Not all of our dogs were once wolves

In all my years in private veterinary practice and experience in animal behaviour I have never been convinced that the enormous variety of domestic canine breeds from Chihuahua to Dalmatian to a Neapolitan Mastiff could have had a lupine origin.

It is the same theory that all humans came from Adam and Eve. It is genetically impossible for this to happen irrespective of beliefs and theories expounded for thousands of years. It is impossible to outbreed from a single line. Wolves would have to have been in-bred for this purpose, artificially, and guaranteed non-survivable defects would have emerged and been fatal before a different type of canid could have emerged.

It is believed, as well, that dogs have been living in close co-operation with humans for 12 000 years. It has to be longer than this and only time and evidence will prove this puzzling natural issue of anthrozootic interaction. Now that we have DNA mapping there are companies which can determine the DNA composition of mixed-breed dogs, up to seven different breeds.

How accurate this is, time will also tell, because of the dogs I have seen in practice whose mapping has been done still creates doubts about certain aspects of the recognised DNA composition of inherent breeds. Even the owners did not find it credible yet their intrigue and curiosity through these advanced scientific tests had been gladly satisfied.

If one compares the German Shepherd Dog, Siberian Husky, Alaskan Malamute to the various wolves one can easily extrapolate that in these breeds the wolf may have played a genetic role, but certainly not with breeds such as the Bullmastiff and Miniature Pinscher.

The new research is of the opinion that there were different ancestors stretching back as far as 34 000 years ago which then turns the entire concept of domestication of dogs into a much more interesting and complex scenario. It is well-known that most popular pet breeds today are a mix of many other breeds from the past and present.

Some the specific dogs which contributed to the modern breeds have become extinct, such as the Old English Black and Tan Terrier, Broken-haired terrier, Italian Mastiff, Smithfield Cattle Dog and German Bullenbeisser (one of the ancestors of the Boxer).

The Labrador Retriever is believed to be descended from the St Jones Dog from Newfoundland and then crossed with the English Pointer. The Staffordshire Bull Terrier was derived by crossing the Bulldog with various terriers. The Wirehaired Dachshund was developed by crossing the Smooth Dachshund, the Schnauzer, the Dandie Dinmont terrier and the Scottish Terrier.

The studies on the new origins of the domesticated dogs are indicating that dogs are more closely related to one another than to wolves and only the crossbreeding between dogs and wolves have created the genetic overlap which is still being practised today in the popularity of wolf-dog hybrids. The scientific team has calculated this novel concept on genetic material obtained from an indigenous African breed, the Basenji, the Dingo from Australia and from wolves in Eastern Europe, Asia and Middle East.

There are still many unsolved mysteries among wolf lineage regarding their divergences, extinction of certain types in the past which is being studied. One of the interesting differential findings is the digestive ability related to starches where dog breeds are more capable in this physiological ability than wolves according to certain genes for the enzyme amylase.

The latter allows dogs to be more omnivorous, tolerate human food and coexistence with people. Certain dog breeds such as the Dingo and the Spitz breeds such as the Malamutes, Samoyeds and Huskies tolerate starches much less and then fall more in line with wolf genes in relation to this particular aspect of diet and food absorption ability.

The oldest dog remains were discovered in China where it is believed jackals and coyotes have never existed. This also deals with another theory where these canids may have also contributed towards the domestic dog. It is also in China that the first authentic association between man and a small wolf variety took place 150 000 years ago. Some Nordic dog breeds are believed to be direct descendants of wolves, with DNA similarities of 99.8%. Then there are more than 45 sub-species of wolves already classified.

Paleozoologists are delving deeper in to the similarities and differences between wolves and dogs – and more interestingly, the origins of our pet dogs.