[Tis The Time''s Plague]

Is the difference in breeds of dogs or cats the same as different races in humans? Would you be able to tell the breed of a dog from it's genes?

The closest analogy to dogs' genetics and human racial differences is that humans are all beagles with differing varieties of spots, fur coloration, length of tail, length of nose, length of hair, but all recognizable as beagles. There is greater genetic difference between a scottish terrier and a border terrier than there is between me and a african pigmy. My son is most likely to be a six-foot white guy rather than a four-foot black guy but they could marry each other's sisters and produce some five-foot tall brown children.

[babygene]

OK, but something still doesn't compute.

We have all kinds of breeds of cats, dogs, bitds, fish, elephants, virtuly every animal species. I can't think of any animal species that doesn't have more than one breed...

Why would it be that humans have only one breed?

You sees differences as in your beagle example ie: curly hair, streight hair, red hair, blond hair, tall, short, long nose, etc., within the same family of humans (with the same parents).