What dogs have lost from partnership with humans

The last dogs we owned were dog wolf hybrids. They were extremely loyal and protective...the female, a tad overprotective. Kids had nothing to worry about, but they developed a real hate for certain individuals that had been nasty to them....or smelled strongly of booze and tobacco.

National Geographic or Discovery had a show on a few months back that postulated that dogs have always been a distinct sub-species of canid and that they did not descend from wolves. This accounted for the more widespread appearance of the dog around the entire world whereas the wolf was fairly unique to the non-desert/non-jungle portions of the northern hemisphere. It's sort of along the same lines as the differences between a lion and a tiger. They're both felines but no one would make the mistake of saying that they're the same species. That a dog can produce puppies after mating with a wolf is kind of a distraction. A horse can mate with donkey to produce a mule but no one says that means the donkey is the same thing as a horse.

Mules are sterile tho, dog/wolf produces viable offspring. Nobody's saying dogs are the same species as wolves, certainly not taxonomy. If you leave dogs alone to breed as they will, you'll soon get something that resembles a dingo, not a wolf.

Dogs that belong to PETA members have lost meat from their diet I'll wager.

The modern North American wolf is no more the ancestor of the modern dog than chimpanzees are our ancestors. We had a common ancestor, just as dogs and modern wolves do. It was the specifically the gray wolf(Canis lupus) that gave rise to the dogs. The wolves of North America, just as the timberwolf is not the ancestor of the coyote(which split from the wolf line almost 3/4 of million years ago) aren't part of their direct evolution. Hell, even the 'timberwolves of North america are thought to be two seperate subspecies. The eastern timberwolf is supposedly descended from the red wolf, which developed in NA and the western timberwolves are descended from gray wolves that moved into NA from Eurasia.

The differences between wolves and dogs, as anyone who has owned one or a hybrid knows, is more than physical. It's also social and it takes more than a few generations of domestication to to minimize the wolf behaviour. I have trusted my life to these dogs, but I wouldn't go so far as to trust the lives of others around some of them. They are extremely loyal companions to their family....ONE family. And for the love of Christ, if you own one of those purse rats, don't bring it to a home where there is a wolf, or wolf hybrid. They seem them as chew toys and snacks. Mind you we had a cat and he was safe from the dogs, because as pups he had terrorized them, and even when the male was approaching 100 kg, he still gave the cat wide berth. It was literally cat rodeo when they were younger. They'd be yelping and jumping all over trying to dislodge the cat from their back or belly. Then, they'd bolt for the sofa and hide until they got too big(at 2 mnths of age). The bitch got smarter faster and soon it was the tom that had to bolt for the sofa. I miss my dogs. they are living proof that love is unconditional...never have to buy them shiny things when you win an argument.