[Tallguy]

“This finding is based on a false premise, that early dogs have to be phenotypically different than wolves. Dogs are wolves in the first place. There is no reason to assume there should be physical changes unless the dogs method of living changed.”

The Russian experiment involving the domestication of fox suggests that there are rapid physiological changes to canids when domestication begins to take hold. I’ve also read that genetically dogs & wolves are practically indistinguishable. Whatever is going on with the evolution of the dogs body type it is both rapid & genetically subtle.

[Salamander]

http://news.discovery.com/animals/pets/dogs-not-as-close-kin-to-wolves-as-thought-140116.htm

http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2014/0117/Did-dogs-really-evolve-from-wolves-New-evidence-suggests-otherwise

http://www.hngn.com/articles/22228/20140117/dogs-did-not-originate-from-wolves.htm

http://www.sott.net/article/272118-Dogs-are-not-descended-from-modern-wolves-but-split-from-common-ancestor-34000-years-ago

[Varda]

I'm not a big fan of the Russian experiment. The problems I see start with it being an exercise in controlled breeding (early domestication is not neccesarily the result of controlled breeding) and second it assumes the premise that neotony (the retention of infantile characteristics) is a hallmark of domesticates which is another assumption not supported by the fossil record or by modern natural dog breeds.

BTW the dogs in this article aren't very different from wolves either but they are clearly dogs Large canids at the Gravettian Předmostí site, the Czech Republic