They will however watch them like a hawk hoping for an excuse to tear them up.

I think dogs can be too well socialised, I have one myself, and I just have to worry about him being stolen or hurt all the time because he's too friendly. I used to have a dog that was a little rough around the edges, but I at least could feel confident he was fine most of the time because he had no qualms about kicking peoples asses and was very street smart. Just a tough independent animal.
I want something in between now, not a crazy bastard that attacks people but one that knows not to trust strangers and can defend himself if necessarry.

Have you noticed how a single dog daren't attack a cat? You can have these colossal sheperd dogs, but when they see a cat -- off they go.

But once two dogs get together, they will attack, cat or human.
I find it mean. And weak, to be honest.

A single dog won't attack a cat? :confused:
Even if that were true (which it flagrantly isn't, dogs are famous for chasing cats, I've honestly never seen a dog run from a cat nor a cat stand its ground when faced with a dog. Don't know what kind of bizarro universe you exist in) it's inherently off to judge other species by human standards. Only humans can be "mean" and "weak".
We have our set unwritten rules, other species have their own.

Seriously, dogs dare not attack cats? :confused: Single dogs have killed leopards and cougars. I don't know what kind of dog would run from a housecat. I've never come across such a dog. From what I've seen domestic dogs can be the bravest animals on earth. There are dogs which would attack a t-rex without thinking about it. No wild animal could afford to be as suicidally courageous as dogs can be.

Dr. Lou,

I'm speaking for these dogs I can meet here ... It's really weird to see a German sheperd to leave a simple domestic cat alone.

And I do know that dogs can be suicidally courageous too.


it's inherently off to judge other species by human standards. Only humans can be "mean" and "weak".

I couldn't agree more. But it seems that esp. dogs sometimes "take after" their owners. I bet a lot of this is prejudice.
But ... One of our neighbours, for example: Each dog they had was bossy and aggressive -- just like the people at that house. It is strange though: the husband died last December, and ever since that their dog has become much calmer and quite nice, actually, even scared.

No Lou, I think she's right. Most dogs when faced with a cat on their own either leave it alone, chase it for a while (coz they know the cat is gonna run away), or else try and pick a fight until it runs FROM the cat!
Cats don't like fighting (and are much faster than dogs) so they will run from a dog when being chased (and the dgo knows it). However a cornered cat will ALWAYS actually scare the dog away with a variety of tricks. Hair standing on end, hissing, very sharp nails and teeth are just some.

I'm sure Fraggle could come up with several other reasons. He seems to be the local dog expert.Well, we only have twelve of them, so there's a limit to my knowledge.

You have to keep in mind that dogs are wolves (DNA analysis has proven that there's only a single species there), but they are the population that became domesticated. Just as reindeer are domesticated caribou but they're not quite identical anymore. That domestication has been going on for twelve thousand years so it's had a profound effect on their psychology as well as their appearance. (And on their brains, which are smaller because they eat a lower protein diet, and on their teeth, which are shaped for scavenging rather than tearing apart a whole animal.)

Much of what you're all wondering about is simply the result of the psychology of a hunting animal that has partially shifted (twelve thousand years isn't really that long from the standpoint of evolution) to that of a member of the planet's first voluntary multi-species community. (Dogs were not "domesticated", they just started hanging out with us because our hunting skills were so perfectly complementary, and we welcomed them because they cleaned up the garbage in the camp and kept the large predators away.)

In order for hunting packs to work, dogs have a gene called the "alpha" gene. (They're not the only species that has this.) Wolf packs are small so one wolf in about ten or fifteen has the alpha gene. That gives him the instinct to be a leader -- and the other "betas" have the instinct to respect his authority.

Now the human-dog multi-species community only works if the humans get to be the pack leaders. So over the years the alpha gene was bred out of the domestic population. Later by selective breeding, earlier by the tough dogs probably being abruptly killed off when they got in fights with humans. As a result, on the average only one dog in a hundred has the alpha gene. You can spot them a mile off. All the other dogs defer to them. They're for special owners, most people don't want to deal with a dog who regards them as a nice roommate who buys the food instead of their boss.

The different behaviors you're talking about are probably due to a few dogs having a dominant alpha gene, some others a recessive one, and all the rest being pure beta. (Some of them actually seem to be omegas. ^_^) The betas, especially the ones with a recessive alpha gene, react much differently depending on whether they're in a pack with their leader, or in a pack without their leader, or alone with someone they feel responsible for, whether they feel threatened or lost or in an unfamiliar situation that requires clever thinking from an animal with an IQ of about twelve points.

Certain breeds are not like this and it just makes the whole dog world more confusing to the uninitiated. Some breeds have an exceedingly high incidence of the alpha gene, even more common than wolves. Pitbulls -- I'm sure you expected that. Dogs bred to fight other dogs can't afford to feel subservient to one another. But the dogs we breed: Lhasa Apsos??? They're one of the very oldest breeds and no one seems to know much about their ancient history, but starting about a thousand years ago the Tibetan Buddhist monks began breeding them to guard their monasteries. Guard dogs have to feel secure enough about themselves to challenge HUMANS, not just other dogs. Especially a 25 pound dog! So they got the alpha gene back into this breed; it's so common that even the females have it. Take a female Lhasa Apso to the park and let her off the leash, she'll chase down a German Shepherd and try to hump it. (I didn't say they had an exceptional level of intelligence.)

Lhasas don't function very well as a pack, everybody wants to be in charge. They fight a lot among themselves, and they'll terrorize another breed of their size who doesn't immediately accede to their leadership. But they have their charms. For one thing, it's kind of nice to have a dog that treats you like a partner instead of sucking up all the time. For another it's nice that they feel secure 100 percent of the time. You never find one quaking with fear hoping the humans can get them out of a jam. (We advertise them as "dogs for cat lovers.") Best of all, they still have that guard dog instinct. They can spot an untrustworthy person in a second, and refuse to let them in your house. No matter how many times that sleazy contractor comes to your house, he will spend the entire time with a Lhasa Apso jaw wrapped around his boot. After a few years of making dreadful mistakes, you learn to trust the dog's judgment. I don't know what it is, perhaps nasty people have special pheromones that they can smell. But in twenty years our Lhasas have never been wrong about who's good and who's not. If somebody comes to the door and one of the Lhasa lunges at him, we just frelling don't let him in. We don't even want to know why anymore.

Love those little suckers.

We advertise them as "dogs for cat lovers."

LOL!

Thanks for the input.
But it cannot be fun to be on the other side of a Lhasa Apso, you know ...

Maybe somewhere at some time a dog has ran from a cat. But this is akin to a cat running from a mouse. Its not usual.
Dogs chase cats, with intent to kill, and often do kill them. A dog was put to sleep recently in my town for killing 42 cats in a week.
And lets not forget I've owned dogs all my life and seen how they react to cats :rolleyes: I've pryed a dog's jaws off a cat. You aren't going to convince me that dogs generally avoid cats.

About the alpha gene fraggle, are you sure its the same thing in pitbulls and lhasa apsos? Pitbulls very clearly distinguish between dogs and people and are actually particularly submissive with people but excessively dominant with other dogs. And even with other dogs I'm not sure if its a dominance thing because they seem to completely disregard canine ethics and body language. You won't see a pitbull puffing up trying to intimidate another dog they just try to get at them and they will totally ignore another dog showing submissive gestures and just try to kill it anyway. Do you get what I'm saying? Fighting isn't like a dominance issue for them like it is with other dogs. For pitbulls fighting is like sex. And this is understandable because their breeding has entirely revolved around fighting. If you fight you pass on your genes so its become instinctually satisfying for them to fight. Much like it is instinctually satisfying to eat or have sex, the reason for those activities being satisfying is because doing them will in some way aid you in passing on your genes. Pitbulls really aren't a good model for dog behaviour, they're one of the most unique animals on earth because their behaviour contradicts that of all living organisms. Their number one concern isn't survival, and this can be attributed also to the fact that the most prized sperm in pitbull breeding programs is actually that of a dead dog that has proven he will gladly fight into his death without showing signs of wanting to stop fighting to save his life. Thats what the term "dead game" means. And this behaviour is favoured by their evolution so they are not like normal living organisms. There is no flight response in their makeup.
A game pitbull would gladly attack a pride of lions, let alone a housecat.

Just in case there is any suspicion (which should be unlikely to people who know my posts) I am certainly in no way involved with dog fighting nor do I condone it nor do I not condemn the people that are involved with it.
I am a bullbreed and mastiff enthusiast though, so I've just learnt quite a bit about dogfighting over the years and how these sick pricks operate. To fully understand these animals you do have to understand their history, however ugly it might be.

Pitbulls and some other breeds are one thing. But well-domesticated mutts and some kindly inclined breeds are something else when it comes to the proverbial relationship of cats and dogs ...

You have to keep in mind that dogs are wolves (DNA analysis has proven that there's only a single species there), but they are the population that became domesticated.

dogs are not wolves.

Currently the Canidae taxonomy is as below.
Canidae
* Alopex
* Alopex lagopus (Arctic fox)
* Atelocynus
* Atelocynus microtis (small-eared dog)
* Canis
* Canis adustus (side-striped jackal)
* Canis aureus (golden jackal)
* Canis familiaris (dog)
* Canis latrans (coyote)
* Canis lupus (gray wolf)
* Canis lupus baileyi (Mexican gray wolf)
* Canis lupus chanco (Mongolian wolf)
* Canis lupus hodophilax (Japanese wolf)
* Canis lupus pallipes (Indian wolf)
* Canis lycaon (eastern Canadian wolf)
* Canis mesomelas (black-backed jackal)
* Canis mesomelas elongae (eastern African black-backed jackal)
* Canis rufus (red wolf)
* Canis simensis (Ethiopian wolf)
* Canis sp.
* Chrysocyon
* Chrysocyon brachyurus (maned wolf)
* Cuon
* Cuon alpinus (dhole)
* Dusicyon
* Dusicyon thous (crab-eating fox)
* Lycaon
* Lycaon pictus (African hunting dog)
* Nyctereutes
* Nyctereutes procyonoides (raccoon dog)
* Nyctereutes procyonoides koreensis
* Nyctereutes procyonoides procyonoides

* Otocyon
* Otocyon megalotis (bat-eared fox)
* Pseudalopex
* Pseudalopex culpaeus (culpeo fox)
* Pseudalopex griseus (Argentine gray fox)
* Pseudalopex gymnocercus (pampas fox)
* Pseudalopex sechurae (Sechura desert fox)
* Pseudalopex vetulus (hoary fox)
* Speothos
* Speothos venaticus (bush dog)
* Urocyon
* Urocyon cinereoargenteus (gray fox)
* Urocyon littoralis (island gray fox)
* Vulpes
* Vulpes chama (cape fox)
* Vulpes corsac (Corsac fox)
* Vulpes macrotis (kit fox)
* Vulpes macrotis zinseri
* Vulpes velox (kit fox)
* Vulpes vulpes (red fox)
* Vulpes zerda (fennec fox)
* Vulpes sp.

Seeing as how dogs can and do breed with wolves and produce fertile offspring aren't they automatically the same species?

I hear canis lupus familiaris everywhere including scientific articles.

Seeing as how dogs can and do breed with wolves and produce fertile offspring aren't they automatically the same species?

I hear canis lupus familiaris everywhere including scientific articles.
please provide the references.

this canid taxonomy is the official accepted taxonomy for the government, universities, and museums

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Taxonomy/Browser/wwwtax.cgi?id=9608

dogs are not wolves.The research is very recent. It just made it into National Geographic last year. It hasn't had time to filter down into all the publications and websites.

The difference in DNA between a mongrel dog and a wolf is less than that between two extreme breeds of dog, say a Basset hound and a Saluki. Moreover, it is far less than the difference between a human from Norway and one from Borneo, whom we regard as a single species.

Dogs and wolves are like reindeer and caribou: one species, but over thousands of years a few noticeable differences have been selected in the domesticated population.

Wolves are simply one breed of dog: the original.

All dogs are descended from a wolf population in China. The wolves there today have the same genetic markers that all dogs have. That means that wolves joined humans in a multi-species community in just one place, and humans took their dogs with them everywhere they went and/or traded them with other tribes, rather than repeating the process of domestication all over the planet.

The only major, consistent differences between a dog and a wolf are:

1. The teeth halfway back in their jaws (I don't remember what they're called) have lost the blade-like shape that allows wolves to easily rip the meat off a fresh kill, and instead are shaped more like molars for a scavenging lifestyle.
2. Their brains are a bit smaller. Brains need a lot of protein, and the diet of a scavenger does not provide as much as that of a nearly full-time predator.
3. They almost instinctively accept humans as equals and even pack leaders, whereas to wolves we are competitors at best, enemies at worst.

All of the other differences in the various breeds are the result of selective breeding (some of which goes back 8,000 years almost to the dawn of civilization) and can easily be mixed back into a dog that looks pretty much like a dingo in just a couple of generations of hybridization.

As for the question about dogs being able to crossbreed with wolves. This does not make them the same species, it makes them the same genus. (Such as horses, asses, and zebras; or bison, steers, and Asian buffalo.) Being the same species, these days, seems to be a judgment call on the part of the zoological community, and they're revising their taxonomies wholesale since the advent of DNA analysis. Dogs/wolves, coyotes, and jackals are the three best known members of genus Canis. Dog-coyote hybrids are quite common in the Southwest. Wolf-coyote hybrids have established populations where their ranges overlap on the fringes of civilization in the East. Jackals (which are more than one species) don't live in our hemisphere so I don't know anything about their breeding habits.

However, the new taxonomies play havoc with the traditional definition of a genus. None within the dog family Canidae, but plenty within Felidae, the cats. Housecats and ocelots used to be counted as genus Felis, as were the lion and tiger. Now the lion and tiger are in a new genus Panthera, and the ocelot is in a new genus Leopardus. The problem is that housecats and ocelots can be easily crossbred. You can find ocicats in the want ads in any big city newspaper. How can they interbreed if they're in two different genera?

I've been asking that question for ten years and nobody has given me an answer. The same thing happens with parrots. The hyacinth macaw (the poster child of the endangered species movement) is genus Anodorhynchus and the blue-and-gold macaw (the most popular pet macaw) is genus Ara. Yet they have been successfully hybridized.

Dogs are wolves. Wolves are dogs. It will take a while for thousands of books on dogs to be rewritten.

Dogs are wolves. Wolves are dogs. It will take a while for thousands of books on dogs to be rewritten.

I just want one scientific reference that says that the Canis taxonomy has been revised. Just ONE! I haven't found any, because I don't think the taxonomy has been revised. But I'll keep searching.

"In 1993, the Smithsonian Institution and the American Society of Mammalogists reclassified the dog from its separate species designation of Canis familiaris to Canis lupus familiaris. So, now, the Timber Wolf (Canis lupus nubilus), the Mackanzie or Tundra Wolf (Canis lupus occidentalis), the dog (Canis lupus familiaris), etc, fall under the genetic umbrella of the gray wolf: Canis lupus."
http://www.dossu.org/dogs.html

A bit more scientific perhaps;
http://www.fiu.edu/~milesk/Genetics.htm

"In 1993, the Smithsonian Institution and the American Society of Mammalogists reclassified the dog from its separate species designation of Canis familiaris to Canis lupus familiaris. So, now, the Timber Wolf (Canis lupus nubilus), the Mackanzie or Tundra Wolf (Canis lupus occidentalis), the dog (Canis lupus familiaris), etc, fall under the genetic umbrella of the gray wolf: Canis lupus."
http://www.dossu.org/dogs.html

A bit more scientific perhaps;
http://www.fiu.edu/~milesk/Genetics.htm

those aren't scientific references, but I was able to use them to find one,

i.e., the following is a real scientific reference,

http://www.nmnh.si.edu/cgi-bin/wdb/msw/synonyms/query/12029

so thanks for that; i was wrong you both were right, thanks for the correction, and good job on your dog research.

Part of the reason I was wrong is that Canis familiaris has continually been incorrectly used in the scientific literature, i.e; from
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=15101402

Proc R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2004 Feb 7;271 Suppl 3:S1-4.

Ancient wolf lineages in India.
Sharma DK, Maldonado JE, Jhala YV, Fleischer RC.
Wildlife Institute of India, Postbox 18, Dehradun 248001, India.
All previously obtained wolf (Canis lupus) and dog (Canis familiaris) mitochondrial (mt) DNA sequences .................Thus, we find no evidence that these two taxa played a part in the domestication of canids.

Which is disconcerting since one of the authors, Rob Fleischer, a colleague of mine, works as a curator at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum.

This is a very interesting thread with alot of insightful posts. I am a life long animal lover and cat lover in particular. But I like dogs too and understand their prey drive. And I have never blamed dogs for killing cats. I put the blame on the dog owners who let their dogs run loose or train them to be attack dogs. That is so sad. :(

I have had 2 pet dogs and 10 pet cats in my life. And I always made sure my dogs were on my property and not causing trouble elswhere. I have always tried to be a responsible pet owner. Recently in my area a rottweiller/pitbull mix killed 7 pet cats in it's area over a period of time. The dog was unlicensed and he was impounded several times only to be released to his negligent owner again and again. I don't know about you but if my dog got out and killed the neighbors cat I would be mortified and apologetic. But this dog owner whose dog killed 7 pet cats didn't even offer an apology to anyone. All he said was that the cats instigated his dog. :rolleyes: People like that shouldn't have dogs. But while this rottweiller/pitbull mix killed 7 pet cats Dr Lou posted that recently in his area a dog was euthanized for killing an astronomical 42 cats in 1 week! :eek: OMG! How on earth did that happen and why was that allowed to happen? I can't imagine a dog being allowed to kill 42 cats in 1 week. I wonder if most of those cats were stray cats. It's hard to imagine 1 dog getting a hold of 42 pet cats in 1 week and killing them. And Dr Lou, what kind of dog was this, a huge Mastiff? Probably not. A Mastiff would be too big and slow to catch 42 cats.

The bottom line is that dogs are generally great pets. But dogs need to have good pet owners. That is crucial to their developement and temperment as pets. And I don't blame the dogs for killing cats becasue it's their nature. Their prey drive makes it natural for them the way a cats prey drive leads it to killing mice and birds. But the main difference is that the mice and birds cats kill aren't someone's much loved pet the way cats killed by dogs are. That's why dogs killing cats especially pet cats is so sad. And alot of the cats killed by dogs could have been avoided if the dogs had better owners. But it's also vital for cat owners to know the area where they live and whether it has big roaming dogs and alot of traffic that would pose serious threats to their cats health. I know pet cats should be safe outside on their property. But they are vulerable to dogs, racoons and even other cats, particularly aggressive Tomcats. I think it's time cat owners took better care of their cats and kept them inside more than they do.

I have never blamed dogs for killing cats. I put the blame on the dog owners who let their dogs run loose or train them to be attack dogs.Yes, but I put great stock in the doctrine of contributory negligence. If I leave my Porsche in a dark alley with the keys in it at 3am and it's gone when I come back, of course whoever took it should be punished. But I'm an idiot for having left it like that. There are unfortunately a lot of bad dogs out there and while we should find their owners and put them all in stocks, cat owners have the responsibility to adjust their behavior to respond to reality.That is so sad. Recently in my area a rottweiller/pitbull mix killed 7 pet cats in it's area over a period of time. And I don't blame the dogs for killing cats because it's their nature. Their prey drive makes it natural for them the way a cats prey drive leads it to killing mice and birds.Actually most breeds of dogs don't have the hunting drive. Our Maltese, one of the very oldest breeds (interesting how when humans finally figured out selective breeding, one of the first things they did with dogs was create some that were a lot smaller), has absolutely no predatory instinct. She will chase a ball or another dog that wants to play, but she'll sit quietly and watch a chipmunk or a vole scamper right past her. In general, dogs have been bred to be scavengers rather than hunters, so they'd clean up the garbage in our camps. Only a few breeds were bred to retain the hunting instinct so they could be used as hunting companions, the job their ancestors originally signed up for. And most of them only find, chase, or retrieve game, rather than actually killing it themselves. Only the huge livestock guard dogs like the Akbash and Rhodesian Ridgeback and Anatolian Guardian have been really bred to kill, and even then if the lion or bear or wolf runs away instead of fighting they won't chase after it.

Pitbulls were developed by some really nasty human beings for the sole purpose of fighting other animals or each other for sport. I feel sorry for the dogs, but I'd love to put their owners in a pit with a few polar bears.

Rottweilers are even sadder. They were bred by the Romans to be draft animals, to pull carts! They're supposed to be as gentle and docile as horses. Breeding the killing instinct back into them should be a capital offense. But the main difference is that the mice and birds cats kill aren't someone's much loved pet the way cats killed by dogs are.Yes, and cats seem to "get it" that some animals are wild and therefore fair game, while others are members of the family. Our Persian cats let our canaries and other tiny birds fly all over the house, sit next to them, and even bathe in their huge water dish, without batting an eye. One time when we came home late and it had gotten dark -- most birds are flat blind at night -- we found our three cats sitting in a protective circle around a bird that had gotten stranded on the floor. Our dogs, on the other hand, have over the years wiped out several of our pet birds. Not the Maltese, but the Lhasa Apsos. They're both legally blind and aggressive. Anything that moves is a toy to them.But it's also vital for cat owners to know the area where they live and whether it has big roaming dogs and alot of traffic that would pose serious threats to their cats health. I know pet cats should be safe outside on their property. But they are vulerable to dogs, racoons and even other cats, particularly aggressive Tomcats. I think it's time cat owners took better care of their cats and kept them inside more than they do.Most of the authorities go a step further and say that all cats should be kept indoors, period. Most cats just won't stay in their yards, and even if they do, most fences won't keep out either a determined bad dog or a wild predator.

It's important for all Americans to realize that the coyote is becoming a universal threat. The animal rights fanatics have gotten virtually all municipal governments to stop their "coyote abatement" programs. On top of that, the coyote's only natural predator is the wolf, and we've done our best to run them out of the country. North America used to be divided into wolf territory and coyote territory. Now it's slowly becoming 100 percent coyote territory except for a few places in the West. Areas like the Washington DC suburbs are starting to have to deal with coyotes the way we always have in California.

So if you have a cat -- or even a dog under 20 pounds -- be forewarned. Don't leave them outside without close oversight. The coyotes are coming. Don't let them catch you by surprise. We've got one of those giant Anatolian Guardian dogs and she keeps all of our little pets safe. Everyone else in our neighborhood has had a bear in their pantry or seen a cougar staking out their property. The predators don't come anywhere near our five acres. (Oddly, we don't have coyotes up in the redwood forest yet, but she'd eat two of them for breakfast.)

My 6lb cat is more agressive than my 70lb dog.

It's funny how that happens sometimes, Enigma. :D

That was a phenomenal and educational post Fraggle! Especially about prey drive and how some dogs have it towards cats and some dogs don't. You have a fair grip on the animal kingdom especially where cats and dogs are concerned.

How big is your guard dog?

I think we agree that cat owners bear some resposibilty for the well being of their cats when they are off their property. But no cat owner thinks their cat will get killed by a dog or hit by a car when they let them outside. And most cats like to go outside and enjoy themselves. But that can be a dangrerous risk. Dr Lou pointed out that a dog was recently euthanized in his area for killing 42 cats. That's an astronomical number and a horrific story! :eek: And I wonder how that happened. But apparently it did. I know alot of cat owners have to regret letting their cat outside only to be killed by a dog or hit by a car. I know my cats won't go outside as often as they used to. It's for their own good.

I enjoyed reading about your wild kingdom Fraggle. :)

the owner is the responsiable party if its the cat, dog or child left to roam.

as an ad. to this post . some of my companions rabit hunt. my fox hound(glory)trys her best to keep up w/ my german short haired pointer(smokey) but he will eventuly corner one and she moves in to take it. they both share in the meat.