The Origin of Dogs

nessdog writes "Your old friend in the back-yard can read you like an open book according to this article from the BBC. They report that your dog's power of reading your body language is better than a chimps. So next time you tell a lie, just remember who might be watching..."

Comments

Hmmmm

[FungiSpunk]

Any animal that sits down in front of your entire family on Xmas day, then cleans its own gentials with its tongue, is hardly screaming up the evolutionary ladder!

3 canine Eves

[Strange Ranger]

Given the small genetic sample that it seems 95% of dogs have originated from, I wonder if some careful breeding of wolves back into the dog gene pool would help with all the congenital problems that dog breeders have to be so vigilent about. Genetic diversity of course being a Good Thing.

I know dog/wolf hybrids aren't supposed to make good pets, can be dangerous, wild, etc. But careful breeding back into the most popular dog breeds would be worth preventing thousands of cases of hip dysplasia, eye problems, heart problems, skin problems, etc., etc.

A wolf/poodle cross might be a little disturbing though.

Re:3 canine Eves

[young-earth]

Hip dysplasia actually became common in the US in the 1930's. Yet it was quite rare in Australia until the 1970's and 1980's. That's not evidence for a genetic issue, but it does correlate quite effectively with when commercial (cooked, processed, etc.) dog foods came on the scene.

If you feed your dog the BARF (Bones And Raw Food) diet, odds are they'll be a ton healthier. Research has shown that dogs from lines raised on the BARF diet tend to have near-zero incidence of dysplasia when their litters also use the BARF diet (see the books on the above site for details).

Many breeders are coming to realize this - the problem is primarily intake not primarily genetics. This has been quite effective for our giant-breed dog, a Great Pyrenees. He's over 11 years old and still quite spry, without a trace of dysplasia.