# Origin of Dogs - Just wolves or more?



## fyzbo (Jun 19, 2008)

I have read many times when reading about feeding raw that dogs come from wolves, on researching canidae I've noticed there are many more variations besides wolves and dogs, including foxes, coyotes, dingoes, jackals, African wild dogs, raccoon dogs, etc. Is there evidence that dogs come only from wolves or can they come/be related to all these species?


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## RawFedDogs (Jun 22, 2008)

They are distantly related to all those species but a dog is actually a wolf. He is a subspecies of wolf. The scientific name for wolf is canis lupus. A dog is canis lupus familiaris. The mDNA is only .02% different from wolves.

http://www.kc.net/~wolf2dog/wayne2.htm

There is no mixture of any other animal with wolf to create a dog. The only physical difference between our dogs and wolves are appearance and size. Everything else is the same.


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## Pai (Apr 23, 2008)

Then why do wolves _eat_ dogs 95% of the time if they ever meet? =P Apparently _they_ sense a difference...
Terrierman has made several articles talking about this common misconception.

Dogs (namely, Pariah dogs, which are ancestors of the modern dog) have lived wild alongside humans for thousands of years. Their diets and lifestyles have been radically different from wolves for the majority of their existence, and they are two different kinds of canines. For example, foxes are also in the 'Canidae' genus, and besides being omnivorous, are also very much not 'mini wolves'. Their lifestyles, heat cycles, and diets have been different for thousands of years. 
Humans and Chimps are about the same in terms of genetic similarity as dogs/foxes/jackals/etc to wolves, but there are still _significant _differences between the two species. A dog is not a wolf, it's a _dog._


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## RawFedDogs (Jun 22, 2008)

Pai said:


> Then why do wolves _eat_ dogs 95% of the time if they ever meet? =P Apparently _they_ sense a difference...


Wolves don't eat dogs nor do they eat coyottes. Where did you find such silly stuff. Yes, they will kill either of them if they catch them in their territory just as they will kill another wolf that doesn't belong to the pack. But they don't eat any of them.



> Terrierman has made several articles talking about this common misconception.


Well, I don't know what to tell you except Terrieman is wrong. Obviously you haven't looked at the research done by Dr. Robert Wayne(a real scientist). A link is posted in my previous post in this thread. Dogs and wolves are 100 times closer related than we are to chimps. In the 1990s classification of dogs was changed from their own species (Canis Familiaris) to a subspecies of wolf (Canis Lupus Familiaris) because so much research proved they were the same species. Who is this Terrierman anyway?

Any biologist will tell you they are the same. Any zoologist will tell you they are the same. Any dog trainer or behaviorist will tell you they are the same. Only one little guy with a blog disputes this. 

Dogs are not coyottes ... dogs are not jackels ... dogs are not foxes ... dogs are wolves.


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## RBark (Sep 10, 2007)

> Wolves don't eat dogs nor do they eat coyottes. Where did you find such silly stuff. Yes, they will kill either of them if they catch them in their territory just as they will kill another wolf that doesn't belong to the pack. But they don't eat any of them.


Are you kidding?

Stories of wolves eating dogs are somewhat common.

There's a story of a pack of wolves that attacked a group of bear hunting dogs, killed all of them and ate them. It was rather famous recently.


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## RawFedDogs (Jun 22, 2008)

RBark said:


> Are you kidding?
> 
> Stories of wolves eating dogs are somewhat common.


Urban legends.



> There's a story of a pack of wolves that attacked a group of bear hunting dogs, killed all of them and ate them. It was rather famous recently.


Documented by who? There was also a famous story in the last week on the major networks about Bigfoot's body being found. 

In general carnivores don't eat other carnivores. Kill them, yes, but not eat them. I know several raw feeders who won't feed their dogs carnivore meat for that very reason.


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## RBark (Sep 10, 2007)

Uh, whatever you want to believe. Tell that to people living in wolf territory :s


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## briteday (Feb 10, 2007)

http://nola2ak.blogspot.com/2007/12/wolves-are-eating-dogs.html


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## LilTrio24 (Sep 2, 2007)

Ok, so here is my question. I'm gonna take sides on the above mentioned topic. BUT, while we are on the topic of dogs being wolves here is my question. If dogs come from wolves and only wolves how can you get so many variation, so many breeds? For something to come from a wolf and NOT be a full blooded wolf it had to have bred with something else. So how do we have to many breeds of dogs if they all come from wolves?


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## RawFedDogs (Jun 22, 2008)

briteday said:


> http://nola2ak.blogspot.com/2007/12/wolves-are-eating-dogs.html


Good story. I notice except for the headline which is often written for sensationalism, nothing mentioned the dogs being eaten ... only killed.


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## Shaina (Oct 28, 2007)

LilTrio24 said:


> Ok, so here is my question. I'm gonna take sides on the above mentioned topic. BUT, while we are on the topic of dogs being wolves here is my question. If dogs come from wolves and only wolves how can you get so many variation, so many breeds? For something to come from a wolf and NOT be a full blooded wolf it had to have bred with something else. So how do we have to many breeds of dogs if they all come from wolves?


Evolution, human interference, and the ramifications of sexual reproduction.

The current most plausible theory (IMO), very very simplified:

Wolves start getting scraps from human nomadic tribe as the move from location to location. Those willing to approach more quickly after the humans leave tend to get more food. These are the ones more likely to make an effort to follow the humans to keep getting scraps and leftovers - gene pool of these wolves tends to start isolating itself a bit.

Fast forward, humans settle down in permanent settlements...suddenly the scrap heaps are always near the settlements instead of deserted. Now the canines with the shorter flight distances are getting the most food. Those that pose a threat to the settlement are killed off because, like most animals, people don't like things that try to eat them and their offspring. Gene pool is almost totally isolated and those who are more adapted to scavenging (rather than hunting), are less aggressive to humans, and have a shorter flight distance have a much better chance of passing on their genes.

At some point these guys start living among the humans, and later on still, the human start intentionally breeding certain dogs they like (or possibly more likely...culling the ones they have no use for), and rudimentary breeds are forms. This goes on and on, with people breeding for stranger and more specific things (appearance, temperament, behavior), until you end up with the dogs of today.


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## rosemaryninja (Sep 28, 2007)

LilTrio24 said:


> Ok, so here is my question. I'm gonna take sides on the above mentioned topic. BUT, while we are on the topic of dogs being wolves here is my question. If dogs come from wolves and only wolves how can you get so many variation, so many breeds? For something to come from a wolf and NOT be a full blooded wolf it had to have bred with something else. So how do we have to many breeds of dogs if they all come from wolves?


The first thing you should know is that the dogs we have in our homes today weren't originally created by breeding wolf to wolf.

"Besides, the dog’s ancestor isn’t the mighty gray wolf of Discovery Channel. That wolf didn’t exist yet when the dog began to split off into a new species – the gray wolf had yet to evolve, just as the domestic dog did. What you need to imagine is a much smaller animal, who had already split off from the wolf family line, some 200,000 - 500,000 years ago." 
- http://www.nonlineardogs.com/100MostSillyPart1.html

The second thing you should know is that most breeds were originally created through selective breeding: only animals with desirable traits, or features that suited the man's needs, were bred. This often meant breeding puppies in litters that had some kind of genetic deformation, like being unusually huge (think Mastiffs) or with abnormally long ears (think Beagles) or short legs (think Daschunds).

So although our pets are very closely related to the wolves you see on TV or in books, they aren't direct descendants of those animals, which explains why [most] of the dogs you see now look very little like those animals.


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## RawFedDogs (Jun 22, 2008)

LilTrio24 said:


> If dogs come from wolves and only wolves how can you get so many variation, so many breeds?


Good question and there are a couple of answers. The first answer is the most important and I used to have references for this but can't find them now. They used to be bookmarked but I looked for them a couple of weeks ago but can't find them anymore.

Anyway ... I tihnk it was back in the 1930's in Russia. There was a fox farm that raised foxes for their fur. They decided that to make life easier on the caretakers, they would only mate the most docile foxes. So for an experiment they took the most docile foxes into a group and mated them and their most docile offspring and so on down the line. After about 30 generations, funny things began to happen. Some of them began having floppy ears ... some had different colors ... some had tails that begin curling up over their backs. They quickly got combinations off all those. These were still foxes but they didn't look like the other foxes. Just as our dogs are still wolves but don't look like them.

Now to get different breeds. Many breeds were bred to look the way they do. For example Great Danes were bred from Mastif and Grey Hound probably with others included to get the look they have today. Breeds are bred to do a job and the size and shape is what was arrived at for the best to do that job.


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## LilTrio24 (Sep 2, 2007)

I get what you are saying for the most part and I understand it's largely due to human intervention and basically breeding what they had a use for. I guess my question is how do you get the first breeds or even modern breeds. Even if you bred two wolves to get the temperment that you wanted, you still have a wolf. Any two wolves bred no matter what they looked like, acted, whatever, you still have a wolf. SAY the "first" dog breeds not to be pure wolves were german shepards, labs, and poodles. What was bred with the wolf to get these. I get how we domesticated wolves into dogs. But wouldn't a wolf have to be bred with SOMETHING that wasn't a wolf to get a dog, or basically get anything that wasn't a pure wolf. I guess I don't get how the wolf and dog took different paths. I don't get how exactly we went from wolves to poodles.


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## RawFedDogs (Jun 22, 2008)

rosemaryninja said:


> "Besides, the dog’s ancestor isn’t the mighty gray wolf of Discovery Channel."


Recent DNA research disproves that statement. Not only does it prove that our dogs ancestors were gray wolves but they ARE gray wolves today. See my post #2 in this thread. There is very detailed research that leads to this. Not just someone's imagination.


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## rosemaryninja (Sep 28, 2007)

RawFedDogs said:


> Good question and there are a couple of answers. The first answer is the most important and I used to have references for this but can't find them now. They used to be bookmarked but I looked for them a couple of weeks ago but can't find them anymore.
> 
> Anyway ... I tihnk it was back in the 1930's in Russia. There was a fox farm that raised foxes for their fur. They decided that to make life easier on the caretakers, they would only mate the most docile foxes. So for an experiment they took the most docile foxes into a group and mated them and their most docile offspring and so on down the line. After about 30 generations, funny things began to happen. Some of them began having floppy ears ... some had different colors ... some had tails that begin curling up over their backs. They quickly got combinations off all those. These were still foxes but they didn't look like the other foxes. Just as our dogs are still wolves but don't look like them.


I think you are referring to Belyaev's work -- more about the study can be found here:

http://www.floridalupine.org/publications/PDF/trut-fox-study.pdf


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## LilTrio24 (Sep 2, 2007)

So while I was posting mine so others posted answers. I liked your rawfeddogs. I don't know if we are thinking of the same example, but I had heard of experiments to bred the calmest (nicest) of foxes. I didn't know that they ended up having different characteritics. If that example is true (and I assume it is) to me that is the best example of how we get what we have. Given that it wasn't the most technical answer, but if that can happen with foxes down generations than it explains to me how dogs came. And I understand that certain breeds were bred for certain purposes. I have a doxie and understand they were bred to hunt underground. I guess my question was more the direct desendents of wolves, how did they differ. You seem to have answered it, thank you.


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## rosemaryninja (Sep 28, 2007)

RFD, I'm curious to know when the study you linked in your second post was done. Tried looking but couldn't find a year.


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## RawFedDogs (Jun 22, 2008)

LilTrio24 said:


> I guess my question is how do you get the first breeds or even modern breeds. Even if you bred two wolves to get the temperment that you wanted, you still have a wolf.


Yes, exactly, just as we still have wolves living in our homes. 



> Any two wolves bred no matter what they looked like, acted, whatever, you still have a wolf. SAY the "first" dog breeds not to be pure wolves were german shepards, labs, and poodles


.

Hehe this thread is moving real fast. Check out my post #13 in this thread about foxes.


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## Shaina (Oct 28, 2007)

RawFedDogs said:


> Yes, exactly, just as we still have wolves living in our homes.


Um, what? Are you being sarcastic, or just out of touch with reality?


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## RawFedDogs (Jun 22, 2008)

rosemaryninja said:


> RFD, I'm curious to know when the study you linked in your second post was done. Tried looking but couldn't find a year.


I'm not sure. I have had the link for 2 or 3 years. It couldn't be too old. mDNA hasn't been known for very long. You could google Robert Wayne and possibly find out more.


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## Curbside Prophet (Apr 28, 2006)

Shaina said:


> Um, what? Are you being sarcastic, or just out of touch with reality?


Oh no, he's being sincere. Most of his arguments on feeding raw are premised on dogs are wolves.


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## RawFedDogs (Jun 22, 2008)

Shaina said:


> Um, what? Are you being sarcastic, or just out of touch with reality?


Absolutely serious backed up by scientific research. If you read the whole thread you will understand it.


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## Curbside Prophet (Apr 28, 2006)

LilTrio, you may find this study interesting and informative. It starts about midway on the first page.

http://www.britainhill.com/GeneticStructure.pdf


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## pamperedpups (Dec 7, 2006)

Shaina said:


> Um, what? Are you being sarcastic, or just out of touch with reality?


I don't believe he's either, as the story of the foxes suggests. Mutations happen in nature, and through selective breeding man has been able to manipulate those mutations as well as fix (through linebreeding and inbreeding) certain traits.

In horses, for example, we started out with something like this:









...and ended up with these, and many more very distinct breeds:


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## RawFedDogs (Jun 22, 2008)

pamperedpups said:


> I don't believe she's either, as the story of the foxes suggests.


"She" is a "he" (if you are refering to me). 



> Mutations happen in nature, and through selective breeding man has been able to manipulate those mutations and fix (through linebreeding and inbreeding) certain traits.


The fox experiment wasn't "nature". The foxes were selectively bred by humans for certain characteristics. Even after the changes in appearance, these mutations were still foxes. 

That was my point. It doesn't matter how much you selectively breed wolves, they are still wolves despite their appearance or temperament.

*EDITED TO ADD:* Just as the horses in the pictures above are still horses despite differences in appearance.


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## pamperedpups (Dec 7, 2006)

Sorry, I noted and changed my referece to you as a "she" immediately when I saw CP's post.

I also didn't say the fox mutations were natural. And I do get your point.


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## Shaina (Oct 28, 2007)

RawFedDogs said:


> Absolutely serious backed up by scientific research. If you read the whole thread you will understand it.


I read it and understand it. I simply believe you are wrong and don't know how to read "scientific research." That you believe the the animal in your living room, as you put it, is equivalent to a modern grey wolf is simply incomprehensible. 



RawFedDogs said:


> The fox experiment wasn't "nature". The foxes were selectively bred by humans for certain characteristics. Even after the changes in appearance, these mutations were still foxes.
> 
> That was my point. It doesn't matter how much you selectively breed wolves, they are still wolves despite their appearance or temperament.


Comparing a 30-or-so generation study of foxes to ~15,000 years of dog gene pool isolation is taking things a bit far, don't you think?


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## RawFedDogs (Jun 22, 2008)

Shaina said:


> I read it and understand it. I simply believe you are wrong and don't know how to read "scientific research." That you believe the the animal in your living room, as you put it, is equivalent to a modern grey wolf is simply incomprehensible.


If you don't believe the scientific research, look at the biology. Dogs have the same bodies of wolves, just shaped different. Same mouth, teeth, stomach, intestines, pancreas, etc. They are all alike. 



> Comparing a 30-or-so generation study of foxes to ~15,000 years of dog gene pool isolation is taking things a bit far, don't you think?


Nope. I was just pointing out that those different looking foxes are still foxes just as our dogs are still wolves. It is all so obvious, I don't understand why you can't see it. Even without the DNA research it's obvious. The DNA proves it beyond a doubt.


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## Curbside Prophet (Apr 28, 2006)

Nope. sorry, the dog and wolf are NOT structured the same. They MAY have the same DNA, the same number of chromosomes and the same number of teeth, but during the course of evolution there are MAJOR difference between the dog and wolf. Dog's teeth are smaller, more crowded and their jaws are weaker. Dogs have three different shapes of head, Mesaticephalic (think Labs), Brachycephalic(think Boxer), and Dolichocephalic(think Hound dog). Furthermore, the skull of a dog the same weigh of a wold is 25% smaller, so is their brain. The dog's senses are less than that of a wolf, and dog's have two yearly oestrous cycles, not one; I haven't even touched the changes that ocurred through domestication. These types of differenced were not noted in the Belyaev experiment, so it would be remiss to not consider the selective pressure that would cause these differences, and how dogs live in a virtually isolated niche away from wolves.


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## RawFedDogs (Jun 22, 2008)

Curbside Prophet said:


> Nope. sorry, the dog and wolf are NOT structured the same. They MAY have the same DNA, the same number of chromosomes and the same number of teeth, but during the course of evolution there are MAJOR difference between the dog and wolf.


Well, thats the thing about DNA. If they have the same DNA then they are the same species. That ends all argument right there. There is nothing else needed.



> Dog's teeth are smaller, more crowded and their jaws are weaker.


The tooth thing can be easily explained by selective breeding. Kibble fed dogs jaws are weaker than a wolf. I'm not sure any tests have been made comparing the jaw strength of a dog who eats the same diet as a wolf and exercises the jaw as much.



> Dogs have three different shapes of head, Mesaticephalic (think Labs), Brachycephalic(think Boxer), and Dolichocephalic(think Hound dog).


Selective breeding. Like the foxes, it doesn't stop them from being wolves.



> Furthermore, the skull of a dog the same weigh of a wold is 25% smaller, so is their brain.


Because in the wild, wolves whose heads and brains are a little smaller die a natural death because they are not as adapt at living in the wild. They don't live long enough to reproduce. Domestic dogs are coddled and protected from the dangers of the wild and all kinds of deformaties are allowed to live. If they did live long enough to reproduce in the wild, they would still be wolves, just wolves with smaller heads and brains than other wolves.



> The dog's senses are less than that of a wolf,


Like anything else, use it or lose it. Our dogs have lost the sharp senses becuse they have been coddled and protected and don't have a need for them. In the wild, wolves with less than perfect senses would die quickly and not live to reproduce. However if they did live and reproduce, they would still be wolves. Just more stupid than other wolves.



> and dog's have two yearly oestrous cycles, not one;


I know about that difference and I don't know why they are different in this respect. Perhaps selective breeding again. Perhaps we encouraged double oestrous cycles to produce more litters. I'm not sure. Maybe it was a natural change similar to the changes in the foxes. It's one of those mysteries of the universe. 



> These types of differenced were not noted in the Belyaev experiment, so it would be remiss to not consider the selective pressure that would cause these differences, and how dogs live in a virtually isolated niche away from wolves.


Which brings up an whole other subject. Show dogs are such an isolated gene pool that it makes me wonder if several hundred years from now if maybe show dogs will be as different from our real dogs as our dogs are from wolves? A thought to ponder.


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## Curbside Prophet (Apr 28, 2006)

RFD said:


> Well, thats the thing about DNA. If they have the same DNA then they are the same species. That ends all argument right there. There is nothing else needed.


 This must be true if your argument NEEDS it to be true. However, for those who don’t need dogs to be wolves, we can question the reliability of mtDNA data. You wouldn’t consider that the scientific community is still debating whether mtDNA data is a good marker – this consideration doesn’t support your argument. Furthermore, the argument, really, needs to go no further than the understanding dogs and wolves live in isolated biological niches. This is a requirement for species to be different, and this requirement is fulfilled. No two animals can occupy the same biological niche and survive. You’re _the wolf is natural and good _argument must consider this to be valid.


> The tooth thing can be easily explained by selective breeding. Kibble fed dogs jaws are weaker than a wolf. I'm not sure any tests have been made comparing the jaw strength of a dog who eats the same diet as a wolf and exercises the jaw as much.


 If it’s so easy to explain, show me the data. As I stated earlier the Belyaev experiment DID NOT account for this kind of change. Nor would we have a reason to selectively breed for tooth size or dental crowdedness. Those traits commonly manipulated “artificially” by breeders, make no difference to individual survival in a population. Therefore, just because it is a characteristic of dogs does not mean, it must also be true, it was selectively bred…or kibble is to blame (amusing). Do you believe in Darwin’s theory? Well in _The Origin of Species _Darwin convinced us selection is a process of slow gradualism, not leaps. Nature does not leap. So what you’re proposing, as you hinted to, are mysterious laws of correlation. How strong can your argument be if you must claim a mysterious law to support your argument? 


> Domestic dogs are coddled and protected from the dangers of the wild and all kinds of deformaties are allowed to live.


 Deformities? Nature does not allow unsuccessful genes to pass from one generation to the next. This is your argument or the wolf dies, remember? Now you want to contradicting yourself? The weakness of your argument is illustrated in the blind acceptance that our dogs did not adapt to live amongst humans, first – it was all in the domestication of wolves, right? 
Given a task, my dog will look to me for direction. Given a task, a wolf is independent, even if given a learning history. If this is not evidence enough that dog adaptations are advantageous (natural, and not “deformities”), your argument fails the validity test.


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## Criosphynx (May 15, 2008)

Im sorry RFD. The more you pick apart stuff the less i believe you. How much dna do organisms have to share in your opinion for them to be the *same*??

You say chimps are not us, but dogs are wolves. I feel you are contradicting yourself. Don't we have compatable dna with pigs too?

Whats the percentage difference in DNA between all the canines from each other?


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## RawFedDogs (Jun 22, 2008)

Curbside Prophet said:


> This must be true if your argument NEEDS it to be true. However, for those who don’t need dogs to be wolves, we can question the reliability of mtDNA data. You wouldn’t consider that the scientific community is still debating whether mtDNA data is a good marker – this consideration doesn’t support your argument.


People are sent to jail and executed on DNA evidence. People are freed from jail on DNA evidence. I haven't seen anthing where there is a great scientific debate about the authenticity on DNA of any kind. mDNA is the part of DNA that links generations of mothers and fathers to offspring. It's the part that parenity tests are about. Courts use DNA to rule on paternity. I don't think they would if there were a great controversy.



> Furthermore, the argument, really, needs to go no further than the understanding dogs and wolves live in isolated biological niches. This is a requirement for species to be different, and this requirement is fulfilled. No two animals can occupy the same biological niche and survive. You’re _the wolf is natural and good _argument must consider this to be valid.


That would be true if dogs were in nature which they aren't and never have been. Dogs are creations of man. He created them by selectivly breeding wolves. You breed wolves to wolves to wolves to offspring to offspring to offspring and you have dogs. Because they began as wolves and nothing else was introduced, they are still wolves no matter how you look at it.



> If it’s so easy to explain, show me the data. As I stated earlier the Belyaev experiment DID NOT account for this kind of change. Nor would we have a reason to selectively breed for tooth size or dental crowdedness. Those traits commonly manipulated “artificially” by breeders, make no difference to individual survival in a population. Therefore, just because it is a characteristic of dogs does not mean, it must also be true, it was selectively bred…or kibble is to blame (amusing).


I don't know how you can look at dogs and look at the fox experiment and say the two are any different at all. They are exactly the same except as far as i know the fox experiment ended after 35 or 40 generations and the dog "experiment" is still ongoing thousands of years later. Doesn't matter how many times you breed a wolf to a wolf, the result is a little of little wolves no matter what their appearance is.



> Do you believe in Darwin’s theory? Well in _The Origin of Species _Darwin convinced us selection is a process of slow gradualism, not leaps. Nature does not leap. So what you’re proposing, as you hinted to, are mysterious laws of correlation. How strong can your argument be if you must claim a mysterious law to support your argument?


Yes I believe in Darwin's theory. Yes, in Darwin's natural world, small changes takes a long time. However in Darwin's world, the strong breed to create slow change. In the dog's world breeding selected by man and not by natural strength has made the difference. Hence we have gray wolves and we have dogs today. The selective breeding which was selected on terms other than strenght is what caused our dogs to be able to make changes faster then would have happened in nature.



> Deformities? Nature does not allow unsuccessful genes to pass from one generation to the next. This is your argument or the wolf dies, remember?


Yes, you are absolutely correct. But remember we are not talking about nature here. We are talking about man's selective breeding and coddling the ones that are not strong enough to live on their own. Put our dogs out in the wild and very few of them would be able to survive today.



> Now you want to contradicting yourself? The weakness of your argument is illustrated in the blind acceptance that our dogs did not adapt to live amongst humans, first – it was all in the domestication of wolves, right?


Nope. I'm saying that man's decisions in breeding their wolves has created the dogs of today.



> Given a task, my dog will look to me for direction. Given a task, a wolf is independent, even if given a learning history.


Exactly the same as a wolf in the wild will look to the Alpha wolf for direction. They are not that independent in a natural pack. The alpha wolf makes all decisions.



> If this is not evidence enough that dog adaptations are advantageous (natural, and not “deformities”), your argument fails the validity test.


Well, many people cannot see the obvious fact that dogs are wolves. One reason for this is that IF they admitted that their dogs were wolves, they would have to justify why they are not feeding their "wolves" real wolf food. The evidence has been presented. I have explained every argument you have given and all the evidence keeps pointing in the same direction. Dogs are wolves just as certainly as the earth is round.



Criosphynx said:


> Im sorry RFD. The more you pick apart stuff the less i believe you. How much dna do organisms have to share in your opinion for them to be the *same*??


Dogs are .02% the same in mDNA. THere are races of humans that are not that close. To me, thats close enough to be the came species. The Smithsonian Institute who classifies animals, says they are the same. Those people know a lot more than I do about things like that.

You say chimps are not us, but dogs are wolves. I feel you are contradicting yourself. Don't we have compatable dna with pigs too?

Dogs are 100 times closer to wolves than we are to chimps. Yes we are also similar to pigs but I don't know how close. All orginisms have similar DNA. The closer related these organisms are to each other the more their DNA is alike. 



> Whats the percentage difference in DNA between all the canines from each other?


I have seen those numbers before but I can't remember them now but coyottes and foxes are further from wolves than we are chimps if I remember correctly. Hehe, my memory could be way off on this.  I know for sure that foxes and coyottes are much further from wolves than dogs are.


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## Shaina (Oct 28, 2007)

RawFedDogs said:


> People are sent to jail and executed on DNA evidence. People are freed from jail on DNA evidence. I haven't seen anthing where there is a great scientific debate about the authenticity on DNA of any kind. mDNA is the part of DNA that links generations of mothers and fathers to offspring. It's the part that parenity tests are about. Courts use DNA to rule on paternity. I don't think they would if there were a great controversy.


mtDNA is valuable because it's passed directly from a mother to her offspring without recombination, thus it can be traced through generations of females. Maternal, yes...paternal, absolutely not.



RawFedDogs said:


> That would be true if dogs were in nature which they aren't and never have been. Dogs are creations of man. He created them by selectivly breeding wolves. You breed wolves to wolves to wolves to offspring to offspring to offspring and you have dogs. Because they began as wolves and nothing else was introduced, they are still wolves no matter how you look at it.
> 
> I don't know how you can look at dogs and look at the fox experiment and say the two are any different at all. They are exactly the same except as far as i know the fox experiment ended after 35 or 40 generations and the dog "experiment" is still ongoing thousands of years later. Doesn't matter how many times you breed a wolf to a wolf, the result is a little of little wolves no matter what their appearance is.


E.V.O.L.U.T.I.O.N.

If that theory held, we'd still be monkeys. Unless you think our ancestors crossed with penguins or something.



RawFedDogs said:


> Yes I believe in Darwin's theory. Yes, in Darwin's natural world, small changes takes a long time. However in Darwin's world, the strong breed to create slow change. In the dog's world breeding selected by man and not by natural strength has made the difference. Hence we have gray wolves and we have dogs today. The selective breeding which was selected on terms other than strenght is what caused our dogs to be able to make changes faster then would have happened in nature.


 "Strength" has nothing to do with it. Ability to adapt to surroundings does. This goes for all animals. 

But yes, as you said, dogs have changed faster than what would normally be expected. This is twofold: first, they entered a very advantageous niche with virtually no competition, so those extreme outliers that filled said niche suddenly survived where otherwise they wouldn't have. Second, selective breeding, as you keep reiterating. Add a bunch of time and...*poof* dogs are no longer wolves. Closely related? Sure. Descendants of? Absolutely. But they are not the same. 



RawFedDogs said:


> But remember we are not talking about nature here. We are talking about man's selective breeding and coddling the ones that are not strong enough to live on their own. *Put our dogs out in the wild and very few of them would be able to survive today.*
> 
> Nope. I'm saying that man's decisions in breeding *their wolves has created the dogs of today.*


And so...*drumroll* dogsarenotwolves.


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## Spitzy (Oct 13, 2007)

RawFedDogs said:


> People are sent to jail and executed on DNA evidence. People are freed from jail on DNA evidence. I haven't seen anthing where there is a great scientific debate about the authenticity on DNA of any kind. mDNA is the part of DNA that links generations of mothers and fathers to offspring. It's the part that parenity tests are about. Courts use DNA to rule on paternity. I don't think they would if there were a great controversy.


Comparing DNA between animals (dogs, wolves, foxes; zebras, przewalski horses, domestic horses; whatever) is *hugely* different than DNA fingerprinting and paternity. The latter two use specific samples and are comparing target regions.

When people say that a chimp’s DNA is almost the same as a human’s DNA, this is a completely different thing. This is taking into account the entire genome, taking into account things like homology and percent sequence identity of the contained genes. Some genes are extremely well conserved and humans have “almost the same” gene as baker’s yeast. Others have more variation and/or duplication. Even within a species (say, humans) there are differences between “the same” gene. Like, for example, catechol-O-methyltrasferase (which metabolizes neurotransmitters) has two different major forms in humans. There is evidence that this affects behavior.

And that’s not getting into things like epigenetics. Histone-tail tagging patterns. Regulation of splice variants. And on and on…

Dogs have heritable physiological and behavior differences. There are genetic differences between breeds of dogs. We can _see_ them. They have other effects that we can’t see, such as collies being unable to safely metabolize a certain kind of wormer (ivermectin, I seem to recall?) the way other breeds can.

I haven’t read up on wolf vs. domestic canine genetics. I don’t want to, at this point. But I’m annoyed by the way “DNA” is being thrown around.

Oh yeah, and mDNA? Is mitochondrial DNA. It encodes a few proteins that are located in the mitochondria and perform its functions. The kerfluffle in the media about it is related to the fact that when a sperm injects its genetic material into an egg, the mitochonria aren’t included. Therefore, the mitochondrial genes come from the egg (the mom... as Shaina just wrote, I see now). This is a very small and rather specific (and, I believe, relatively conserved) subset of genes compared to the whole genome of an animal in the nucleus.


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## RBark (Sep 10, 2007)

Spitzy said:


> Comparing DNA between animals (dogs, wolves, foxes; zebras, przewalski horses, domestic horses; whatever) is *hugely* different than DNA fingerprinting and paternity. The latter two use specific samples and are comparing target regions.
> 
> When people say that a chimp’s DNA is almost the same as a human’s DNA, this is a completely different thing. This is taking into account the entire genome, taking into account things like homology and percent sequence identity of the contained genes. Some genes are extremely well conserved and humans have “almost the same” gene as baker’s yeast. Others have more variation and/or duplication. Even within a species (say, humans) there are differences between “the same” gene. Like, for example, catechol-O-methyltrasferase (which metabolizes neurotransmitters) has two different major forms in humans. There is evidence that this affects behavior.
> 
> ...


...phew.

How does the saying go? "Getting your butt handed to you on a silver platter."

Yikes!


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## Curbside Prophet (Apr 28, 2006)

RawFedDogs said:


> Yes, you are absolutely correct. But remember we are not talking about nature here. We are talking about man's selective breeding and coddling the ones that are not strong enough to live on their own. Put our dogs out in the wild and very few of them would be able to survive today.


Much of what you wrote was just an hamster wheel exercise. Other posters responded well to the DNA argument. But this here is absolutely false. First, it's a fallacy to believe artificial selective pressure is not natural pressure. To the gene, artificial selection is indistinguishable, it's just a faster-acting bottleneck. There are only two types of selective pressure, natural (survive long enough to reproduce), and sexual (reproduce); sexual pressure is what breeders force on dogs. Both end with reproduction - they are the same. So to call sexual pressure "coddling of the unnatural" is erroneous. 

Furthermore, dogs are perfectly adapted to survive 'in the wild'. Chances are they'll end up in a human dwelling and with puppy dog eyes get all the resources they need to survive. This is adaptive behavior the wolf does not regularly exhibit like the dog does. 



> I have explained every argument you have given and all the evidence keeps pointing in the same direction.


You haven't explained anything. You've only presented a logic that's full of holes.


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## Criosphynx (May 15, 2008)

RBark said:


> ...phew.
> 
> *How does the saying go?* "Getting your butt handed to you on a silver platter."
> 
> Yikes!


I think the word your looking for is *owned*....lol


what an interesting read this is...


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## RawFedDogs (Jun 22, 2008)

Hehe, y'all can ignore facts all you want to. It doesn't change dogs being wolves. Biologists say they are the same species. Zoologists say they are the same species. The Smithsonian Institute says they are the same species. I can't argue with those experts.

I'm sorry I'm not very good at arguing DNA because it's an area I'm not expert in. I do read the research of Dr. Robert Wayne who is considered one of the worlds formost experts on DNA. He says dogs are 99.98% wolves. If you don't believe him, argue with him, not me. You can google him or read his research I linked to in an earlier post in this thread. I don't have time to look for it right now. 

99.98% sounds pretty close to me. I don't know what more evidence is required. Dogs have the same mouth, teeth, stomach, pancreas, intestines, heart, lungs, kidneys, tongue, anus as a wolf. They also have the same dietary needs.

Only pet food companies and vets (who get their dietary information from pet food companies) say dogs and wolves do not have the same dietary needs. It is necessary these companies convince us of that fact in order to sell us their almost meatless grain based highly processed junk food. IF these people admitted the truth, who would buy their products?

There are a couple of dog food companies that are more or less admitting it now. I'll go into that later. I'm out of time for now. Talk to y'all later.


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## rosemaryninja (Sep 28, 2007)

RawFedDogs said:


> Hehe, y'all can ignore facts all you want to.


The irony slays.


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## zimandtakandgrrandmimi (May 8, 2008)

excerpt from wikipedia-

Differences from other canids
Compared to equally sized wolves, dogs tend to have 20% smaller skulls and 10% smaller brains, as well as proportionately smaller teeth than other canid species. Dogs require fewer calories to function than wolves. Their diet of human refuse in antiquity made the large brains and jaw muscles needed for hunting unnecessary. It is thought by certain experts that the dog's limp ears are a result of atrophy of the jaw muscles. The skin of domestic dogs tends to be thicker than that of wolves, with some Inuit tribes favouring the former for use as clothing due to its greater resistance to wear and tear in harsh weather. Unlike wolves, but like coyotes, domestic dogs have sweat glands on their paw pads. The paws of a dog are half the size of those of a wolf, and their tails tend to curl upwards, another trait not found in wolves.

an interesting article.
http://www.idir.net/~wolf2dog/wayne2.htm

not taking sides. just curious what both sides will say....


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## Shaina (Oct 28, 2007)

I keep thinking this discussion is over, but time and time again someone just keeps going...










BTW that's a coyote, and therefore neither wolf nor dog.


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## zimandtakandgrrandmimi (May 8, 2008)

I know for a fact that a dog is not a wolf. I've enough experience with wolfxdogs to see vast differences between dogs and half wolves. I can only imagine the differences between dogs and full wolves.

I just wanted an opinion on the article.


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## RawFedDogs (Jun 22, 2008)

zimandtakandgrrandmimi said:


> excerpt from wikipedia-


Wikipedia is by far not the best place to go to get factual information about any subject.



> Compared to equally sized wolves, dogs tend to have 20% smaller skulls and 10% smaller brains, as well as proportionately smaller teeth than other canid species.


This statement is kinda funny if you analyze it. The head of a dog is 20% smaller? and the brain is only 10% smaller. The brain of a dog must be packed in a lot tighter than the brain of a wolf. HAHA! Actually the head of some breeds of dogs are smaller than the comparitave size of a wolf head. Different breeds have different size heads. Look at the head of gray hound and compare it to the head of a mastif. Another reason domestic dogs have smaller heads is that they are neutered early in life. Dogs that have testosterone in their bodies during the adolecent years will grow bigger heads than dogs who are netured early. You rarely see a neutered wolf in the wild. 

Yes, domestic dogs have slightly smaller teeth than a wild wolf.



> Dogs require fewer calories to function than wolves.


Now isn't that just silly, of course they do. Look at the daily life of a wild wolf and the daily life of most of our couch potatoes. I think you could take a wolf that has lived in captivity for a few generations and there would be no difference.



> Their diet of human refuse in antiquity made the large brains and jaw muscles needed for hunting unnecessary.


The jaw muscle test was between a wild wolf and a kibble fed dog. I'm guessing, but of course I have no proof, that if you took a dog who was fed a prey model diet from birth would have jaw strength similar to a wild wolf.



> It is thought by certain experts that the dog's limp ears are a result of atrophy of the jaw muscles.


You can go back in this thread and read about the fox experiments to find the reason for floppy ears.



> The skin of domestic dogs tends to be thicker than that of wolves, with some Inuit tribes favouring the former for use as clothing due to its greater resistance to wear and tear in harsh weather.


This may or may not be true. All I can say is that in all my years of studying wolves and dogs, this is the first time I have seen this.



> Unlike wolves, but like coyotes, domestic dogs have sweat glands on their paw pads.


I know dogs have sweat glands on the paw pads. I don't know if wolves do or not.



> The paws of a dog are half the size of those of a wolf,


This depends on the breed of dog.



> and their tails tend to curl upwards, another trait not found in wolves.


Again, read about the fox experiment.



> an interesting article.
> http://www.idir.net/~wolf2dog/wayne2.htm


I posted this link way back up in this thread.



> not taking sides. just curious what both sides will say....





> I know for a fact that a dog is not a wolf. I've enough experience with wolfxdogs to see vast differences between dogs and half wolves. I can only imagine the differences between dogs and full wolves.


Hehe, so much for not taking sides. HAHAHAHAHA ...

I have seen wolves ... I have seen and trained wolfdogs ... and of course I have seen and trained dogs. I have also known people who have owned them all. I know the personality type of people who will own a wolf. I also know the personality type of people who own wolf dogs. The owners of wolfdogs are similar to the ghetto teenage boys who own large pit bull type dogs and walk through the neighborhood with them on a chain leash and pinch collar thinking it makes them look tough.

I know wolfdog owners who say, "this dog is 97% wolf and this one is 56%wolf and that one over there is 37% wolf." Baloney. They have no way of knowing and besides that most of the wolfdogs in the country are different mixtures of malamutes and GSDs with no wolf in them at all.

There is no test that will determine how much wolf is in a wolfdog. That would be like a test to determine how much human is in a human. LOL


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## Curbside Prophet (Apr 28, 2006)

RFD said:


> Another reason domestic dogs have smaller heads is that they are neutered early in life. Dogs that have testosterone in their bodies during the adolecent years will grow bigger heads than dogs who are netured early.


 This is completely false. Testosterone in the male dog is at its peak at birth – the injection of testosterone is what makes the male dog a male. Furthermore, the testosterone levels generally begin to taper to lower level at or around 4 months of age. So the significant, formative levels of testosterone occur well before the dog is neutered. Any size differences affected by neutering are insignificant, and do not account for this large difference in size between the wolf and dog.


> I think you could take a wolf that has lived in captivity for a few generations and there would be no difference.


 Not true. A larger brain and body mass requires more energy than an efficiently smaller animal. Again, these types of physiological differences were NOT accounted for in the Belyaev experiment. So you still haven’t answered what selective pressure would account for these changes. 


> The jaw muscle test was between a wild wolf and a kibble fed dog. I'm guessing, but of course I have no proof, that if you took a dog who was fed a prey model diet from birth would have jaw strength similar to a wild wolf.


 You probably should just stop at “I’m guessing”. I don’t think I can argue this fact. 


> The owners of wolfdogs are similar to the ghetto teenage boys who own large pit bull type dogs and walk through the neighborhood with them on a chain leash and pinch collar thinking it makes them look tough.


 And yet another silly and inappropriate generalization to add to the others.


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## RawFedDogs (Jun 22, 2008)

Curbside Prophet said:


> This is completely false. Testosterone in the male dog is at its peak at birth – the injection of testosterone is what makes the male dog a male. Furthermore, the testosterone levels generally begin to taper to lower level at or around 4 months of age. So the significant, formative levels of testosterone occur well before the dog is neutered. Any size differences affected by neutering are insignificant, and do not account for this large difference in size between the wolf and dog.


I know in my breed of dog (Great Dane), it is recommended that male dogs not be neutered before 18 to 24 months of age. Sometime around 12 to 14 months of age there is another surge of testosterone that causes the head to grow larger and the body to mature into a more musuclar masculine appearing body. Male Danes who are neutered at 6 months, as many are, tend to have smaller thinner heads and thinner more feminine bodies. This is general knowledge among Dane owners. I don't know why other breeds would be a lot different. Of course this only applies to male dogs.



> A larger brain and body mass requires more energy than an efficiently smaller animal. Again, these types of physiological differences were NOT accounted for in the Belyaev experiment. So you still haven’t answered what selective pressure would account for these changes.


I think we are talking about apples and organges here. I also think we are talking about similar size dogs compared to a wild wolf. If I remember right this is about wolves requiring more calories than our dogs. Come on now, just look at the different lifestyles. Wolves can roam 20 miles in a day and then chase a deer another two or three miles before eating. Why in the heck would he not require more calories than our dogs who lay around the house and get a walk around the block every day? We don't need fox experiments to tell us this.  Again, a captive wolf would not burn up so many calories because he would by laying around his enclosure all day.

You probably should just stop at “I’m guessing”. I don’t think I can argue this fact.[/quote] 

Again, look at lifestyle differences. One animal eats meat and crunches bones every day ... usually a couple of times a day and and must do a lot of chewing. The other swallows down kibble without even chewing. Which one would have the stronger jaw muscles? That is a doggone good argument and not an inappropriate generalization nor an uneducated guess. It is logic and reason. It has nothing to do with genetics, it has to do with exercise and actually using a muscles.



> And yet another silly and inappropriate generalization to add to the others.


This comment was directed at another post, not yours, but in my 15 years in the dog training business, I would run into these people pretty regularly. Yes, its a generalization, but an pretty accurate one.


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## Shaina (Oct 28, 2007)

RawFedDogs said:


> Your arguments are getting weaker and weaker. You need to come up with some better ones. You are getting too easy.


Throwing little insults at the end of your posts doesn't make your arguments any less deluded.


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## RBark (Sep 10, 2007)

> Again, look at lifestyle differences. One animal eats meat and crunches bones every day ... usually a couple of times a day and and must do a lot of chewing. The other swallows down kibble without even chewing. Which one would have the stronger jaw muscles? That is a doggone good argument and not an inappropriate generalization nor an uneducated guess. It is logic and reason. It has nothing to do with genetics, it has to do with exercise and actually using a muscles.


Um. You do realize that even kibble fed dogs gnaw on bones a lot, right...?


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## RawFedDogs (Jun 22, 2008)

Shaina said:


> Throwing little insults at the end of your posts doesn't make your arguments any less deluded.


You're right. I don't consider them insults as much as just a little kidding but they don't add to my argument so I removed it. 



RBark said:


> Um. You do realize that even kibble fed dogs gnaw on bones a lot, right...?


Yeah, some do and some don't. Rubbing teeth across bones is not the same as actually eating them.


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## Curbside Prophet (Apr 28, 2006)

RawFedDogs said:


> I don't know why other breeds would be a lot different. Of course this only applies to male dogs.


Perhaps they are different because the Great Dane's structure is not a good example of relatedness to the wolf. In fact, a pug is much more closely related to the wolf than your Great Dane. So maybe you should exchange your dog for a Chow, who is even more closely related, but still not a wolf. 



> Come on now, just look at the different lifestyles. Wolves can roam 20 miles in a day and then chase a deer another two or three miles before eating. Why in the heck would he not require more calories than our dogs who lay around the house and get a walk around the block every day? We don't need fox experiments to tell us this.  Again, a captive wolf would not burn up so many calories because he would by laying around his enclosure all day.


 Yet captive wolves ARE fed a high caloric diet, why? But you make a good point about how dogs and wolves serve different niches, therefore not the same animal. You're starting to reason now. 



> Again, look at lifestyle differences. One animal eats meat and crunches bones every day ... usually a couple of times a day and and must do a lot of chewing. The other swallows down kibble without even chewing. Which one would have the stronger jaw muscles? That is a doggone good argument and not an inappropriate generalization nor an uneducated guess. It is logic and reason. It has nothing to do with genetics, it has to do with exercise and actually using a muscles.


But what you fail to consider is that a dog is born a chewing creature, yet this does not account for the difference. Let us not post all the dog toys, furniture, homes, and raw bones dogs have chewed with no significant gains in fitness comparable to that of a wolf. 



> Yes, its a generalization, but an pretty accurate one.


Lets qualify that...it is accurate to you, but your sample size is anecdotal at best. You're just making excuses for a poor choice of words.


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## RawFedDogs (Jun 22, 2008)

Curbside Prophet said:


> Perhaps they are different because the Great Dane's structure is not a good example of relatedness to the wolf. In fact, a pug is much more closely related to the wolf than your Great Dane. So maybe you should exchange your dog for a Chow, who is even more closely related, but still not a wolf.


LOL Where did that information come from???? If dogs are wolves, which they are and have been proven to be by many scientists smarter than both of us put together, then how could one dog be more closely related to a wolf than another? 



> Yet captive wolves ARE fed a high caloric diet, why? But you make a good point about how dogs and wolves serve different niches, therefore not the same animal. You're starting to reason now.


Again, where did that information come from? I am familiar with a couple of wolf parks. I am familiar with two zoos that house wolves. I am familiar with a wolf/wolfdog rescue org and I know people who own both full blooded wolves and wolfdogs and every single one feeds a prey model raw diet without exception. The the orginizations all get road kill deer and other animals donated to them by state and county government agencies. The rest of the food they buy from wholesalers.



> But what you fail to consider is that a dog is born a chewing creature, yet this does not account for the difference. Let us not post all the dog toys, furniture, homes, and raw bones dogs have chewed with no significant gains in fitness comparable to that of a wolf.


Yes, dogs are chewing creatures. They MUST chew for psychological well being. It's hard wired into their brains. However, let me tell you, there is a lot of difference between chewing on a toy or a house or furniture or whatever and actually eating bones. You can use as much pressure as you wish when chewing ... you MUST use a lot of pressure when you eat a bone. My dogs do both. I can tell the difference between eating and recreational chewing.



> Lets qualify that...it is accurate to you, but your sample size is anecdotal at best. You're just making excuses for a poor choice of words.


I can't remember for sure but I think we are talking about wolfdog owners here. I have known enough of them to make that generalization accurate. Talk to someone who runs a wolfdog rescue org and they will back up what I say. That doesn't mean you can't go out and find a good wolfdog owner. I know some of those also.

I don't know what you mean by "poor choice of words".


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## Curbside Prophet (Apr 28, 2006)

RawFedDogs said:


> LOL Where did that information come from???? If dogs are wolves, which they are and have been proven to be by many scientists smarter than both of us put together, then how could one dog be more closely related to a wolf than another?


I pulled it out of my...I posted this earlier. I'll post it again for your amusement since you like equating wolves to dogs. 
http://www.britainhill.com/GeneticStructure.pdf



> Again, where did that information come from? I am familiar with a couple of wolf parks. I am familiar with two zoos that house wolves. I am familiar with a wolf/wolfdog rescue org and I know people who own both full blooded wolves and wolfdogs and every single one feeds a prey model raw diet without exception. The the orginizations all get road kill deer and other animals donated to them by state and county government agencies. The rest of the food they buy from wholesalers.


Resources have to be plentiful for the captive bred wolf, otherwise they will exhibit behaviors that are not conducive to being handled by trainers. You may feed the same type of diet to your dog, but you do not feed the same quantity. There is more to caloric intake than just what you are feeding. 



> I can tell the difference between eating and recreational chewing.


Uh huh.



> I don't know what you mean by "poor choice of words".


Nevermind, you didn't pose an analogy to pit owners as thugs. My fault.


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## fyzbo (Jun 19, 2008)

This thread definitely went a long way. So if I understand correctly all dogs are closely related to wolves. There are no dogs more closely related to coyotes or dingos then wolves. It seems dogs broke off from wolves on the evolutionary tree after wolves broke off from coyotes, dingos, foxes, etc.


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## RawFedDogs (Jun 22, 2008)

Curbside Prophet said:


> I pulled it out of my...I posted this earlier. I'll post it again for your amusement since you like equating wolves to dogs.
> http://www.britainhill.com/GeneticStructure.pdf


This is a study done for a whole different purpose. The purpose of this study was to study the differences between breeds of dogs. It was performed by a group of college students for a class project. I prefer to rely on the studies of Dr. Robert Wayne who is a world renound DNA researcher and college professor. He would be a teacher of these kids who performed this study. He would grade their work. I don't know what grade these students received.

But, to quote Dr. Wayne in his study of mDNA differences of wolves and dogs,_ "Dogs are gray wolves, despite their diversity in size and proportion; the wide variation in their adult morphology probably results from simple changes in developmental rate and timing."_
http://www.idir.net/~wolf2dog/wayne2.htm

I have never in all my studies found any authoritative critisms of Dr. Waynes work. No one who is knowledgable in the field seems to argue with his findings. 



> Resources have to be plentiful for the captive bred wolf, otherwise they will exhibit behaviors that are not conducive to being handled by trainers. You may feed the same type of diet to your dog, but you do not feed the same quantity. There is more to caloric intake than just what you are feeding.


Cool. What quanity would a captive wolf be fed vs. a domestic dog? How are calories injested other than from food? Would the size of the wolf's enclosure have any bearing on the amount of energy he burns?

I have trained wolfdogs and know a trainer who has trained captive bred wolves and there is no difference in training them vs. training a domestic dog. The priciples are the same.



> Nevermind, you didn't pose an analogy to pit owners as thugs. My fault.


So what you are NOW saying is that I worded it very well? 



fyzbo said:


> This thread definitely went a long way. So if I understand correctly all dogs are closely related to wolves. There are no dogs more closely related to coyotes or dingos then wolves. It seems dogs broke off from wolves on the evolutionary tree after wolves broke off from coyotes, dingos, foxes, etc.


You are right but wrong.  Dogs never "broke off" from wolves. They ARE wolves. Coyottes are the closest relative to wolves being 96% the same in mDNA. Dogs are 99.98% the same.


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## fyzbo (Jun 19, 2008)

First off, there is no such thing as mDNA, it's mtDNA. Second this is all semantic, no one is going to refer to a dog as a wolf. You will not pass by someone walking their dog and say, hey nice wolf you got there. They are very distinct in how they look/act and are not mistaken for each other. Is their dna close enough to be considered in the same species? Who cares? Why does it matter?


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## RawFedDogs (Jun 22, 2008)

fyzbo said:


> Is their dna close enough to be considered in the same species? Who cares? Why does it matter?


It matters a great deal for a couple of reasons. If you have a captive animal, you need to know what his diet is in the wild in order to know what to feed him in captivity. You wouldn't feed meat to a horse knowing that in the wild, horses eat grass. So we have our captive animals (dogs) and we need to know what to feed him. There are no domestic dogs in the wild so we look at his wild counterpart (wolf) since they are the same animal, to determine what is the proper food to feed him. We can't look to the horse to determine what to feed a dog now can we? They are different species.

Another reason we need to know that dogs are wolves are for training purposes. All good dog trainers use the behavior characteristics of wild wolves and build upon to obtain the desired behavior in dogs. That is because dogs and wolves are the same animal. Their behaviors and instincts are the same. A wolf is merely a wild version of the dog. You don't look to horse behavior to shape a training program for dogs.


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## Curbside Prophet (Apr 28, 2006)

RawFedDogs said:


> This is a study done for a whole different purpose. The purpose of this study was to study the differences between breeds of dogs.


And their relatedness to wolves. I understand why you want to exclude this major point, but it does not help your argument. 



> It was performed by a group of college students for a class project. I prefer to rely on the studies of Dr. Robert Wayne who is a world renound DNA researcher and college professor. He would be a teacher of these kids who performed this study. He would grade their work. I don't know what grade these students received.


An Dr. Wayne would have reviewed such content, correct? Or do you not know how academia works? It does not support your argument to criticize the authority of people you don't know versus the content of the study. 



> But, to quote Dr. Wayne in his study of mDNA differences of wolves and dogs,_ "Dogs are gray wolves, despite their diversity in size and proportion; the wide variation in their adult morphology probably results from simple changes in developmental rate and timing."_


Probably results? So in other words he doesn't know anymore than anyone else. So chances are they are not wolves either. Nice quote. 



> I have never in all my studies found any authoritative critisms of Dr. Waynes work. No one who is knowledgable in the field seems to argue with his findings.


Just because no one has argued him does not mean he is a figure in the discussion.



> What quanity would a captive wolf be fed vs. a domestic dog?


It depends on their developmental stage, so it can range from a few pounds to weight in the tens of pounds. Your dog eats a couple of chicken quarters a day, that's not more than a few pounds. Can your dog eat 20+ pounds in one sitting without complications? I would consider an e-vet visit a complication btw. 



> How are calories injested other than from food?


My statement was, there is more to caloric intake than the types of food eaten - this is all you mentioned. You did not mention the obvious difference in quantity. There are more calories in greater amounts of food correct? Or do the calories also fall under one of your mysterious correlations? 



> Would the size of the wolf's enclosure have any bearing on the amount of energy he burns?


No, his activity level would. A wolf circling a 10x10 cage burns more energy than a wolf lying in the shade of a tree in 100 acre enclosure. 



> I have trained wolfdogs and know a trainer who has trained captive bred wolves and there is no difference in training them vs. training a domestic dog. The priciples are the same.


I did not say the learning principles were different. I said resources need to be plentiful, otherwise the wolf will exhibit behaviors that are not conducive to being handled. I did not say they behaved unnaturally or could not be trained. A well fed wolf is easier to handle than one who's eying your feed bad for an opportunity to grab it out of your hand. Or do you not know that diet and appetite are also factors in behavior? Your learning principles should have told you that. 

BTW, those learning principles you are referring to, are also the same principles we humans follow. So when are you going to equate humans to wolves? I've been itching to be lycanthropic for a while now.


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## Criosphynx (May 15, 2008)

RawFedDogs;363947[B said:


> ]It matters a great deal for a couple of reasons. *If you have a captive animal, you need to know what his diet is in the wild in order to know what to feed him in captivity*. [/B] You wouldn't feed meat to a horse knowing that in the wild, horses eat grass. So we have our captive animals (dogs) and we need to know what to feed him. There are no domestic dogs in the wild so we look at his wild counterpart (wolf) since they are the same animal, to determine what is the proper food to feed him. We can't look to the horse to determine what to feed a dog now can we? They are different species.
> 
> Another reason we need to know that dogs are wolves are for training purposes. *All good dog trainers use the behavior characteristics of wild wolves and build upon to obtain the desired behavior in dogs. That is because dogs and wolves are the same animal. Their behaviors and instincts are the same. A wolf is merely a wild version of the dog*. You don't look to horse behavior to shape a training program for dogs.



With that in mind i need to buy feeder *Bats* for my boa constrictors.....


Wolves think for themselves, they will not look to a handler for guidance in a situation they can't figure out. It will keep trying.

A dog with give up quickly and look to its handler for imput. 


We bred that into them 

You can't even train most dogs the same way, and your saying wolf training is identical to dog training? 



If your talking about OC then we can also say dog training is the same as say... penguin training, or dolphin training....training principles have nothing to do with if the animals are closely related in that case. Alot of the same training principles are applied to some very different animals.


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## RawFedDogs (Jun 22, 2008)

Curbside Prophet said:


> And their relatedness to wolves. I understand why you want to exclude this major point, but it does not help your argument.


I exclude it because the main premise is the genetic makeup of pure bred dogs. Wolves are a very minor part.



> An Dr. Wayne would have reviewed such content, correct? Or do you not know how academia works? It does not support your argument to criticize the authority of people you don't know versus the content of the study.


Yes, if those were actually his students (chances are that they weren't), he would have reviewed it. This work was done by students. Not a single one of them has a degree listed by their name. Dr. Wayne is a Ph.D. and that makes him much more an authority than students. Again the main thrust of the content of the study you linked to was the differences in pure bred dogs. Thats not the topic of this discussion.



> Probably results? So in other words he doesn't know anymore than anyone else. So chances are they are not wolves either. Nice quote.


Hehe, you only read into that what you wanted to. The first part of Dr. Wayne's quote was "Dogs are gray wolves" ... there was no probably, maybe , possibly, or any other qualifier. "Dogs are gray wolves" That is his statement. The "probably" part was speculating as to why dogs look different than gray wolves and even different from each other. That part, and that part only was speculation. "Dogs are grey wolves" is a pretty straight forward statement not left open to interpertation.



> Just because no one has argued him does not mean he is a figure in the discussion.


Oh, I think its very important. Academic people are very quick to correct their peers at every opportunity. 



> Can your dog eat 20+ pounds in one sitting without complications? I would consider an e-vet visit a complication btw.


I can condition them to, yes, definatley. I know several raw feeders who use what is called the gorge/fast method of feeding their dogs. It wouldn't be unusual for them to feed them 20 pounds of food and then not feed them again for 4 or 5 days. I know many people who only feed every 2 or 3 days, not as many go 4 or 5. You don't take a dog who is used to being fed twice a day and do that all at once. You condition them for it.



> My statement was, there is more to caloric intake than the types of food eaten - this is all you mentioned. You did not mention the obvious difference in quantity. There are more calories in greater amounts of food correct? Or do the calories also fall under one of your mysterious correlations?


I think we are speaking two different languages in this paragraph. I still don't understand exactly what you are saying.



> No, his activity level would. A wolf circling a 10x10 cage burns more energy than a wolf lying in the shade of a tree in 100 acre enclosure.


I think it's the opposite. Wolves and wolfdogs I've seen in small enclosures usually just lay around, hardly moving while wolves in 100 acre enclousure would be constantly moving about and patroling their "territory". There is one place I go to a few times a year where I don't think I have ever seen one of their wolves standing. I've also seen wolves in large enclosures running, jumping and displaying general play behaviors.



> A well fed wolf is easier to handle than one who's eying your feed bad for an opportunity to grab it out of your hand. Or do you not know that diet and appetite are also factors in behavior? Your learning principles should have told you that.


Again we disagree. I have trained many species of animals both wild and domestic (although never a full blooded wolf) and the subject animal is MUCH easier to train if he is hungry. In my dog training business I used to require that the dog not be fed at least 4 hours before my training. When I trained birds of prey, they were not fed at all until after training was completed for the day. It never seemed to make much difference with rats or chickens. Cats need to be hungry. Killer whales and dolphins are always hungry.  



> BTW, those learning principles you are referring to, are also the same principles we humans follow. So when are you going to equate humans to wolves? I've been itching to be lycanthropic for a while now.


Well, they are the same with some differences.  Human's brains can multitask. We can think about more than one thing at a time. Animals on the other hand can only think about one thing at a time. Thats why you must control distractions when training animals. Once the animal begins thinking about the distraction, the trainer no longer exists in his mind. But this is a whole different discussion. 

Hahahaha ... I had to go to the dictionary to see what "lycanthropic" meant. 

I've spent all morning here on the computer. I've got stuff that needs doing. I'll be back later tonight. Its been fun.


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## Criosphynx (May 15, 2008)

I love how im no longer worth answering.


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## RawFedDogs (Jun 22, 2008)

Criosphynx said:


> With that in mind i need to buy feeder *Bats* for my boa constrictors.....


If thats what they eat in the wild then yes, you are correct if you wish to feed them properly. You certainly don't want to feed them lettuce and tomoatoes.



> Wolves think for themselves, they will not look to a handler for guidance in a situation they can't figure out. It will keep trying.


In the wild, they will look to the alpha wolf for guidance. They don't look to humans for guidance because they haven't been guided by humans for 100 generations. They are very well contitioned to fear humans. Why would they look to us for guidance?



> You can't even train most dogs the same way, and your saying wolf training is identical to dog training?


Once you find a way that works, you can train most any dog the same way. Of course that is a generalization and there are exceptions.



> If your talking about OC then we can also say dog training is the same as say... penguin training, or dolphin training....training principles have nothing to do with if the animals are closely related in that case. Alot of the same training principles are applied to some very different animals.


Training principles are the same for most all animals but you must take into account the wild behaviors of the particular species of animal you are training.

HAHAHAHA ... I just got your next post. BE PATIENT! I'm answering you now. LOLOLOL Here it is!


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## Criosphynx (May 15, 2008)

RawFedDogs said:


> If thats what they eat in the wild then yes, you are correct if you wish to feed them properly. You certainly don't want to feed them lettuce and tomoatoes.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




lmao.... sorry.... i figured you were fed up with me by now...

well no, not lettuce... but "farmed" rodents....not bats....

I guess im saying how close do we need to be to actual wild diet. Most raw feeders are using Chicken...wolves don't go out to hunt the elusive wild prairie chickens....


"Training principles are the same for most all animals but you must take into account the wild behaviors of the particular species of animal you are training."

We agree on this, but i just was wondering how it proved that dogs were wolves, because i don't feel it does.


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## fyzbo (Jun 19, 2008)

RawFedDogs said:


> It matters a great deal for a couple of reasons. If you have a captive animal, you need to know what his diet is in the wild in order to know what to feed him in captivity. You wouldn't feed meat to a horse knowing that in the wild, horses eat grass. So we have our captive animals (dogs) and we need to know what to feed him. There are no domestic dogs in the wild so we look at his wild counterpart (wolf) since they are the same animal, to determine what is the proper food to feed him. We can't look to the horse to determine what to feed a dog now can we? They are different species.


True it can give you an idea, but there can be variation inside the species. In any case I have no interest in debating this.



RawFedDogs said:


> Another reason we need to know that dogs are wolves are for training purposes. All good dog trainers use the behavior characteristics of wild wolves and build upon to obtain the desired behavior in dogs. That is because dogs and wolves are the same animal. Their behaviors and instincts are the same. A wolf is merely a wild version of the dog. You don't look to horse behavior to shape a training program for dogs.


This I find to be absolutely wrong. The biggest difference between dogs and wolves are that dogs are domesticated. Dogs have learned to interact with humans, they have adapted to our social structures, even learning our language. I would say the best trainers can bring out the human side of dogs, that domesticated part that makes them great companions.

You can claim they are the same species/animal all you want, but are you truly going to tell us that they act/think the same?


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## Curbside Prophet (Apr 28, 2006)

RawFedDogs said:


> Hehe, you only read into that what you wanted to. The first part of Dr. Wayne's quote was "Dogs are gray wolves" ... there was no probably, maybe , possibly, or any other qualifier.


No, he clearly does not know what would attribute to the relatedness he posed. Therefore the strength of his argument can not be judged more than those attributes. He has none. This is like me saying the sky is blue because it looks blue. Of course the sky looks blue but the sky is not blue, it is colorless, and other factors attribute to it appearing blue. I can prove what those attributes are. The infamous Dr. Wayne doesn't know, he only has a hunch. Hunches are not proved theories. 



> You don't take a dog who is used to being fed twice a day and do that all at once. You condition them for it.


So it is unnatural for dog to eat this much, where a wolf can with no problem. Sounds like a difference to me. 



> Again we disagree. I have trained many species of animals both wild and domestic (although never a full blooded wolf) and the subject animal is MUCH easier to train if he is hungry. In my dog training business I used to require that the dog not be fed at least 4 hours before my training. When I trained birds of prey, they were not fed at all until after training was completed for the day. It never seemed to make much difference with rats or chickens. Cats need to be hungry. Killer whales and dolphins are always hungry.


You're probably not familiar with Ken McCort, but he's a trainer at Wolf Park in Indiana. Unlike you, he has trained wolves, and in a telecourse about the domestication of dogs, he mentioned how it was less taxing on him to train a wolf once he was fed. This makes sense from a learning perspective, because if you remove the antecedent of hunger, the animal has less to focus on. Many dogs are notably different in this respect, especially a few hound dogs that I've known - full or not, food was their only focus.

We don't disagree here, you simply didn't understand the point I was making. You can discriminate the value of the reinforcer to control the behavior. You want a hungry dog to help you in training. Some dogs need this, I agree. For other dogs this can be problematic, and a prudent trainer would know the difference when it occurs. You stated it yourself, once you control the distractions in the dog's environment, he is easier to train. The dog's level of hunger is one of those distractions. 



> Once the animal begins thinking about the distraction, the trainer no longer exists in his mind. But this is a whole different discussion.


Does the owner disappear from the environment? Or are you just being anthropomorphic? Or are you, really, just speaking about competing interests (preferences)? This has nothing to do with an inability to multi-task.


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## Spitzy (Oct 13, 2007)

There’ve been too many posts since my last, so I’m not going to really quote. But there are some things I just have to address. Sorry, this is a bit long.



RawFedDogs said:


> Any scientist will say a dog is the same as a wolf.


False. You don’t know what you’re talking about, because you clearly don’t know what _they_ are talking about. I’ve heard scientists say that _Caenorhabditis elegans_ (a worm) is the same as humans. This, obviously, doesn’t mean that they are literally identical. Scientists will often simplify while trying to explain their work to the public.




> http://www.britainhill.com/GeneticStructure.pdf versus http://www.idir.net/~wolf2dog/wayne2.htm


Discounting a _Science_ paper by saying it was written by a bunch of students… Seriously? That shows a complete lack of understanding about how academia and academic publishing works.

The first paper (CP's) is from _Science_ in 2004, the second linked article (RFD's) does not have a reference given for the article itself, although the latest references within the article are from the 90’s. This leads me to believe it is an older article. It is unclear what journal it was published in. _Science_, on the other hand, is one of the most prestigious journals for scientific publication. And it is reviewed – all legitimate scientific publications are peer-reviewed, typically by three labs/Ph.D.’s in a specialty related to the topic of the publication. It is, actually, even possible that Dr. Wayne was one of the reviewers for the _Science_ article.

In scientific publications, Ph.D.’s aren’t notated in the list of names. Typically, the last author(s) is the Principal Investigator (PI’s - the head Ph.D.’s) who run the labs doing the research. The first author(s) is the person who did the research, usually a graduate student or a PostDoc (that is a person who has their Ph.D., but doesn’t run a lab). But even to say that a graduate student author is “just” a student who would be graded by someone like Dr. Wayne? That is completely ridiculous. In the first place, graduate students aren’t in classes for the majority of the time that they are in their graduate program. Research that is published in _Science_ isn’t a class project!! *That is so, so completely wrong!!* The majority of academic research is done in the hands of graduate students!!! PI’s help mentor and discuss data, and run the management aspects of the lab. They usually don’t do benchwork themselves, unless they are a new Professor trying to kick-start their lab.



> Blahblahblah… Dr. Wayne


Dr. Wayne appears to study evolutionary relationship. (Phylogeny) He attempts to define the branching points of evolution, and the related-ness between animals. 

His paper is saying that domestic dogs evolved from the grey wolf, as opposed to one of the other canids. He is not saying that domestic dogs are identical to the grey wolf!! I realize there is one line stating something like “the dog is the grey wolf”, but in the context of the article this isn’t a statement of identity. It is a statement of evolutionary origin.

Since you like him so much, here’s some quotes from other (more recent) articles he’s an author on:

_A striking finding of the mtDNA analysis is that one sequence clade (clade I, Fig. 1C) contains the majority of dog sequences and that the nucleotide diversity of this clade is high, implying an origin of the clade from 40 to 135 thousand years ago (Vila et al. 1997; Savolainen et al. 2002). This date exceeds the 15,000-yr-old archeological record of dogs *and suggests that dogs may have had a long prehistory when they were not phenotypically distinct from wolf progenitors*. These early dogs may not have been recognized as domesticated by study of the archeological record before 15,000 yr ago because of their physical similarity to gray wolves. The initial change to the diagnostic phenotype of domestic dogs beginning about 15,000 yr ago may have instead indicated a change in the selection pressures associated with the transition from hunter gatherer to more sedentary lifestyles (Wayne et al. 2006)._

Ref: Ostrander EA, Wayne RK. _The canine genome._ Genome Res. 2005 15(12):1706-16.

The bold is mine – the authors (including Dr. Wayne) suggest that waybackwhen, “dogs” and “wolves” were not so distinct. They are, however, currently distinct.

_In general, the domestic dog is an extremely close relative of the gray wolf, from which it differs by only 0.04% in nuclear coding-DNA sequence, and no dog mtDNA sequences have been found that show closer kinship to other canid species [10], [21] and [22]. Therefore, the molecular genetic evidence does not support theories of non-wolf ancestry of domestic dogs. This result is consistent with the fossil record because the earliest dog remains are found alongside those of wolves 24 M.V. Sablin and G.A. Khlopachev, The earliest ice age dogs: Evidence from Eliseevichi, Curr. Anthropol. 43 (2002), pp. 795–799._ 

Ref: Wayne RK, Ostrander EA. _Lessons learned from the dog genome._ Trends Genet. 2007 Nov;23(11):557-67. Epub 2007 Oct 25.

I didn’t bother bolding anything – I think the whole section clarifies Dr. Wayne’s point – that domestic dogs are evolved from wolves. Not that they are identical to wolves.




> Something about the (im)possibility of different dog breeds being more or less related to the wolf.


Guess what? In (Wayne & Ostrander 2007, the reference I used above), there is a figure (obviously endorsed by Dr. Wayne) that shows that the different breeds of domestic dog have different degrees of relation to the grey wolf. Interestingly, this figure is a reference itself and is in fact the *same figure* as figure 2 from the article that CP posted!! In fact, his co-author Ostrander is an author on the article CP posted!!!


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## Curbside Prophet (Apr 28, 2006)

Spitzy, you're my idol.


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## RawFedDogs (Jun 22, 2008)

Criosphynx said:


> lmao.... sorry.... i figured you were fed up with me by now...
> 
> well no, not lettuce... but "farmed" rodents....not bats....
> 
> I guess im saying how close do we need to be to actual wild diet. Most raw feeders are using Chicken...wolves don't go out to hunt the elusive wild prairie chickens


Raw feeders are doing exactly what you are doing. It would be better to feed your snake his natural diet of bats (if thats what it is) but instead, since i'm sure bats are difficult to find, you feed farmed rodents. Raw feeders feed raw chicken as a staple of the diet because its cheap and easy to find. All the raw feeders I know also feed turkey, pork, beef, fish, goat, lamb, deer or any other animal they can find. But the staple for most is chicken.



> We agree on this, but i just was wondering how it proved that dogs were wolves, because i don't feel it does.


Taken by itself, it doesn't prove anything. Added to the other evidence, it makes the case stronger.


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## RawFedDogs (Jun 22, 2008)

Curbside Prophet said:


> No, he clearly does not know what would attribute to the relatedness he posed. Therefore the strength of his argument can not be judged more than those attributes. He has none. The infamous Dr. Wayne doesn't know, he only has a hunch. Hunches are not proved theories.


He is not "infamous" but a world recognized DNA expert. In my ignorant mind, he did a very good job of proving beyond a doubt that wolves and dogs are the same and he even says so himself.



> So it is unnatural for dog to eat this much, where a wolf can with no problem. Sounds like a difference to me.


You lifted one sentence out of a paragraph and made it say something opposite the meaning of the paragraph. To reword my previous paragraph. Our dogs are fed two (sometimes one) meals a day and have been all their lives. To feed them 20lbs of food at once would cause problems. However, if they had been raised from puppyhood as a wolf would be, eating 2 or 3 times a week, you could easily feed them huge amounts of food at once. Even when a dog has been fed twice a day all his life, its not real difficult to gradually increase amounts and spread out feeding times until they are worked up to where a wolf would be. So it's not because of being a different species, its just a difference in eating habits imposed on dogs by humans. Eating frequency or volume does not make a seperate species.

I really think 20lbs is a little bit of an exaguration here. A bear can eat 20lbs of food as can a lion or tiger or other large carnivore. I don't think a wolf is quite in that class. I think 10lbs would be more in line.



> You're probably not familiar with Ken McCort, but he's a trainer at Wolf Park in Indiana. Unlike you, he has trained wolves, and in a telecourse about the domestication of dogs, he mentioned how it was less taxing on him to train a wolf once he was fed. This makes sense from a learning perspective, because if you remove the antecedent of hunger, the animal has less to focus on.


That may be his experience but not mine. I am familiar with Wolf Park and hope to visit there sometime in the near future. I am not familiar with how "domesticated" their wolves are. The wild animals I have trained have performed better when hungry. I'm not talking about going days without food. I'm talking about several hours after the last meal. In the case of birds of prey, they have not been fed since the day before. They eat each day after training and shows have been completed.



> Many dogs are notably different in this respect, especially a few hound dogs that I've known - full or not, food was their only focus.


Hehe, I have ALWAYS had trouble with hound dogs. Hungry or not. I always hated to get a call from someone who had a hound they wanted trained as a pet.  In general, they just don't do sit, down, and stay very good. 



> For other dogs this can be problematic, and a prudent trainer would know the difference when it occurs.


I think I would know the difference if I ever saw it. I just never have. Sometimes it takes a different food.



> You stated it yourself, once you control the distractions in the dog's environment, he is easier to train. The dog's level of hunger is one of those distractions.


Again, I think we are talking about different degrees of hunger. For example, if a dogs regular evening meal is normally served at 6 pm and I am seeing him at 7 or 8, I just tell the owners not to feed that meal until after training. I've never found that to be a problem.



> Does the owner disappear from the environment? Or are you just being anthropomorphic? Or are you, really, just speaking about competing interests (preferences)? This has nothing to do with an inability to multi-task.


Let me see if I can explain what I mean by a dogs inability to multi-task. A dog's brain is much simpler than a human's. They can only think about one thing at a time. When the trainer has their attention that is what they are thinking about and the rest of the world doesn't exist. Once a distraction takes place the dogs focus is transfered to the distraction and the trainer no longer exists in the dog's mind. The trainer must do something to gets the dogs attention back on him. If he can do that quickly, no harm done. If the trainer is slow about redirecting attention back to himself, the training session falls apart until he can regain control. Slight distractions can be easily overcome. Large distractions can be impossible. "Proofing" the dog is a process to make distractions smaller and smaller in the dog's eyes.

Humans, on the other thing, can pay attention to the teacher in the classroom while watching something out the window or notice someone walking by the classroom door or be mentally sitting on a beach watching the girls walk by. We can do all this and not miss the point the teacher is making. I have been watching John McCain giving his speach as I've been writing this post. I can do both at the same time. Dogs can't do that. All this has nothing to do with dogs/wolves. 

Man, that went a lot longer than I meant it to. ... sorry


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## RawFedDogs (Jun 22, 2008)

fyzbo said:


> True it can give you an idea, but there can be variation inside the species.


Usually the variation in different diet inside species of carnivores is dictated by location and variation in available prey.



> In any case I have no interest in debating this.


Cool, then don't 



> This I find to be absolutely wrong. The biggest difference between dogs and wolves are that dogs are domesticated. Dogs have learned to interact with humans, they have adapted to our social structures, even learning our language. I would say the best trainers can bring out the human side of dogs, that domesticated part that makes them great companions.


I don't see any conflict between my statement and yours.



> You can claim they are the same species/animal all you want, but are you truly going to tell us that they act/think the same?


There are many behavioirs that are exactly the same. Language in dogs is exactly the same language that wolves speak. For instance a play bow means the same to any wolf or any dogs anywhere in the world. So do ear and tail positions and body postures. They mean the same whether it is any breed of dog or a wolf displaying them.

Yes, they act/think the same. 15 years of training hundreds if not thousands of dogs and observing wolf behavior and body language in all of them tells me that. I think most any dog trainer will tell you that. 

I can watch a wolf documentary and see the wolves "talking" with body language and seeing they are doing the same as our dogs. The body language is often showing us that what the narriator is saying is not whats really going on.  When you can read wolf body language it's easy to see that some of these "documentaries" are often staged plays.


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## RawFedDogs (Jun 22, 2008)

Spitzy said:


> There’ve been too many posts since my last, so I’m not going to really quote. But there are some things I just have to address. Sorry, this is a bit long.


Man, I don't think anyone, anytime, anywhere as gone to this much trouble to prove me wrong.  I congratulate you on your post. It is a very productive piece of work.

I don't know if or when I will have the time or energy to go to the trouble to answer all your points, but I know I certainly can't do it tonight. 

It's a very impressive post. Kinda makes me proud that someone would go to that much trouble. Hehehe. Hopefully, I'll get back to you later.


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## RBark (Sep 10, 2007)

RawFedDogs said:


> You are right, Spitzy, and I am wrong. I will concede your point. Thank you for enlightening me in this subject. You obviously are far more well versed in this than I. You are correct, dogs are not wolves.


Nicely done! Good to know you have some humility!


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## RawFedDogs (Jun 22, 2008)

RBark said:


> Nicely done! Good to know you have some humility!


HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! In your dreams.


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## Shaina (Oct 28, 2007)

RawFedDogs said:


> HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! In your dreams.


He was actually saving you face there. You should really be sending him a thank you card.


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## Shalva (Mar 23, 2007)

oh man I love people who use citations..... 
and understand the academic process..... 

I wish there wa a cheerleader icon down there.....


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## trumpetjock (Dec 14, 2007)

Shalva said:


> oh man I love people who use citations.....
> and understand the academic process.....
> 
> I wish there wa a cheerleader icon down there.....


I'm going to have to agree with this one. As a biology student myself, I was just waiting for someone with more time and a little more well versed than myself to come in and lay down this information. 

/appluase spitzy


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## RawFedDogs (Jun 22, 2008)

Spitzy said:


> False. You don’t know what you’re talking about, because you clearly don’t know what _they_ are talking about. I’ve heard scientists say that _Caenorhabditis elegans_ (a worm) is the same as humans. This, obviously, doesn’t mean that they are literally identical. Scientists will often simplify while trying to explain their work to the public.


Hehe, I had a professor in college who would walk in class everyday and shake a box that contained a disassembled mechanical clock (we didn't have electronic clocks in those days). He said that if he shook it enough all the pieces would fall into the correct place and the clock would work again. There are a lot of nutty professors. I don't know what your point is in the previous paragraph.



> Discounting a _Science_ paper by saying it was written by a bunch of students… Seriously? That shows a complete lack of understanding about how academia and academic publishing works.


Are you saying that these weren't students, whether grad or undergrad? Years ago when I was voluntering at a local zoo, I helped several grad students do animal research. I also assisted a Ph.D. with research he was doing. Yes I understand it and have helped do it. I know whats involved. 



> This leads me to believe it is an older article. It is unclear what journal it was published in. _Science_, on the other hand, is one of the most prestigious journals for scientific publication. And it is reviewed – all legitimate scientific publications are peer-reviewed, typically by three labs/Ph.D.’s in a specialty related to the topic of the publication. It is, actually, even possible that Dr. Wayne was one of the reviewers for the _Science_ article.


I honestly don't know the date of it. I know I've had the link for several years. It could very well have been done in the 90's. It's very possible Dr. Wayne reviewed the aritcle.



> In scientific publications, Ph.D.’s aren’t notated in the list of names. Typically, the last author(s) is the Principal Investigator (PI’s - the head Ph.D.’s) who run the labs doing the research. The first author(s) is the person who did the research, usually a graduate student or a PostDoc (that is a person who has their Ph.D., but doesn’t run a lab).


I didn't know that. I do know what a PostDoc is.



> But even to say that a graduate student author is “just” a student who would be graded by someone like Dr. Wayne? That is completely ridiculous. In the first place, graduate students aren’t in classes for the majority of the time that they are in their graduate program. Research that is published in _Science_ isn’t a class project!! *That is so, so completely wrong!!* The majority of academic research is done in the hands of graduate students!!! PI’s help mentor and discuss data, and run the management aspects of the lab. They usually don’t do benchwork themselves, unless they are a new Professor trying to kick-start their lab.


I'm well aware of all that.



> Dr. Wayne appears to study evolutionary relationship. (Phylogeny) He attempts to define the branching points of evolution, and the related-ness between animals.
> 
> His paper is saying that domestic dogs evolved from the grey wolf, as opposed to one of the other canids. He is not saying that domestic dogs are identical to the grey wolf!! I realize there is one line stating something like “the dog is the grey wolf”, but in the context of the article this isn’t a statement of identity. It is a statement of evolutionary origin.


Obviously we read the same paper and draw different conclusions. I think what we disagree on is how close does DNA have to be to be the same species? Somewere there is or should be a line but I don't know if that has ever been determined. 99.98% sounds pretty close to me. I guess you think it's not close enough to be same species. Where would you put the line?



> Since you like him so much, here’s some quotes from other (more recent) articles he’s an author on:
> 
> _A striking finding of the mtDNA analysis is that one sequence clade (clade I, Fig. 1C) contains the majority of dog sequences and that the nucleotide diversity of this clade is high, implying an origin of the clade from 40 to 135 thousand years ago (Vila et al. 1997; Savolainen et al. 2002). This date exceeds the 15,000-yr-old archeological record of dogs *and suggests that dogs may have had a long prehistory when they were not phenotypically distinct from wolf progenitors*. These early dogs may not have been recognized as domesticated by study of the archeological record before 15,000 yr ago because of their physical similarity to gray wolves. The initial change to the diagnostic phenotype of domestic dogs beginning about 15,000 yr ago may have instead indicated a change in the selection pressures associated with the transition from hunter gatherer to more sedentary lifestyles (Wayne et al. 2006)._
> 
> ...


A couple of things about the quoted article: I see the words "implying, may have had, may not have been, may have instead indicated". These words tell me he is only guessing and is not real sure. If you consider .02% distinct, then yes they are. Again, our disagreement is whether .02% is enough to declare a different species. Remember if you are too tight on that requirement, you will have to declare each breed of dog as a seperate species. I don't think ANYONE does that.



> _In general, the domestic dog is an extremely close relative of the gray wolf, from which it differs by only 0.04% in nuclear coding-DNA sequence, and no dog mtDNA sequences have been found that show closer kinship to other canid species [10], [21] and [22]. Therefore, the molecular genetic evidence does not support theories of non-wolf ancestry of domestic dogs. This result is consistent with the fossil record because the earliest dog remains are found alongside those of wolves 24 M.V. Sablin and G.A. Khlopachev, The earliest ice age dogs: Evidence from Eliseevichi, Curr. Anthropol. 43 (2002), pp. 795–799._
> 
> Ref: Wayne RK, Ostrander EA. _Lessons learned from the dog genome._ Trends Genet. 2007 Nov;23(11):557-67. Epub 2007 Oct 25.


This seems to back my argument more than yours. It basically says that over time, you breed a wolf to a wolf to a wolf to a wolf and eventually you get a dog. I think this all goes back to the fox experiment discussed earlier in the thread. The mutant foxes were still foxes no matter how different the appeared. Hehe, I notice it's now .04% instead of .02% but who's quibbling over a couple of hundredths of a percent.



> I didn’t bother bolding anything – I think the whole section clarifies Dr. Wayne’s point – that domestic dogs are evolved from wolves. Not that they are identical to wolves.


I disagree. I think it proves the opposite. I think it proves dogs are wolves as he stated earlier. The fox experiment helps back this up.



> Guess what? In (Wayne & Ostrander 2007, the reference I used above), there is a figure (obviously endorsed by Dr. Wayne) that shows that the different breeds of domestic dog have different degrees of relation to the grey wolf. Interestingly, this figure is a reference itself and is in fact the *same figure* as figure 2 from the article that CP posted!! In fact, his co-author Ostrander is an author on the article CP posted!!!


What that says to me is that different breeds are related to each other in different degrees of closeness. If breedes are related to each other in different degrees and related to wolves in different degrees, where is the part about dogs being a different species than the wolf without each breed being a different species also?

I'm happy for Ostrander that he was able to work with a man who has the stature of Dr. Wayne. I'm sure he learned a lot.


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## Mr Pooch (Jan 28, 2008)

This has to be one of,if not the most imformative threads ive ever read on DF.
I started reading it yesterday,it should be a link on wikipedia for people who assume dogs are wolves.

Just curious,do Americans call grey wolves "gray" wolves?


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## fyzbo (Jun 19, 2008)

RawFedDogs said:


> This seems to back my argument more than yours. It basically says that over time, you breed a wolf to a wolf to a wolf to a wolf and eventually you get a dog. I think this all goes back to the fox experiment discussed earlier in the thread. The mutant foxes were still foxes no matter how different the appeared. Hehe, I notice it's now .04% instead of .02% but who's quibbling over a couple of hundredths of a percent.


Because this thread became very fact based we should try to keep everything straight. The first article you liked to (http://www.kc.net/~wolf2dog/wayne2.htm) stated the mtDNA as 0.2%, not 0.02%, the leading zero only helps denote the decimal place. So the later article actually shows a smaller difference in mtDNA, from 0.2% to 0.04%.



> The domestic dog is an extremely close relative of the gray wolf, differing from it by at most 0.2% of mtDNA sequence


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## Spitzy (Oct 13, 2007)

First, I want to say thanks to those of you who’ve posted kind words.  (Thanks!)

'K, onto addressing questions...



RFD said:


> Are you saying that these weren't students, whether grad or undergrad?


Yes. Leonid Kruglyak, Elaine A. Ostrander, Gary S. Johnson. And, Nathan B. Sutter appears to be a PostDoc of Dr. Ostrander’s.




RFD said:


> Obviously we read the same paper and draw different conclusions. I think what we disagree on is how close does DNA have to be to be the same species? Somewere there is or should be a line but I don't know if that has ever been determined. 99.98% sounds pretty close to me. I guess you think it's not close enough to be same species. Where would you put the line?


I would not presume to draw a line. Hold that thought…



RFD said:


> I see the words "implying, may have had, may not have been, may have instead indicated". These words tell me he is only guessing and is not real sure.


This seems a common problem many people have with science. Good scientists allow for the gaps in their knowledge. Because how can there be absolutes, without absolute knowledge? The more a person knows, the more they understand how much they don’t know. This doesn’t mean that published data isn’t rigorously evaluated, and submitted to a whole host of probability calculations. Science writing is, admittedly, a bit of an English teacher’s nightmare – the convention is passive voice and ample qualifiers.



RFD said:


> where is the part about dogs being a different species than the wolf without each breed being a different species also?


I don’t have to “draw a line”, as the scientific literature (including Dr. Wayne’s) refers to _Canis familaris_ and _Canis lupus_ separately.

Here’s one part:



Wayne RK said:


> Scientific names of species mentioned in the text in order of appearance: kit fox (Vulpes macrotis), Arctic fox (Alopex lagopus), bush dog (Speothos venaticus), maned wolf (Chrysocyon brachyurus), domestic dog (Canis familaris), gray wolf (Canis lupus), golden jackal (Canis aureus), coyote (Canis latrans), African jackals (Canis mesomelas and Canis adustus) and gray fox (Urocyon cinereoargenteus).


Here’s another article:



Hare said:


> These findings demonstrate a significant social-cognitive difference between two closely related nonhuman species (dogs and wolves) and also provide evidence for the adaptive context--in this case, a unique context--in which this difference evolved.


The above article addresses another point, incidentally. It finds that behaviorally, dogs are not equivalent to wolves.



Hare said:


> Dogs are more skillful than great apes at a number of tasks in which they must read human communicative signals indicating the location of hidden food. In this study, we found that wolves who were raised by humans do not show these same skills, whereas domestic dog puppies only a few weeks old, even those that have had little human contact, do show these skills. These findings suggest that during the process of domestication, dogs have been selected for a set of social-cognitive abilities that enable them to communicate with humans in unique ways.





RFD said:


> I'm happy for Ostrander that he was able to work with a man who has the stature of Dr. Wayne. I'm sure he learned a lot.


She probably did. Wayne is likewise lucky to have a collaborative colleague who has the stature of Dr. Ostrander, and probably has learned a lot from her. It is nice to see collaborative science.  



fyzbo said:


> Because this thread became very fact based we should try to keep everything straight. The first article you liked to (http://www.kc.net/~wolf2dog/wayne2.htm) stated the mtDNA as 0.2%, not 0.02%, the leading zero only helps denote the decimal place.


Thanks, fyzbo. The mtDNA value was a 0.2% sequence difference, and what’s more, this is completely separate from the other value.



 Wayne RK said:


> the domestic dog is an extremely close relative of the gray wolf, from which it differs by only 0.04% in *nuclear coding-DNA sequence*


The value of 0.04% is a difference in the DNA contained in the nucleus, as opposed to the DNA contained in the mitochondria.

These are specific, quantitative values related to specific computational tests. They are not a qualitative value, or a percent chance of dog = wolf, or an over-arcing comment on dog = wolf.


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## RawFedDogs (Jun 22, 2008)

Spitzy said:


> > This seems a common problem many people have with science. Good scientists allow for the gaps in their knowledge. Because how can there be absolutes, without absolute knowledge? The more a person knows, the more they understand how much they don’t know. This doesn’t mean that published data isn’t rigorously evaluated, and submitted to a whole host of probability calculations. Science writing is, admittedly, a bit of an English teacher’s nightmare – the convention is passive voice and ample qualifiers.
> 
> 
> I understand what you are saying but if you are going to prove an absolute you cannot use qualifiers. Either a dog is a wolf or it's not. You can't use a lot of qualifiers in your proof. If you do, it becomes "probably is" or "probably isn't" or "might be" or "might not be".
> ...


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## Curbside Prophet (Apr 28, 2006)

RawFedDogs said:


> _"The English word dog, in common usage, refers to the domestic pet dog, *Canis lupus familiaris*. The species was originally classified as Canis familiaris and Canis familiarus domesticus by Linnaeus in 1758.[10] In 1993, dogs were reclassified as a subspecies of the gray wolf, Canis lupus, by the Smithsonian Institution and the American Society of Mammalogists."_
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog Bold is mine.





RFD said:


> Wikipedia is by far not the best place to go to get factual information about any subject.


Seems to be a double standard here. 

If indeed the scientific community does insist on renaming the dog _Canis lupus familiaris, _there is one thing we should all remember (and I think the consensus is, most of us do with the exception of one ): Just because dogs are renamed as a subspecies of wolves does not make them wolves. To say dogs are descended from wolves does not make them wolves: Just as to say we are descended from apes does not make us apes. To say we have 99% of the same genetic make-up as bonobos does not mean we should feed our children as if they were bonobos. To say dogs have 100% of the same genes as wolves does not mean we should care for our dogs as if they are wolves. Dogs are not wolves, no matter how much you insist on calling them wolves. 



> Which leads us back to the questions I posed in my previous post. How close does the DNA have to be before two animals are the same species? How close is the DNA in different breeds of dogs? There must be an official amount somewhere. Who would officially decide this? As far as I can tell, it was officially decided in 1993.


IMO, DNA data will never end the discussion because divergence will never be as complete as in a speciation. Divergence is necessary for your argument. 

The fact that some dogs and wolves have identical haplotypes is good evidence that they are not different species in the classical sense of the term; however, your scientists had to assume divergence - as evidence by how wolves, coyotes, jackals, and dogs were originally classified (even though they all could interbreed). Then, when they found these species carry common haplotypes, they concluded this was the result of recent hybridization. *If *the common hyplotypes are the result of hybridization, then the data would also suggest some of the wolves got their haplotypes from dogs. This means your wolf, who shares common haplotypes with dogs, had dogs as parents too. 

Which haplotypes were obtained from dogs and which from wolves? No one in the scientific community can tell, not even your buddy Dr. Wayne. Unless of course he was there to sample the species in question when the divergence first occurred. If so, I need what he's on! 

If there is hybridization, it can be implied that it took place at the very beginning of dogs (dogs and wolves would have shared the same niche - this is your claim). It would also mean you can't distinguish dog haplotypes from wolf haplotypes. Do you see a pardox here and what mtDNA data may prove? 

Think of it this way. If I sent an unlabled sample of animal genes to your lab for analysis, and I asked what species of dog, wolf, or coyote it belonged to; could you tell me with as much certainty as their relatedness between them? Your answer must be no if they are to be the same species as you claim; therefore, there wouldn't be a difference. But it's identification *is* the question, not the answer. I would have to write the name of the animal on the label for you to really know. 

How can this matter? They are still the same species, right? Well, every mtDNA study has a hybridization dillema. For example, red wolves are a cross between gray wolves and coyotes, yet in Canada gray wolves are carriers of coyote mtDNA, and a percentage of the dogs carry wolf mtDNA, and in Africa, the Simien jackel (which might be a wolf) is carrying dog mtDNA. Do these finding really solve your genelogical question? Not if you are looking at the data clearly. 

Your Dr. Wayne reported on frozen wolves found in glacial ice in Spain, from the last glacial period, and guess what? The mtDNA data showed no relationship to present day North American wolves. You're so versed on Dr. Wayne, why haven't you reported this factoid to us?


Dr. Wayne said:


> None of the 16 mtDNA haplotypes recovered from a sample of 20 Pleistocene eastern-Beringian wolves was shared with any modern wolf, and instead they appear most closely related to Late Pleistocene wolves of Eurasia.


That sounds pretty definitive to me.

Since mtDNA data can't even discriminate with accuracy between animals of the same species, I'm to believe your dependence on the mtDNA data only adds confusion to your argument...it does not provide a difinitive answer by any means.


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## RawFedDogs (Jun 22, 2008)

Curbside Prophet said:


> Seems to be a double standard here.


Not Really, when the information can be verified in 229,000 other places (see Google), then it can pretty well be accepted as fact. 



> If indeed the scientific community does insist on renaming the dog _Canis lupus familiaris, _


There is no "If" ... It actually happened.



> there is one thing we should all remember (and I think the consensus is, most of us do with the exception of one ): Just because dogs are renamed as a subspecies of wolves does not make them wolves. To say dogs are descended from wolves does not make them wolves:


Well, yes it does. I guess we can just throw out all scientific evidence and say what we want to and make any animal identical to, or any degree of difference from, any other.



> Just as to say we are descended from apes does not make us apes.


Hehe, yes it does. There are 5 species of Great Apes ... Gorillas, Orangs, Chimps, Bonobos, *and humans*.

_"The great apes are the members of the biological family Hominidae which includes humans, chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans. ... The great apes are large, tailless primates, with the smallest living species being the Bonobo at 30 – 40 kilograms in weight, and the largest being the gorillas, with males weighing 140 – 180 kilograms."_
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hominidae

If you wish to verify that, there are 425,000 other references to Great Ape on Google. I"m sure some of them will confirm what I said. 



> To say dogs have 100% of the same genes as wolves does not mean we should care for our dogs as if they are wolves.


I think it means exactly that. If you have a wolf, you care for him like he is a wolf. 



> Dogs are not wolves, no matter how much you insist on calling them wolves.


Obviously, the scientific community disagrees with you, but that shouldn't matter as your knoweldge is superior to theirs anyway. 



> The fact that some dogs and wolves have identical haplotypes is good evidence that they are not different species in the classical sense of the term; however, your scientists had to assume divergence - as evidence by how wolves, coyotes, jackals, and dogs were originally classified (even though they all could interbreed).


They are not MY scientists, they are the scientific community. Yes, these different species can interbreed but I think dog and wolves are the only ones that can interbreed and produce fertile offspring.



> Then, when they found these species carry common haplotypes, they concluded this was the result of recent hybridization. *If *the common hyplotypes are the result of hybridization, then the data would also suggest some of the wolves got their haplotypes from dogs. This means your wolf, who shares common haplotypes with dogs, had dogs as parents too.


This is mere speculation and can't be very accurate as wolves were around long before dogs were.



> If there is hybridization, it can be implied that it took place at the very beginning of dogs (dogs and wolves would have shared the same niche - this is your claim). It would also mean you can't distinguish dog haplotypes from wolf haplotypes. Do you see a pardox here and what mtDNA data may prove?


I have seen no suggestion anywhere in the scientific literature that suggest hybridization EXCEPT for a very few places I have read that the red wolf MAY POSSIBLY be a cross between gray wolf and coyotte but even that is not very well accepted.



> Think of it this way. If I sent an unlabled sample of animal genes to your lab for analysis, and I asked what species of dog, wolf, or coyote it belonged to; could you tell me with as much certainty as their relatedness between them? Your answer must be no if they are to be the same species as you claim; therefore, there wouldn't be a difference. But it's identification *is* the question, not the answer. I would have to write the name of the animal on the label for you to really know.


I don't have a clue what you just said. 



> How can this matter? They are still the same species, right? Well, every mtDNA study has a hybridization dillema. For example, red wolves are a cross between gray wolves and coyotes, yet in Canada gray wolves are carriers of coyote mtDNA, and a percentage of the dogs carry wolf mtDNA, and in Africa, the Simien jackel (which might be a wolf) is carrying dog mtDNA. Do these finding really solve your genelogical question? Not if you are looking at the data clearly.


All that proves is that they had a common ancestor. That is not in dispute.



> Your Dr. Wayne reported on frozen wolves found in glacial ice in Spain, from the last glacial period, and guess what? The mtDNA data showed no relationship to present day North American wolves. You're so versed on Dr. Wayne, why haven't you reported this factoid to us?
> 
> That sounds pretty definitive to me.


I haven't read every word that Dr. Wayne has written and a lot of what he has is of no interest to me. The discussion at hand is the realtionship between dogs and gray wolves. Spanish wolves thta lived a zillion years ago have no bearing on that.



> Since mtDNA data can't even discriminate with accuracy between animals of the same species, I'm to believe your dependence on the mtDNA data only adds confusion to your argument...it does not provide a difinitive answer by any means.


Well, I'm not the one who is confused here.  You are the one who is disagreeing with the scientific community, not me. I am very clear on what I know. No confusion here.


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## Curbside Prophet (Apr 28, 2006)

This is _your _fault, and I believe Spitzy has already pointed this out. 


Spitzy said:


> You don’t know what you’re talking about, because you clearly don’t know what _they_ are talking about. I’ve heard scientists say that _Caenorhabditis elegans_ (a worm) is the same as humans. This, obviously, doesn’t mean that they are literally identical. Scientists will often simplify while trying to explain their work to the public.





RawFedDogs said:


> This is mere speculation and can't be very accurate as wolves were around long before dogs were.


You're not demonstrating that you follow your own logic, as you've just now admitted your argument is speculation. Do you even know what your own argument is? Your argument insists an original creation, an ancestral split, resulting in genetic isolation. When, in these mtDNA studies, two species share a haplotype, it is _assumed _that sharing is a result of a rare hybridization. This is necessary because it has already been assumed that divergence means sexual isolation of the mutating haplotypes. You don't agree that dogs are a different species, correct? Is it a coyote, wolf, dog-coyote hybrid, or wolf-coyote hybrid? Not even the scientific community knows. At least not those who wear a behavior ecologist hat. Behavior ecologists define a species by the niche they occupy - the last i checked behavioral ecologists are not excludded from the scientific community. The wolf's is a wild niche, the dog's is a domesticated niche, and they are not the same. The results of faulty reasoning is a myth no matter who claims that reasoning to be true. I'm not the one confused, I just happen to know when questions are still unanswered, and what _they _are saying.



RawFedDogs said:


> I haven't read every word that Dr. Wayne has written and a lot of what he has is of no interest to me. The discussion at hand is the realtionship between dogs and gray wolves. Spanish wolves thta lived a zillion years ago have no bearing on that.


Of course you're going to ignore any argument that does not support yours. I don't think anyone here expects anything less of you; but in the same breath, we also know doing so is not an argument supporting your position.


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## RawFedDogs (Jun 22, 2008)

Curbside Prophet said:


> This is _your _fault, and I believe Spitzy has already pointed this out.


Hehe, what is my fault? The fact that dogs are wolves is my fault? 



> You're not demonstrating that you follow your own logic, as you've just now admitted your argument is speculation.


You evidently misread what I said if you drew that conclusion. I said *YOUR* reasoning was specualtion when you say _"*If* the common hyplotypes are the result of hybridization, then *the data would also suggest* ...."_

You can't have words like "IF" and "data suggests" in absolute statements. My statement is absolute ... Dogs are wolves. There is no speculation in that statement.



> Do you even know what your own argument is? Your argument insists an original creation, an ancestral split, resulting in genetic isolation. When, in these mtDNA studies, two species share a haplotype, it is _assumed _that sharing is a result of a rare hybridization.


You're still confused. One of my statements which was referenced said that there was no hybridization that created dogs from wolves. There was no other animal involved. Dogs and wolves are the same animal. There can be no hybridization when you breed two of the same animal and produce the same animal as offspring.



> This is necessary because it has already been assumed that divergence means sexual isolation of the mutating haplotypes.


Again, thats an assumption. Yours, not mine.



> You don't agree that dogs are a different species, correct?


Correct



> Is it a coyote, wolf, dog-coyote hybrid, or wolf-coyote hybrid?


Is what a coyote, wolf, dog-coyote hybrid, or wolf-coyote hybrid? If you are talking about dog ... dog is a wolf. Period. Nothing else. A gray wolf. The Smithsonian and the mammal association say so. They didn't just decide that on a whim. They had their scientific reasons for deciding they are the same species. Did new evidence come to light in 1993? I think probably so. What did they use for their criteria? I don't know but they seem pretty confident in it.



> Not even the scientific community knows.


Obviously they do or they wouldn't have changed the classification. You have to have real proof of something to change what has been a certain way since the 1700s. Evidently they had it. You don't change things like that easily.



> At least not those who wear a behavior ecologist hat. Behavior ecologists define a species by the niche they occupy - the last i checked behavioral ecologists are not excludded from the scientific community.


I think they are excluded. They are on the outer fringes of science the same as psychologists.



> The wolf's is a wild niche, the dog's is a domesticated niche, and they are not the same. The results of faulty reasoning is a myth no matter who claims that reasoning to be true. I'm not the one confused, I just happen to know when questions are still unanswered, and what _they _are saying.


When man inteferred with nature and took dogs out of nature, the niche theory goes out the window. If dogs were left in the wild, they would have the same niche as wolves. Hehe, if the original small group of wolves that dogs were decended from were left in the wild, there would be no dogs. LOL



> Of course you're going to ignore any argument that does not support yours. I don't think anyone here expects anything less of you; but in the same breath, we also know doing so is not an argument supporting your position.


I won't ignore anything that has a bearing on the discussion. We are discussing the relationship between gray wolves and dogs. Ancient wolves found in ice in Spain have no bearing on whether or not dogs are wolves.


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## RBark (Sep 10, 2007)

Well, this makes things easier for everyone. I don't think anyone will put any credibility in anything you say from now on, after this thread. If someone does, I'll gladly point them here.


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