hey, ziggy! :--)
i agree wholeheartedly that the majority of appearance-driven human alteration of dogs has been over the past 500 or so years; before that, working qualities were desired over mere looks.

some non-human-directed dom-dog evolution has been pure happenstance, like the appearance of dwarfism (one gene variant) creating Vallhunds, Bassetts, Corgis, et al - that was not human designed, we just thought it was cute, or took advantage of it in drover-breeds - allowing them to slip under the kick of hoofed-stock.

similarly, wire-coats, curly-coats, etc, were not human creations - but we either liked the appearance, or found them functional, so they stayed.

hairless breeds are not so much an Equatorial design - they have appeared several times, in various places, and i *think* are another sport, which would not have been successful in village dogs or pariahs; all of the breeds that have developed hairlessness were already highly-domesticated and lived in homes, not at large.
the most-recent instance of hairlessness was a sport in American smooth Fox-Terriers, which was in a temperate climate,
so i think it is more accident than evolutionary adaptation.
if African village-dogs gave rise to a strain of hairless or semi-bald dogs, i think they would die out in just a few generations.
(they may have already appeared + vanished - how would we know? only a painting of a hairless dog would confirm or suggest it; fossils or archeological specimens rarely have any hair associated.)

thick coats on Northern breeds are definitely a geographic adaptation, but we have Siberians and Malemutes here in Tidewater-Va; they do not develop the same thick pelt as their relatives, even immediate-relatives like siblings, as in colder climes.
(it is hard to get a championship on a Nordic who lives here, in part b/c of the sparser coat - better for the dog, but a complication for the owner/handler.)

the heat-tolerance and ability to conserve water of the Rhodesian-Ridgeback came from the native ridgebacked stock, which sadly either died out, or more likely were killed by European colonists, who had no great tolerance for native stock of any sort; wildlife were either to eat, or to kill if they were predators; native cattle were pests and scrub specimens, and the dogs were probably seen as just another pestilential hanger-on.

as far as wolf-evolution in recent history, the wolf was already so well-adapted in their various regional types and species that there is not much that could be improved; the coat-color BLACK actually moved from dom-dogs ---> into wolves; it did not arise in wolves, and be selected for in dogs.
it is one of the few documented instances of a wild species being genetically changed by a domestic descendent / relative.

the Arctic wolf is the largest, body volume being important in severe cold, but their size is likewise restrained by being efficient at using food and moving across an enormous home range. a 200# wolf would be too hard to keep fueled, and too hefty to move efficiently.

the little red-wolf of the Carolinas, small, neat and close-coated, is easily mistaken at a distance for a coyote, which may be their undoing as a species; they may so interbreed as to be lost, particularly as there are still wild Carolina dogs, altho widely scattered.
all 3 are interfertile, tho their habits are dissimilar in many ways.

wolves in all their remaining haunts are highly adaptable re diet, but they all have the strong social bonds that make them easy prey for humans - a nice songfest is a perfect advertisement to a wolf-hunter, here is the prey...
wolves also prefer large game to small, given their druthers.
the woods-bison of the Eastern USA is exterminated long ago; the eastern elk is a few reintroduced popns in widely scattered areas, and CWD, *aka* scrapie, is now known to be in over 12 states. (how this will eventually affect the huge over-popn of eastern whitetail deer, is yet to be seen.) this restricts wolves to areas that still have large game.

that is why coyote have rapidly taken over vast areas of former wolf habitat across the 48-states of the USA: coyote are small-enuf to subsist on small game and road-kill, and they do not gather in groups much larger than 4 to a max of 6, most of the year; they are often seen singly or in pairs.

hopefully we humans will learn to live alongside large predators; if not, hundreds of thousands of years of success will not save them. they cannot out-evolve guns, traps, poison and other lethal human weapons.
lions, leopards, cheetah, puma, tigers, wolves, great white sharks, jaguar, pelagic tuna, dingos... they are all under the threat of extinction in our lifetimes, localized or globally.
best regards,
--- terry

__________________
terry pride, APDT-Aus, apdt#1827, CVA, TDF
*wolves R wolves, dogs R dogs, + primates R us.*
tmp, sept-2007

sorry, sue + nicky! U cannot save a draft on here, and i was retro-fitting a HUGE newsletter to post on Pet-News forum...
it took quite a while, i finally posted it. (its from the Center for Bio-Diversity.)

here is the presentation of Control-Unleashed at the EntleFest -
Behind the Behavior » Blog Archive » Control Unleashed Presentation at Entlefest

and here is a tiny-URL (which cannot be broken) for the testing -
which nicky already found, thanks nick! (deep salaam)
Behind the Behavior » Blog Archive » Temperament Testing Dogs at the Entlefest

i hope that helps, late tho i am...
--- terry

__________________
terry pride, APDT-Aus, apdt#1827, CVA, TDF
*wolves R wolves, dogs R dogs, + primates R us.*
tmp, sept-2007

I think it is highly doubtful that wolves have evolved in the past 16000 years since dogs became domesticated, and I've yet to read of anyone finding any change in wolves in that short period.

The most recent research on the subject not only traces the evolution of teh dog from wolves to 16K but it places that event taking place South of the Yangtze river. [doi:10.1093/molbev/msp195 ]

hey, cory! :--)

i believe the introduction of black coats from dom-dogs to wolves was relatively recent -
Biologists solve mystery of black wolves / UCLA Newsroom
since early-human immigrants are estimated to have arrived approx 15k years ago, this is a big chunk of time; they could probably narrow it down by checking the speed of gene-mutation in associated alleles, but that would not be cheap. if they could back-track it thru inherited mitochondria, that would be a lot less expensive!

evolution is not something that happens only over geological time - millenia - but happens incrementally, every day, in any new generation. the studies of the Galapagos finches are the best illustration of the on-going tinkering of evolutionary mechanisms.
the cumulative changes from those tiny alterations, or a sudden abrupt leap, are seen over larger time-frames.

other recent evolution in wolves is clear, but bodes badly -
ETA - http://tinyurl.com/yfsnrvd
unfortunately, among the best evolutionary examples in wolves are the wolves of Isle Royale, which is isolated from the mainland by rapid currents of the river, and the health + function of the resident wolf-popn is being rapidly undermined by the genetic bottleneck.
this is the single most-researched and best known wolf-popn in this hemisphere.
they are debating bringing in un-related Ms from the mainland, but naturally this is controversial.

introducing pups into a wolf family is easy - all adults are thrilled by puppies, nobody cares where they came from,
or whose they were. so that would be simple -
but many feel that introducing an adult or young-adult who has dispersed from their natal pack, is a better option;
they are essentially proven survivors, at least for 2 to 3 years age.
this would mean some degree of upheaval and possibly fights or injuries - much more fraught than the unrelated-pups option.
all my best,
--- terry

__________________
terry pride, APDT-Aus, apdt#1827, CVA, TDF
*wolves R wolves, dogs R dogs, + primates R us.*
tmp, sept-2007

When I said barely coated dogs, I was talking about dogs with very short coats (and usually a leggy light frame that disperses heat well) like Pharoahs. If I had meant hairless dogs, I would have written hairless dogs!

jeepers, ziggy - no need to take my head off, i am sorry.

Pharaohs, despite the breed-name, are a reconstructed breed - they are not nearly as *old* as many primitive breeds
(Akitas, Xolo, Thai Ridgeback, etc). so most of their appearance, if not all, is due to human directed selection.

there are a slew of light-coated, long-legged breeds that were developed in temperate or even cold climes - Greyhounds, Great Danes, Dalmatians, Porcelaine (French hounds), and so on. the difference between a lightly-coated Pharaoh and a Viszla is pretty minimal.
neither Dingos nor New-Guinea Singers are strictly equatorial - but both live in dam*ed hot places, tho one is primarily desert , and the other rainforest - but both have medium coats, and the Basenji (an equatorial breed) has as much coat as a Beagle.
African village dogs are also equatorial, and have average short-haired coats.

offhand, i cannot think of a truly =old= breed, meaning primitive, that has an apparently naturally-adapted thin coat. if anyone else can, have at it! i am retiring from the field on this particular issue, unless someone can bring more data to the discussion.
best regards,
--- terry

__________________
terry pride, APDT-Aus, apdt#1827, CVA, TDF
*wolves R wolves, dogs R dogs, + primates R us.*
tmp, sept-2007

I think given enough dogs, a limitless supply of cash and a properly focussed goal that any good breeder could produce a genuine "new" breed in 20-30 years.
Merely by selecting for the right traits and choosing the right dogs.
We now have the capacity to trawl the world looking for the right genes.
We do not have to wait in our little village or town for the right dog to mosey into town or to try and produce a freak, as our forebearers did.

If anyone wanted to produce a "New" blue dog or a spotted one or one that has huge ears or big appealing eyes and puppy looks, it is not so difficult to do. It just needs the energy and commitment to do it.

Human engineered evolution can be very fast. I presume that in a wild population, if the environment changes suddenly then evolution could happen fairly quickly too.

__________________
Lauren

Don't Shop Adopt! - Stop Puppy Farming

Battery Farmed Dogs Campaign (Puppy Farming)

the hard part is getting them to breed *true* - to have pups who look just like parents, not necessarily clones, but so similar they can be visually IDd as _____ .

actually changing looks or behavior can be INCREDIBLY fast -
*balyaev* only selected for tameness, and pretty crudely, too, yet he had visually recognizable foxes who were domesticated in only 10 years time; the more altered appearances came later, the human-affiliative behavior was a very rapid change.
cheers,
--- terry

__________________
terry pride, APDT-Aus, apdt#1827, CVA, TDF
*wolves R wolves, dogs R dogs, + primates R us.*
tmp, sept-2007

i think Whippets were one side of the family, but i forget where the fine-haired, feathered coat came from -
do U know, nicky?

they need not be in-bred - they should be able to back-cross to the parent breeds for several generations, using un-related dogs that are similar in type to their founding pair, in order to broaden the gene pool.
the California Spangle (a cat breed) used 5 breeds as founding stock, specifically to avoid a founders-bottleneck genetically.
good thinking - but complex breeding, too, and not cheap.
cheers,
--- terry

__________________
terry pride, APDT-Aus, apdt#1827, CVA, TDF
*wolves R wolves, dogs R dogs, + primates R us.*
tmp, sept-2007

That was a very interesting piece of work.

I think if a project was to be undertaken then it would have to be carefully thought out. The long haired sighthound is relatively easy because you are not really altering the structure of the dog much, you are just adding and selecting for the long haired gene until you get the desired coat quality. The finer points can come later.
Also dwarfing is not that difficult either. However if your goal is more adventurous, then you may need many, many generations to set say body type, and also to concentrate on heads, coats, tails or whatever else is desirable.

In order to set out on such a project you would really need to find a look that is genuinely unique too, as no point if the result is almost indistinguisable to some other known breed. I know breeders and dog enthusiasts are good at naming breeds but to many of the lay public a spaniel is just a spaniel and a labrador is just a labrador and a poodle is just a poodle.

__________________
Lauren

Don't Shop Adopt! - Stop Puppy Farming

Battery Farmed Dogs Campaign (Puppy Farming)