Posted on 01/30/2012 7:20:14 PM PST by SunkenCiv
While a postdoc at Cornell University a few years ago, Adam Boyko became curious about the little-studied village vagrants. Though dogs were first domesticated 20,000 to 15,000 years ago, most breeds go back only a few hundred years. Perhaps village dog DNA might shed light on the long, early history of domestication, when canines were hanging around humans yet not under our domain. But how to get samples?
As it happened, around the same time Boyko's brother Ryan had married, and he and wife Corin were looking for a cheap honeymoon off the beaten track. The three Boykos decided to merge their two quests. Adam -- now at Cornell's College of Veterinary Medicine -- obtained a grant, then enlisted Ryan and Corin to spend their honeymoon traveling around Egypt, Uganda, and Namibia, befriending villagers and local vets. They collected DNA from more than 300 village dogs...
The Boykos continue to expand their sample collection, with another expedition planned for Africa. And they've also begun using the same techniques to solve a related mystery: the strange disappearance of native dogs in South America. We know from the historical record that Native Americans had dogs. But previous population surveys in the Americas turned up only dogs with European heritage. "How do you ship so many dogs across the world that they completely replace the native dogs?" Boyko wonders, suspecting that in fact there may still be village dogs with native DNA in the remotest areas of the continent. So in August the three Boykos packed their bags and headed into the jungles of Peru, searching for the lost American dog.
(Excerpt) Read more at ngm.nationalgeographic.com ...
Uh, not all German Shepherds were in East Germany. They were already the most popular dog in the world, with many branches in Europe alone, including West.
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My comment was tongue-in-cheek and I’m surprised was taken so literally. I’m not actually that ignorant, although I can see how that assumption could be made on FR.
Sorry. Didn’t quite get it!
Hi CC. My two year old Bostie is on a food regimen to keep his weight around l5 pounds. He gets l/4 cup of Taste of the Wild kibble with a tablespoon of Bue dog meat around 8AM, and 1/4 in 4 cup of Taste of the Wild kibble 3with his vitamihs at 3PM. He looks trim, and ready to be shown! Of couarse he gets a Milk Bone now and then during the day, and always plenty offresh water.
Your JRs are looking so cute, but one of athem is getting a bit on the pudgy side, and you may want to ask your vet how much to feed him/her to keep trim. If I was younger, I would get another Boston Terrier to keep Oliver company. I am definitely top dog to him, and he is an amazing dog, bringing hours of joy to me.
Or is one of your dogs a Corgie? I think one of them is indeed, a Corgie,l so it may not be pudgie at all! Sorry.
The Bull-Mastiff, as just one example of hundreds, was developed in England to be a smaller more active Mastiff for use as a night guard for livestock against human poachers - who they would tackle and hold by the throat. The final mix was, IIRC, 3/4 Mastiff and 1/4 archaic Bull-dog.
There is no evidence that dog breeds existed in the wild until domesticated by humans. There were no wild bands of Dachshunds digging up varmints - there were wolves and coyotes and the like.
All genetic and historic evidence suggests that humans domesticated wolves and developed dog breeds from them.
Jackson Co. Sheriff knocked on my door one Saturday morning and asked me if I had a white German Shephard. I said no but that I had a white Dingo. He said that Blue was killing cats in the neighborhood. I said, "Not my dog." and whistled for him. Blue came running out from under the house and his upper lip was ripped wide open.
All I could think was ut-oh. The officer said that he was sorry but that he had to take the dog, He also said for me to not come to the pound to bail him out because he would not be allowed back in this neighborhood.
I asked him if he had the internet back at the pound and he said they did. I plead with him to look up Carolina Dingo and check out what he had just 'arrested'. He promised he would and that if it was what I said it was he would do everything in his power to get him a home. I sure hope that Blue survived.
I probably wouldn’t have given my dog to the sheriff.
Neener is a “CoJack” corgi JRT mix.
Her name was “Queenie” when I got her but I wasn’t having any of that.
Beautiful little Jack Russells there.
“Of dogs I know this- German Shepherds are very smart and make wonderful, family pets, unless you get one from all German bloodlines, which will lead to the discovery they were bred for East German prison camp security. Anyone needing such please email me ;) “Bloody stump” is part of our family lexicon.”
LOL! Shepherds are my favorite breed. My sister-in-law and her husband owned a GS with all German bloodlines, trained in the Schutzhund method ( I think that’s spelled right). If he didn’t know you, you did NOT want to approach him or the house without one of his people there to control him. I was there one day when a repairman visited, and the dog sat on my feet, facing the guy and growling until he left. But with family he was a big love bucket. I adored that dog.
Someone stole my black lab and my black and tan coonhound when I was working nights once, I’m still heartbroken.
Biblically, the earth is less then 10,000 years old.
I will probably go Rhodesian for my next dog, they aren’t as likely probably to let someone steal them.
Thanks pops88.
An on a related topic, something is driving primative villagers out of the jungle in Amazon Peru. Wonder if they have dogs? I have heard that the Mexican Hairless was bred that way for eating purposes, and my husband reported dog eating as common in Korea at the time of Korean War.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/31/peru-mashco-piro-tribe_n_1244204.html?ncid=webmail5
An on a related topic, something is driving primative villagers out of the jungle in Amazon Peru. Wonder if they have dogs? I have heard that the Mexican Hairless was bred that way for eating purposes, and my husband reported dog eating as common in Korea at the time of Korean War.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/31/peru-mashco-piro-tribe_n_1244204.html?ncid=webmail5
It is entirely possible that dogs are much older. There were undoubtedly hominid village or cave communities before the start of the last Ice Age about 125,000 years ago which was futher deepened by Toba 74,000 ya. The advancement of hominids was undoubtedfully significantly set back by this and only began to recover about 50,000 years ago. So with many fewer humans, any semi-dogs would probably have reverted to their wolf ancestry until hominids again had some population groups living together.
They want more pots and machettes.
The ocean continued to rise until about 8,500 years ago.
Whatever Toba did, the effect was not permanent ~ I think the reference to a cooling period then has to do with the interruption of an "interstadial" (warm period of less than 10,000 years) with a return to increasing ice.
Remember, there are 21 major glacial periods that recur at regular periods (two different frequencies ~ the first half has shorter ice ages, the second half has longer ice ages, with interstadials). This runs back 2.5 million years in the Northern hemisphere, 7.0 million in the Southern hemisphere, and maybe 500 million in central Antarctica ~ there's an entire mountain range at least that old that's been encased in ice since it formed.
Dogs are obviously a temperate and subarctic zone animal. They are tough. Consequently they would have encountered human beings at an early time ~ Euro/Chinese Cro-Magon advances into subarctic zones began about 75,000 years back. There men and dogs survive much better if they cooperate than if they compete.
There may well have been an interstadial 25,000 years earlier than that period which would have allowed humans and dogs to move to a subarctic region (40 degrees North perhaps ~ at that time) and to have begun to interact ~ first at a top end social level ~ and then on a personal level.
Remember, the dog's jaw is shorter than that of the wolf. That's what makes them acceptable in human company. Dogs also love being scritched. Only people can do that.
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