The domestic dog is an incredibly pliable species.
The American Kennel Club (AKC) currently recognizes 189 different breeds, but the AKC is just one breed registry, and there are others.
The AKC’s across-the-pond counterpart, the United Kennel Club (UKC) recognizes more than 100 additional breeds, for a total of about 300. Meanwhile, the leading international authority – the Fédération Cynologique Internationale (World Canine Organization in French) recognizes even more. Their list includes about 350 breeds from all around the world.
No matter which breed registry’s list you prefer, the point is obvious: Dogs come in a diverse array of sizes, shapes and personalities – even though they are all currently recognized as the same species.
Collectively, these breeds display a wide variety of coats and colors, from the mostly hairless bodies of Chinese crested dogs to the long, silky locks of Afghan hounds, to the waterproof and mop-like mane of the Puli.
This kind of variation also occurs within breeds. The coats of Labrador retriever come in several different colors, as do the spots of Dalmatians. In fact, these differences often manifest within a single litter.
But the variation between different dog breeds isn’t limited to superficial traits like coat color. Many of the differences between various breeds are quite profound.
A Fresh Coat of Paint Is One Thing; This Was a Complete Rebuild
Body size is one of the most important aspects of any living organism. It influences everything from prey selection to offspring size. It can even help predict a species’ relative extinction risk.
Individuals and populations of most species usually exhibit a relatively similar size. This blue jay may weigh a quarter-ounce more than that blue jay, but they’re essentially the same size.
Dogs, on the other hand, are a different matter entirely. In fact, domestic dogs exhibit the greatest difference in body size of any mammal.
Consider that Chihuahuas (generally recognized as the world’s smallest breed) weigh about 4 or 5 pounds, whereas Great Danes (who are the largest) regularly reach 200. A few Mastiffs have even tipped the scales at 280 pounds or so.
That is a 40- to 70-fold difference in body size.
If you were a Chihuahua-person, a Great-Dane-person would weigh somewhere in the 2- to 7-ton ballpark. Elephant size, give or take.
But neither color nor coat nor body size represents the most impressive diversity found among our favorite companions.
After all, farmers have created an incredible number of chicken breeds. Oklahoma State University lists more than 60 different types, and there are undoubtedly many more. These breeds primarily differ in terms of plumage and size, but some even exhibit subtle reproductive differences.
For the most part, it is easy to understand how breeders created these various lines.
Want a chicken with white feathers? Make a bunch of baby chickens, and pick out the ones with a few white feathers. Breed these animals together, and you will probably get a few chicks with even more white feathers. Repeat the process long enough and you get a completely white bird.
You could do the same thing with behaviors.
Want to produce a line of laboratory rats that don’t bite? Cull the biters from the colony and encourage the non-biters to breed.
Want a four-legged companion that is helpful in myriad ways?
You’ll need to start by finding the friendliest wolves you can…
The Path from Wolves to Dogs: You Gonna Finish That?
Scientists continue to debate the precise origin of domestic dogs, but the broad strokes are pretty clear.
Somewhere between 15,000 and 40,000 years ago, some wolves began hanging around humans (others continued doing wolf stuff).
This afforded them the opportunity to scavenge discarded food and leftovers. Humans began serving as a reliable source of supplemental calories, thereby increasing the wolves’ ability to survive – a trait biologist call fitness.
Mother Nature tends to smile upon those who increase their fitness.
But this wasn’t a one-way relationship — humans benefitted from the wolves hanging around too.
Humans are smarter than wolves, we are better equipped for building things than they are, and we are much better at throwing rocks and sticks than they are. We can also climb trees better than they can, and we’ll even give them a run for their money when it comes to long-distance travel.
We even see better than they do.
At least, we see better than they do during the day. Wolves see much better than we do at night.
And this was important, as the prehistoric night was dark and full of terrors. Creeping predators would surely find sleeping humans to be relatively easy prey. This nocturnal vulnerability undoubtedly played an important role in our species’ modern fear of the dark.
But wolves don’t have much trouble spotting creeping cats and canids in the dark. So, when combined with their superior senses of smell and hearing, effective night vision made wolves remarkable sentries.
Which improved our fitness.
This type of win-win relationship is often termed a mutualism. Other examples include bees and flowers, tick-eating birds and ungulates, and pilot fish swimming alongside sharks.
Because the wolf-human relationship was so mutually beneficial, it persisted for thousands of years. Over time, both species became more comfortable living alongside each other.
Eventually, humans began playing a role in the determination of breeding partners – essentially introducing the world to the processes of artificial selection and domestication.
Before moving forward, it is important to point out that domestic dogs probably did not evolve from extant (living) wolves. Instead, the evidence appears to show that they diverged from a now-extinct wolf species.
In other words, living wolves and living dogs are close cousins, but they aren’t parents and offspring.
If We’re Gonna Do This, Let’s Do This
As human culture evolved and the process of domestication marched on, our ancestors began exploiting the strengths of dogs more pointedly.
Instead of settling for a companion that would deter predators in the nighttime forest and help corral prey, humans began wanting their canines to do specific, often complex, tasks.
We wanted dogs to protect our sheep without snacking on them once they grew hungry or bored.
We wanted dogs that could pull sleds and other items across icy terrain in inclement weather.
We wanted dogs that could locate hiding birds while we walked alongside them with shotguns.
The list goes on…
By and large, we were successful.
We produced livestock-guarding breeds, sled dogs, and birding breeds. We also produced working breeds and terriers.
We even produced dogs who were tasked with nothing more than being well-behaved and cuddly – we call them toy breeds today.
This is certainly interesting, but the truly fascinating part is that we’ve managed to create this staggering diversity, in large part, by altering one key behavioral characteristic of wolves.
A characteristic known as the predatory sequence. It turns out, that we “reprogramed” their predatory sequence.
We’ve Been Coding for a Long Time, and We’re Pretty Good at It
The predatory sequence is a set of behaviors that carnivores employ when trying to obtain food.
It’s essentially the same for most carnivores, with small modifications to suit the species and its typical prey.
Cats, for example, employ a “paw slap” more often than canines do (they also appear to direct it at their caretakers and canines quite frequently, but that’s a different issue entirely).
The basic predatory sequence for canines is as follows:
- Orient – The dog aims its body and head toward the prey.
- Eye – The dog locks its eyes on the target.
- Stalk – The dog begins to creep closer to the prey while trying to avoid detection.
- Chase – The dog launches the attack and runs toward the prey.
- Grab Bite – The dog bites the prey animal, often on the rear leg or hindquarters.
- Kill Bite – The dog bites the neck or throat with the intention of causing death.
- Dissect Bite – The dog opens the dead prey’s body cavity.
- Consume Bite – The dog eats the prey animal.
In most cases, the conclusion of one behavior initiates the next. But, if you alter the sequence, remarkable things can happen.
In fact, if you alter the sequence in just the right way, you get an animal that is determined to sit outside on a cold January morning and wait patiently for you to shoot a duck. Once you do, he’ll dive in, go get the duck and bring it back to you.
Then, he’ll hang out and be cold until it’s time to do it all over again.
Most importantly, you get a dog that doesn’t simply eat the duck once it gets there. Instead, you get a dog that will bring the duck back to you gently.
Alter the sequence this way, and you get a Labrador retriever (or any of the other dozen or so bird dog breeds, who’re all best suited for a particular brand of bird hunting).
Alter a species in that way, you get something else entirely.
To understand how the alteration of the predatory sequence led (in part) to the development of lowland bird dogs, let’s walk alongside one as it stalks its prey.
The Lab begins by orienting itself in the direction of the passing birds.
It scans the approaching flock of ducks. When you single one out by shooting it, the dog locks in on the falling bird with his eyes.
But instead of stalking the bird – it’s hardly necessary to sneak up on dead birds – the dog jumps in the water and chases down the duck.
Spot then grabs the duck.
Thus far, the only significant change in the predatory sequence is the elimination of the stalking portion of the pattern. But one of the most important manipulations is about to occur: Instead of picking up the bird as a terrier may, which would include a great deal of pressure and shaking, Labrador retrievers pick up the bird gently.
They do not exhibit a kill bite.
This is important, as hunters don’t want their dogs returning with mangled ducks. Accordingly, Labs simply retrieve ducks for their people and return to the beginning of the sequence. The kill bite portion of the sequence has been entirely eliminated.
Early breeders selected for dogs that lacked this kill bite. They picked the dogs who didn’t bite down and savagely shake retrieved ducks. Eventually, these efforts changed the breed.
Herding dog provide another example. But their predatory sequence has been altered in different ways.
These dogs, who work tirelessly to keep a flock of sheep in a compact mass, exhibit the orient, eye, stalk and chase phases of the sequence, but they usually lack grab bites and kill bites. This makes the dogs fantastically adept at moving the sheep from place to place, but it ensures they won’t pounce on the livestock and eat them.
Terriers, by contrast, have very strongly developed grab bites and kill bites. After all, terriers were often tasked with pest control duties. You don’t want to shove a terrier down a hole and have him bring a live rat back to you.
Livestock guarding breeds offer another variation on the theme, as they often lack the chase, grab bite, kill bite and the dissect bite. Should one of their charges die, they may continue to guard it faithfully, and they almost never begin consuming the animal, unless their owner opens the sheep’s body cavity.
Toss a sheep carcass in with a Great Pyrenees and he will just stare at it; toss a sheep carcass in with a terrier and he’ll go to town.
Nature Doesn’t Fit on a Bumper Sticker
Of course, alterations of the predator sequence are not responsible for all of the differences between different dog breeds. Many of their physical attributes, such as size, build, coat color and tail length were selected for independently of the behavioral traits influenced by the predatory sequence.
But these goals obviously worked in concert with each other and helped us to completely reprogram a single predator and create capable farm hands, hunting companions, exterminators and house pets to better suit our needs.
Header photo from Pixabay.
