- published: 29 Aug 2015
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Dog types are broad categories of dogs based on function, with dogs identified primarily by specific function or style of work rather than by lineage or appearance.
In contrast, modern dog breeds are particular breed standards, sharing a common set of heritable characteristics, determined by the kennel club that recognizes the breed.
Dog types include ancestral forms (or landraces) that arose undocumented over a long period of time.
A dog type can be referred to broadly, as in Bird dog, or more specifically, as in Spaniel. Dogs raised and trained for a specific working ability rather than appearance may not closely resemble other dogs doing the same work, or any of the dogs of the analogous breed group of purebred dogs.
With the beginnings of agriculture, approximately 12,000 years ago, humans began making use of dogs in various ways. Molecular biologist and founder of the Canine Genome Project Elaine Ostrander comments, "When we became an agricultural society, what we needed dogs for changed enormously, and a further and irrevocable division [between dogs and wolves] occurred at that point." There is a great deal of speculation about the early uses of dogs, but recent genetic analysis shows that the earliest ancestors of modern breeds (those with the least genetic divergence from the ancestral wolf) include lap dog types (Pekingese, Shih Tzu) along with hunting dog and working dog types.
The domestic dog (Canis lupus familiaris), is a subspecies of the gray wolf (Canis lupus), a member of the Canidae family of the mammilian order Carnivora. The term "domestic dog" is generally used for both domesticated and feral varieties. The dog may have been the first animal to be domesticated, and has been the most widely kept working, hunting, and companion animal in human history. The word "dog" may also mean the male of a canine species, as opposed to the word "bitch" for the female of the species.
The present lineage of dogs was domesticated from gray wolves about 15,000 years ago. Remains of domesticated dogs have been found in Siberia and Belgium from about 33,000 years ago. None of these early domestication lineages seem to have survived the Last Glacial Maximum. Although mDNA suggest a split between dogs and wolves around 100,000 years ago no specimens predate 33,000 years ago that are clearly morphologically domesticated dog.
Dogs' value to early human hunter-gatherers led to them quickly becoming ubiquitous across world cultures. Dogs perform many roles for people, such as hunting, herding, pulling loads, protection, assisting police and military, companionship, and, more recently, aiding handicapped individuals. This impact on human society has given them the nickname "Man's Best Friend" in the Western world. In some cultures, dogs are also source of meat. In 2001, there were estimated to be 400 million dogs in the world.
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