# If humans vanished, would dog breeds merge or speciate? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 3, 2014, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-humans-vanished-would-dog-breeds-merge-or-speciate/680399 "2014-02-03T04:07:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2014, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-humans-vanished-would-dog-breeds-merge-or-speciate/680399/81 "2014-02-06T03:47:25Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > And wolves weren’t bred to fight pit bulls. Their is very little physical threats to wolves in their naturalenvironment. Their fighting of other dogs is almost always to show dominance - not to rip the crap out of the other dog like pit bulls have been bred for. That is not why wolves are strong. Wolves are strong because they need to be able to hunt down animals larger than themselves, such as deer, and take them down and kill them with their jaws alone, and rip the meat off their bones with their jaws alone. They can eat rabbits and such too, or carrion when they find it, but large animals are their natural prey; that’s why they’re pack animals, it takes a pack to take a deer. (Cats can afford to be solitary because their natural prey is smaller animals and they don’t need help.) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2014, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-humans-vanished-would-dog-breeds-merge-or-speciate/680399/82 "2014-02-06T03:53:24Z")
> [@TruCelt](#): > > I have seen a German Shepherd bitch reject a smaller dog’s advances. [And Gaspode had no luck with that she-wolf, let alone with Angua . . .](http://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/index.php/Book:The_Fifth_Elephant) ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2014, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-humans-vanished-would-dog-breeds-merge-or-speciate/680399/83 "2014-02-06T04:13:55Z")
> [@Jonathan\_Chance](#): > > Yeah, somewhere here someone with some knowledge (Blake, maybe? Colibri?) speculated that feral populations end up producing smaller, yellow dogs with very curly tails. How much that applies worldwide I couldn’t tell. It happens pretty much anywhere that various dog breeds go feral and interbreed over several generations. The “default” dog produced by general interbreeding seems to be the “Yaller Dog,” like the [Dingo](http://images.nationalgeographic.com/wpf/media-live/photos/000/005/cache/dingo_514_600x450.jpg) of Australia, [Carolina Dog](http://savingcarolinadogs.com/CD/What_is_a_Carolina_Dog_American_Primitive_Dog_South_Carolina_files/shapeimage_4.png) in the US, or [Pariah Dog](http://images.passionpet.com/method%3Dget%26s%3Dindian-pariah-dog.jpg) of India. This convergence suggests that the variety of wolf that is ancestral to the domestic dog (and which evidently no longer exists) may have looked something like this. As long as dog populations are in contact, the result of interbreeding is almost certainly to be their merger into a single type similar to the Dingo. The more extreme breeds will be unsuited for life in the wild without humans and will quickly die out. The mixing of the rest into this Dingo phenotype probably wouldn’t take very long. In some isolated areas where a particular group of breeds were prevalent, you might get a mix that looked a bit different. ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2014, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-humans-vanished-would-dog-breeds-merge-or-speciate/680399/84 "2014-02-06T04:14:19Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > [And Gaspode had no luck with that she-wolf, let alone with Angua . . .](http://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/index.php/Book:The_Fifth_Elephant) I was just wondering if _anyone_ was going to bring up [Big Fido](http://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/index.php/Big_Fido). ---
**Author:** ![Oredigger77](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/oredigger77/32/3181_2.png) [@Oredigger77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oredigger77)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2014, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-humans-vanished-would-dog-breeds-merge-or-speciate/680399/85 "2014-02-06T05:30:57Z")
Just as a note on the wolf fighting front, I would suggest looking at the livestock guardian breeds. The anatolian shepherd is my favorite, bigger that a wolf, just as athletic and at least the two I’ve known have been insanely smart. In some parts of the world there are still dogs that fight wolves and other critters on a regular basis. My question with the yellow dog theory is that it seems to be based on dogs that went wild near human populations. In the OP all dogs are set wild at the same time. I would think there would be a fair bit of die off of the less athletic dogs but I wonder how many grey hounds went wild to get into the dingo population or foxhounds. It seems that certain types of breeds mainly hunting and guarding dogs would be less represented in the current yellow dog population but over represented in the humans disappear population. ---
**Author:** ![Learjeff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/94ad74/32.png) [@Learjeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Learjeff)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2014, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-humans-vanished-would-dog-breeds-merge-or-speciate/680399/86 "2014-02-06T20:23:35Z")
The answer is fairly simple: both. For any given population, the varieties would merge to the extent that they share an ecological niche. If there’s a separate niche for small ferretlike dogs chasing rats versus one for bigger dogs chasing who knows what, then speciation could easily happen. However, populations are separated by geological barriers, and those barriers would cause speciation, if the populations were to last long enough. The dog depicted for wiki’s [Indian Pariah Dog](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Pariah_Dog) looks a lot like what a friend calls “Meximutts”. She lives south of Tijuana and fosters litters of rescued pups until they can be adopted. (We “rescued” a pup from her. If you’d seen her lovely house on the Pacific beach, you’d challenge my use of that term. If I’m ever stuck in such a place, please don’t rescue me!) She has 4 of her own Meximutts, and while there we saw lots of other examples. She says they’re both feral and domestic, and it’s presumed that there’s a lot of interbreeding between the domestic and feral populations. She’s certainly never short of litters to foster. Dingos look a lot like that too. The fact that feral populations in three different regions look so much alike is illuminating. Granted, these are all tropical-to-semitropical climates, at least two with large desert areas, which might affect the results. I wouldn’t expect the feral population in Alaska to look the same. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2014, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-humans-vanished-would-dog-breeds-merge-or-speciate/680399/87 "2014-02-07T00:44:22Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Like I said, geographical isolation. I quite agree it probably won’t happen on land masses with lots of mixing. In nature we don’t start with instantaneous isolation coupled with possible breed diversity. Dogs of England, dogs of Ireland… Dogs of every land and clime… I’m mildly curious what would happen on and around my home island of Montreal. Assuming the post-human die-off didn’t render dogs locally extinct, sooner or later the bridges and tunnel would collapse (heck, even _with_ humans, they ain’t in great shape) and I’m not sure if a dog could or would either swim the river in summer or cross the ice in winter. It depends how smart their after-_canis lupus familiaris_ descendants get. The post-doggerel degree, as it were. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2014, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-humans-vanished-would-dog-breeds-merge-or-speciate/680399/88 "2014-02-07T01:24:21Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > That is not why wolves are strong. Wolves are strong because they need to be able to hunt down animals larger than themselves, such as deer, and take them down and kill them with their jaws alone, and rip the meat off their bones with their jaws alone. They can eat rabbits and such too, or carrion when they find it, but large animals are their natural prey; that’s why they’re pack animals, it takes a pack to take a deer. (Cats can afford to be solitary because their natural prey is smaller animals and they don’t need help.) Regardless, as I meant to mention and **Oredigger77** did mention, we have bred dogs specifically to fight and scare predators. To think NO dog could beat a wolf is giving our hundreds of years of dog breeding far too little credit. Here’s the breed Oredigger mentioned: > **[Kangal Shepherd Dog](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatolian_Shepherd)** > > The Kangal Shepherd Dog (Turkish: Kangal Çoban Köpeği) is a traditional Turkish breed of large livestock guardian dog. The breed name derives from that of the town and district of Kangal in Sivas Province, the easternmost province of the Central Anatolia Region in central Turkey. The coat colour varies from pale fawn to wolf grey, always with a black mask. > It is a traditional flock guardian dog, kept with flocks of sheep to fend off wolves and other predators. Some have been exported to Afric... ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2014, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-humans-vanished-would-dog-breeds-merge-or-speciate/680399/89 "2014-02-07T01:44:09Z")
from that wiki article: > [@](#): > > According to Turkish shepherds, three Anatolian Shepherd Dogs are capable of overcoming a pack of wolves and injuring one or two of them. These dogs like to roam, as they were bred to travel with their herd and to leave the herd to go hunt for predators before the predators could attack the flock. ---
**Author:** ![Rachellelogram](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rachellelogram/32/8689_2.png) [@Rachellelogram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rachellelogram)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2014, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-humans-vanished-would-dog-breeds-merge-or-speciate/680399/90 "2014-02-07T01:56:07Z")
> [@drastic\_quench](#): > > That Mark Twain description of coyotes is now often the exception, not the rule - at least in the midwest. We’ve got a huge population of well-fed yotes with nice winter coats bounding around right now, and predator hunters aren’t able to put a measurable dent in their population. I personally know two hunters that sell 100 coyote pelts a piece each year. They’ve still got coyotes on the same hunting ground year after year. > > So the most realistic answer is coydogs. I think you’d be surprised at how many dogs would successfully go feral. The 3rd world attests to the dog’s survival skills when they’re often left to feed themselves. Also an average sized dog can hang with coyotes, so they’re not all going to be eaten the wild. > > As a demonstration of how those encounters play out, here’s a video of a hunter using a dog in hunting coyotes. This video may be disturbing to some viewers. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrZW8ii5tS8#t=20m09s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrZW8ii5tS8#t=20m09s) This is just crazy. They wouldn’t be coydogs, they’d be dogotes! ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2014, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-humans-vanished-would-dog-breeds-merge-or-speciate/680399/91 "2014-02-07T01:57:25Z")
They’d be mere parts of the great evolutionary machine! Cogs! ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2014, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-humans-vanished-would-dog-breeds-merge-or-speciate/680399/92 "2014-02-07T04:13:53Z")
> [@Learjeff](#): > > If there’s a separate niche for small ferretlike dogs chasing rats versus one for bigger dogs chasing who knows what, then speciation could easily happen. Probably not, as long as there is any interbreeding going on. Speciation is thought to almost always require physical separation between two populations ([allopatric speciation](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allopatric_speciation)). Speciation between populations that inhabit the same geographical area ([sympatric speciation](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sympatric_speciation)) is thought to be rare among larger animals (it has long been controversial whether it occurs at all). The small ferretlike dogs would have to be isolated from the larger dogs for speciation to occur. Dogs breeds inhabiting contiguous continental areas would either merge into a single mixed population or die out. Those inhabiting islands would over tens of thousands to a million years probably speciate. However, the ecological conditions on the island might outweigh any differences stemming from the different breeds originally present. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2014, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-humans-vanished-would-dog-breeds-merge-or-speciate/680399/93 "2014-02-07T05:44:56Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > from that wiki article: Let me know when those “Turkish shepherds” publish a peer reviewed article in a scientific journal. Until then it’s just an anecdote, at best, or folk-science at worst. I mean, I can quote people who swear they saw Jesus in a piece of toast. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2014, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-humans-vanished-would-dog-breeds-merge-or-speciate/680399/94 "2014-02-07T13:19:51Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Let me know when those “Turkish shepherds” publish a peer reviewed article in a scientific journal. Until then it’s just an anecdote, at best, or folk-science at worst. > > I mean, I can quote people who swear they saw Jesus in a piece of toast. Ok. So it’s not up to the GD standards of a cite. Maybe you want me to root around for dog fight videos on youtube. Or maybe you could accept the fact that a 150+ pound dog bred to protect sheep from wolves can actually fight wolves. I haven’t seen much peer reviewed evidence so far that “no dog can beat a wolf”. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2014, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-humans-vanished-would-dog-breeds-merge-or-speciate/680399/95 "2014-02-07T13:27:10Z")
Their claws would get the final impetus that they need to evolve into can-openers. ---
**Author:** ![brainstall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@brainstall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brainstall)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2014, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-humans-vanished-would-dog-breeds-merge-or-speciate/680399/96 "2014-02-07T13:42:26Z")
I believe that the large guardian breeds could take out a wolf, or at least, defend themselves from a wolf attack, but how well can those large breed dogs hunt to sustain themselves? Without a human putting out a bowl of puppy chow every day, they’re going to lose condition pretty rapidly. Fighting is a poor survival strategy, leading to injuries that can either slow down the animal so much it can no longer keep up with the pack, or infection and death. When the easy to catch sheep run out, pretty sure those large guardian breeds and every other dog is going to be more concerned with getting something to eat than and staying out of the way of other predators, than with who can kick who’s butt in a cage match. ---
**Author:** ![drastic\_quench](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e36b37/32.png) [@drastic\_quench](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drastic_quench)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2014, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-humans-vanished-would-dog-breeds-merge-or-speciate/680399/97 "2014-02-07T14:53:31Z")
Wild animals, like wolves, very seldom fight to the death anyhow. These fights are about dominance and territory. Even when hyenas and lions square off over a kill, both sides typically never take a loss. And a great many breeds could feed themselves, and not just large ones either. As mentioned upthread, ratters would do well. Also, one of the most popular breeds is the Labrador - a hunting dog that can hunt by scent, sight, and fleetness. ---
**Author:** ![HoneyBadgerDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honeybadgerdc/32/1033_2.png) [@HoneyBadgerDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoneyBadgerDC)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2014, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-humans-vanished-would-dog-breeds-merge-or-speciate/680399/98 "2014-02-07T15:01:19Z")
There are numerous cites of feral dog populations. They tend to look similar to one another even though they may be thousands of miles apart. Hearing, smell, speed, jumping ability, eyesight. The ability to communicate with other pack members ans socialize all play apart. Dogs that look similar to basengis and small dingos seem to do the best. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2014, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-humans-vanished-would-dog-breeds-merge-or-speciate/680399/99 "2014-02-07T15:09:40Z")
The other thing to remember about dogs v wolves is that wolves are a lot smarter than dogs. Dogs have evolved to have smarts that enable them to interact with humans in ways that no other animal seems to be able to, but without humans around, those smarts are at best useless and at worst dangerous. They exhibit a number of physical and behavioral neotenous traits (eg, floppy ears, barking) that you never see in adult wolves. ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2014, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-humans-vanished-would-dog-breeds-merge-or-speciate/680399/100 "2014-02-07T16:12:54Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > The other thing to remember about dogs v wolves is that wolves are a lot smarter than dogs. Dogs have evolved to have smarts that enable them to interact with humans in ways that no other animal seems to be able to, but without humans around, those smarts are at best useless and at worst dangerous. They exhibit a number of physical and behavioral neotenous traits (eg, floppy ears, barking) that you never see in adult wolves. I’ve been trying to stay out of this, because I don’t accept the “Who wins the beat down” criteria as all that relevant to long-term survival. I really think that smaller dogs who are able to exploit fish and rodent populations will find and keep a niche. But those of you stuck on this point have obviously never [met](https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSM5c3DtMIKSlj3nKZpgrlDbtFgPwzOoohIlhVraAieppHev6pH) an [Irish](https://www.google.com/#q=Irish+Wolfhound+hunting) [Wolfhound](http://www.rohan-irishwolfhounds.com/The_Irish_Wolfhound.html). Yes, the current set have probably never seen a wolf, but they did manage to wipe them out of Ireland. This link purports to show a single IW killing two wolves. I’m not going to view it from work, but am boxing it as I assume it is gruesome: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3170gvlnPwU](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3170gvlnPwU) > **[Wolf hunting with dogs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_hunting_with_dogs)** > > Wolf hunting with dogs is a method of wolf hunting which relies on the use of hunting dogs. While any dog, especially a hound used for hunting wolves may be loosely termed a "wolfhound", several dog breeds have been specifically bred for the purpose, some of which, such as the Irish Wolfhound, have the word in their breed name. > Accounts as to how wolves react to being attacked by dogs vary, though John James Audubon wrote that young wolves generally show submissive behaviour, while older wolves... > [@](#): > > Before their near extinction, good wolfhounds were large and strong enough to seize a wolf across the loins and trot off with it. Now, my own argument is that outside areas with a large breeding stock along with a highly renewing deer population, they wouldn’t get by. They are too big and require too much food. But if you had a breeder’s group here in Virginia, I’d say the IW and their descendants could easily take out the coyotes and any wolves who eventually found their way here. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-humans-vanished-would-dog-breeds-merge-or-speciate/680399.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-humans-vanished-would-dog-breeds-merge-or-speciate/680399.md?page=6)