LGDs and wolf hybrids. Interesting DNA stuff.

Pops' thread on koochi dogs reminded me of this weird study done on landrace LGDs in the Caucasus. Apparently there is a noteworthy amount of interbreeding between wild wolves and LGDs, with some of the working dogs they tested being F1 wolf hybrids. Really fascinating stuff. I wonder if there is a similar dynamic with other LGD populations living in close proximity with wolves.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/dogs-best-friend/201403/when-the-livestock-guard-is-dog-she-might-also-be-wolf-0

http://jhered.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2014/03/12/jhered.esu014.abstract

Doesn't surprise me, I know plenty of farm dogs that have had wolf cross pups, the same dogs that will run wolves and bears off the property the rest of the year.

They say there are probably very few true dingos left in the Austrlian outback. What we call dingos are probably now hybrids with a significant amount of western dog DNA, for the most part, so many centuries after the British colonization of Australia.

I was reading a summary of some scientific research that had some interesting findings about the genetic history of dogs and wolves (It posited a common wolf-like evolutionary ancestor of both modern dogs and modern wolves, rather than dogs evolving from wolves as we know them) that was using dingos as a sample group of dogs with an isolated gene pool. It seemed as though part of the logic of the whole study was that the dingos were pure dingos, and I'm not sure that they were. They kept finding that dingos shared certain traits with western dogs, genetically speaking, and used it as a basis to form conclusions, and didn't seem to control for the fact that dingos have been interbreeding with western dogs for centuries. I doubt what is roaming around in Australia eating babies has the same genetics as the dingo that was roaming around Australia 500 years ago. I'm not sure we really know what the dingo of yesteryear truly was.