My New Year’s Present: a Powerful New Study on Breed Diversity

By Chris Redenbach CDBC, CBCC-KA

For years I’ve been telling people that different dogs need different

approaches to their training and enrichment. This is a species of unparalleled variation in both behavior and morphology. But they are almost all of human design. When we look at truly wild dog populations around the world, they tend to be medium size animals with generally brown or white coats, prick ears and moderate angulation. They are, like wild animals everywhere, adapted for a niche where they make their livings from predation, scavenging and eating treats such as berries when available. Their environment dictates their morphology and behavior as it does wolves or any other wild animal up against considerable odds for survival and reproduction (inclusive fitness).

By contrast, the domesticated dog has become a marvel of selective breeding, setting traits for many hundreds of generations, to aid humans in so many extremely different roles. Studies reveal significant differences in innate behavior sequences and the morphological differences are glaringly obvious. It is not hard to think of this as a human guided evolution of sorts. Species differentiation can be quite rapid. A marvelous illustration of this phenomenon is the differentiation of the anole lizard of the Caribbean in nature and in an eye-opening experiment carried out by biologists. You can see the videos about anole speciation at the links below. The point for this article is that speciation occurred based on the requirements of differing habitat and prey. And the morphological and behavioral changes were well established in as short a time as two years. The anole species adapted for tree living (long legs and thick textured toe pads for gripping big branches) placed on a small island devoid of trees, quickly developed shorter legs and different toe pads adapted for living and hunting in bushes. Just two years!

So it was no surprise, but rather a joyous holiday celebration, when Dr Erin

Hecht of Harvard, published her study of brain scans of different breeds, demonstrating that brains of different breeds have, at least in some cases, changed the brain itself, adapting to the new specializations that selective breeding has brought¹ ². I hope that this finally leads us in the right direction of understanding our dogs better. The phrase “a dog is a dog is a dog” is not now and never was true. We are the lucky guardians of a genetic diversity that deserves understanding and protection.

For more about the rapid evolution/adaptation of anoles, see these two videos: Adapting Anoles  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0kDf_ozVd4 and Islands in Evolution: Anoles https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Vlx8fSqYVE