# 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:** 19\ **Page:** 6
**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, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-humans-vanished-would-dog-breeds-merge-or-speciate/680399/101 "2014-02-07T16:17:43Z")
> [@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. You got a peer reviewed cite that wolves are smarter than dogs ---
**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, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-humans-vanished-would-dog-breeds-merge-or-speciate/680399/102 "2014-02-07T21:53:13Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > You got a peer reviewed cite that wolves are smarter than dogs As far as the specific case of being able to survive without humans, yes: [Wolves beat dogs on logic test.](http://www.livescience.com/5672-wolves-beat-dogs-logic-test.html) > [@](#): > > The differences reflect an emphasis on different learning styles, scientists say. > > “I wouldn’t say one species is smarter,” said Adam Miklosi of Eötvös University in Hungary, co-author of a paper describing the results in the Sept. 4 issue of the journal Science. **"If you assume an animal has to survive without human presence, then wolves are smarter.** But if you are thinking that dogs have to survive in a human environment where it’s very important to follow the communications of humans, then in this aspect, dogs are smarter." ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2014, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-humans-vanished-would-dog-breeds-merge-or-speciate/680399/103 "2014-02-07T22:06:25Z")
I have no problem believing that fighting dog breeds in top condition can beat wolves in a fight to the death. The problem is that these sorts of encounters are going to be rare, and being able to win a fight against a wolf doesn’t mean you can out-compete a wolf. Plus, these fighting breeds and herding breeds aren’t going to maintain their bloodlines for more than one or two generations. As anyone who has ever owned a dog knows, dogs breed like dogs. There just isn’t going to be a pack of rat-dogs in Brooklyn, and a pack of pit bulls in the Bronx, and a pack of anatolian shepards in Manhattan, even in the first generation of feral dogs. The dogs will form into mixed breed packs from the very beginning. And across the time scales required for speciation islands in lakes and rivers and close to shore are not geographic barriers. Ireland and Britain didn’t have endemic species of large mammals compared to continental Europe because those islands were connected to the mainland as recently as 10,000 years ago. So there is going to be continuous gene flow between islands and mainland and from one side of rivers to another and from one side of mountain ranges to another, for species as large and wide ranging as dogs/wolves. Even if the only dogs left alive on Manhattan or Long Island were Jack Russell Terriers, they aren’t going to speciate because in the timescales we’re talking about the East River is not a geographic barrier. ---
**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, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-humans-vanished-would-dog-breeds-merge-or-speciate/680399/104 "2014-02-07T23:56:24Z")
How many canines currently **can’t** breed with each other? Wolves, coyote and dogs can all produce fertile offspring with each other, correct? My guess is hyenas and foxes are out of the club. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2014, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-humans-vanished-would-dog-breeds-merge-or-speciate/680399/105 "2014-02-08T00:02:29Z")
Hyenas aren’t closely related to dogs and foxes, they are more closely allied to cats and civets. Two species of jackals can’t form fertile hybrids with the other members of _Canis_, the other _Canis_ species can. > **[Canid hybrid](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canid_hybrid)** > > Canid hybrids are the result of interbreeding between the species of the genus Canis. This often occurs in the wild, and in particular between domestic or feral dogs with wild native canids. > The wolf-like canids are a group of large carnivores that are genetically closely related because they all possess 78 chromosomes, arranged in 39 pairs and are karyologically indistinguishable from each other.: p279  The group includes the genera Canis, Cuon, Lupulella and Lycaon. The members are the domesti... ---
**Author:** ![Grim\_Render](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a87d85/32.png) [@Grim\_Render](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grim_Render)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2014, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-humans-vanished-would-dog-breeds-merge-or-speciate/680399/106 "2014-02-08T12:28:40Z")
On the subject of speciation, while most breeds would probably merge into a similar adaption, with possible speciation in isolate populations, there is a factor at work here that would not normally happen in nature: The dog founding population, by allying with humans, have spred over a very large geographic area and number of environments. Some of which would be marginal for it. With competing predators wiped out. Its got a start you don’t normally see in nature. Yes, isolation would drive and perhaps be required for speciation. But also, in areas where dogs are not primarliy pets, there tends to be a clustering of breeds. Here in Norway, in areas in the north, where people engage in dogsledding, the vast majority of dogs will be huskys or very similar. In the areas where grousing is popular, setters and similar dominate. Down in the west, untill very recently, a special breed of dog made to enter the burrows of Puffins and hunt them was very popular. Areas where there was a lot of sheep would have sheepdog breeds. Now this clustering geographically overlaps with an area rife with pockets of geographic isolation for canines. Also, random chance could mean that isolated areas where human population density was low, could end up with a very limited founder population. And due to the human tendency to exterminate any species that look at us sideways, there may be very little competition. Resulting in a window of opportuntiy for breeds that would have no change if dropped into a fully rounded ecosystem. Finally, finding themselves in hostile areas without humans to help, it may be neccessary to explore new feeding strategies. For example, the puffin hunting dog would probably do quite well, puffins are quite plentiful, and since not all their brrows are accessible, unlikly to be hunted to exinction. But that lifestyle imposes some frim limits on physiology. Gotta be small and limber enough to get into those burrows. By the time their range overlaps with the Huskey/Wolf breed, both breeds will be fairly stable in physiology. A hybrid will be too large to to access the puffin-eating (puffinovore?) ecological niche, but too small to hunt or compete with the Huskeys. I think we’d also see a lot of island giantism/dwarfism. The dogs of the Isle of Man will probably be different from those of Ireland. ---
**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 8, 2014, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-humans-vanished-would-dog-breeds-merge-or-speciate/680399/107 "2014-02-08T15:38:45Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > As far as the specific case of being able to survive without humans, yes: > > [Wolves beat dogs on logic test.](http://www.livescience.com/5672-wolves-beat-dogs-logic-test.html) Yep, and it’s very interesting just “smart” dogs are in terms of living with humans. We don’t think much about the fact our pet dogs understand what pointing means, but even chimps don’t seem to “get” that. Of course, once we’re gone, what good are those types of smarts? ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2014, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-humans-vanished-would-dog-breeds-merge-or-speciate/680399/108 "2014-02-08T17:49:36Z")
There are a lot of factors that haven’t been mentioned (or I missed them in my skim). Whether dogs can fight wolves has no bearing on the OP. All predators have a necessary interest in not becoming injured and unable to hunt, therefore they avoid contact with other predators, except if they figure they can take them easily and eat them. A wolf pack would make an assessment and act accordingly. Despite what Turkish shepherds may believe, Livestock Guardian dogs are almost entirely useful because they scare away predators by barking (see above). They do kill coyotes and wolves but this is rather rare. Wolves are much smarter than dogs (this was mentioned). They have much larger brains and also much stronger jaws and bigger teeth. This is not in question at all. Easy to google this. They also are much more attuned to each other and work as a team far more effectively with each other (a new study on this came out recently). Dogs read **people** , wolves can’t. But that won’t help dogs survive without people. The rare populations of feral dogs that are not in fact commensal to human populations (pariah dogs all over the world) that survive and reproduce can do so because there are no wolves to replace them, as in Australia. What we call feral dogs exist on human garbage and human-supported vermin, which would be lacking in a non-human world. Coyotes are essentially, little wolves, so all the above points apply. Dogs breed absolutely indiscriminately with each other, with coyotes, and with wolves. Probably if dogs survived at all, they would revert to a coyote-like form, as this is the most optimal. Like dingos, in fact. If someone needs cites on any of this I will go hunt them up. ---
**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 8, 2014, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-humans-vanished-would-dog-breeds-merge-or-speciate/680399/109 "2014-02-08T18:15:05Z")
> [@Ulfreida](#): > > Whether dogs can fight wolves has no bearing on the OP. All predators have a necessary interest in not becoming injured and unable to hunt, therefore they avoid contact with other predators, except if they figure they can take them easily and eat them. A wolf pack would make an assessment and act accordingly. > > \ > > If someone needs cites on any of this I will go hunt them up. Not really, I said all along that wolves have the better survival skills. Just was pointing out that we have bred dogs that are in fact bigger than and as smart as wolves. I would be curious to see how the various “little yellow dogs” would score in that intelligence testing mentioned. How long would it take feral dogs to go back to non-human cue focused instincts. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2014, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-humans-vanished-would-dog-breeds-merge-or-speciate/680399/110 "2014-02-08T18:51:13Z")
Bigger than, yes. Smarter than, no. Stronger than, no. Compare even a pit bull skull and dentition with that of a wolf. ---
**Author:** ![Learjeff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/94ad74/32.png) [@Learjeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Learjeff)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2014, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-humans-vanished-would-dog-breeds-merge-or-speciate/680399/111 "2014-02-08T19:50:33Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Probably not [developing multiple species due to finding different niches], 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. Thanks – it makes sense that speciation without separation would be very rare. But that’s probably a statement about natural cases, where populations aren’t nearly as varied as dogs, and where the old ecological niches don’t disappear overnight. This experiment would be remarkably unnatural. I’d guess that most likely you’d be right, due to nonselective breeding, merging towards the means would be the dominant factor. But it’s such an extreme experiment, I wouldn’t too terribly surprised to see an anomaly. Most likely, any speciation due to differing niches would probably also be accompanied by some physical barrier, though not necessarily one as big as would be needed without the availability of different niches. I do recognize that I’m glossing over a lot here. For one, a niche doesn’t exist and wait to be filled. The whole ecology evolves, and niches come and go and morph along with the species – pretty much by definition (at least, by one definition of species). ---
**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 8, 2014, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-humans-vanished-would-dog-breeds-merge-or-speciate/680399/112 "2014-02-08T21:09:08Z")
> [@Ulfreida](#): > > Bigger than, yes. Smarter than, no. Stronger than, no. Compare even a pit bull skull and dentition with that of a wolf. Compare to some of the mastitis breeds. ---
**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 8, 2014, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-humans-vanished-would-dog-breeds-merge-or-speciate/680399/113 "2014-02-08T21:34:04Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > Compare to some of the mastitis breeds. [OK, let’s.](http://carnivoraforum.com/topic/9379830/1/) Not sure if you have some other pics or comparisons you can post. ---
**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 8, 2014, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-humans-vanished-would-dog-breeds-merge-or-speciate/680399/114 "2014-02-08T21:45:19Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > [OK, let’s.](http://carnivoraforum.com/topic/9379830/1/) Not sure if you have some other pics or comparisons you can post. > **[Google](https://www.google.ca/#q=grey+wolf+versus+kangal&safe=off)** > > Search the world's information, including webpages, images, videos and more. Google has many special features to help you find exactly what you're looking for. Kangal dog outweighs considerably and was bred to be independent and protective. But I expect to still be wrong somehow. ---
**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 8, 2014, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-humans-vanished-would-dog-breeds-merge-or-speciate/680399/115 "2014-02-08T22:22:49Z")
> **[Google](https://www.google.ca/#q=grey+wolf+vs+english+mastiff&safe=off&spell=1)** > > Search the world's information, including webpages, images, videos and more. Google has many special features to help you find exactly what you're looking for. English Mastiff is about double the weight of a Grey Wolf. I guess if someone could show that bite strength of wolves is somehow ridiculously stronger, ok. But the skulls and teeth I’ve seen since looking this up look pretty similar. ---
**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 8, 2014, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-humans-vanished-would-dog-breeds-merge-or-speciate/680399/116 "2014-02-08T23:23:55Z")
From that carnivore site you linked: [Grey Wolf v Caucasian Ovcharka](http://carnivoraforum.com/topic/9424444/1/) The vote goes for the wolf again despite the dog’s size advantages but look at the “reasons”. “Nothing beats a wolf!” ---
**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 9, 2014, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-humans-vanished-would-dog-breeds-merge-or-speciate/680399/117 "2014-02-09T17:45:17Z")
I don’t know that size, alone, is a determining factor. And look at the muzzle-- it’s short. Agility is going to come into it, and fighting instincts. Anyway, it’s a rather pointless discussion if you’re talking about 1-on-1 fighting, since that is going to be the exception rather than the norm in dog-wolf interactions. ---
**Author:** ![Learjeff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/94ad74/32.png) [@Learjeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Learjeff)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2014, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-humans-vanished-would-dog-breeds-merge-or-speciate/680399/118 "2014-02-09T19:04:17Z")
The real determining factor won’t be dog-vs-dog but whether wolf packs or dog packs are better foraging units (including scavenging kills from other packs). I’m just guessing, but my vote is for the wolves in most circumstances. There might be environments where dogs would have the advantage, though. ---
**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 9, 2014, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-humans-vanished-would-dog-breeds-merge-or-speciate/680399/119 "2014-02-09T19:49:44Z")
I got to say I’m a little baffled that no one can accept that dogs bred to be able to fight wolves can actually fight wolves. Throwing in the towel. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-humans-vanished-would-dog-breeds-merge-or-speciate/680399.md?page=5)