Nah, I meant what I said… 
What the story behind that?!
But you’d need to have a breeding population of those terriers or ratters, to create a seperate line. Maybe if there was an area with a high density of terriers (like… New York outlaws all dogs except terrier breeds) you would get this, but with the almost random distribution of pet dog breeds, that wouldn’t be likely to happen.
I like the bit of logic that says that breeds that are better at certain things may end up speciating.
Not necessarily - you just need a bunch of dogs in an environment that favors small dogs that can dig into rodent burrows, while disfavoring large dogs that can’t.
I seem to remember a PBS special documentary about dogs and one of the segments concerned what happens to domesticated dogs when they are allowed to freely interbreed. The case shown was an Indian city where there was a rather large population of feral dogs. Indeed they all looked basically like the above quote.
I’m wondering that in the scenario put forth by the OP if the wild wolves wouldn’t return to the top of the food chain and basically eat up a majority the feral domesticated dogs and coyotes. Just my buck thirty-seven.
OTOH, they are likely to breed indiscriminately with all other physically compatible dogs in their neighborhood, so they might not keep their distinctive characteristics.
I don’t think any dog could win a fight with a wolf; wolves are too strong. But many dogs might outsmart a wolf; some breeds – German shepherds, border collies, etc. – have been bred for smarts.
That will happen for sure long before speciation. Just look at the various mixes you have.
Actually, there will be a genetic bottleneck, since a vast majority of dogs kept as pets are not going to be having any puppies. The breeding population would be from puppy mills and from puppies not yet fixed. Who would be most at risk for getting eaten by other dogs etc.
BTW, fads result in lots of examples of single breeds in an area. There are 5 goldens in a half block radius near me. But I’ve never noticed dogs being too picky, so I don’t think that would help preserve breeds except by chance.
Except that there is a clinal variation in size, so that even if a doberman never mated with a chihuahua, they would each mate with dogs intermediate in size between the two, and so gene flow would continue. And the more successful breed “hybrids” would outcompete the purebreds, bringing us right back to the Pariah Dogs I linked to, above.
No, there would not be a genetic bottleneck. That would only happen if the species were reduced to a very small number of individuals, like < 10,000. There are billions of dogs, and lots of wolves and coyotes. With humans out of the way, canid predators would do quite well.
You really don’t think a pack of Rottweillers could handle themselves?
Against a similar sized wolf pack? Nope. Just my opinion, of course, certainly not willing to run the scientific study needed to prove it.
IMHO, the wolves have had generation after generation of breeding nothing but survival into themselves. By the time the Rotts have acquired anywhere near this level of survival instinct, they probably aren’t Rotts anymore, based on the crossbreeding that has already been discussed in this thread.
Not in a fight with an equal number of wolves. Wolves are strong. They have to be. Dogs don’t, and much of their strength has been bred out of them.
In India the dogs would probably not even notice. In the US, however, what percentage of dogs you see walking would be able to reproduce? Not many. And what percentage of the ones who could breed would survive?
I think it would take a few generations for wolf and coyote populations to reach a lot of the country.
It would be a textbook example of ring species. I think we’d see speciation at the ends, over time. The survival rates of various hybrids would determine how any splits there are. Whether or not pure breds get outcompeted, there would not be many in subsequent generations, so it wouldn’t really matter.
Would it? Coyotes have been spotted in Florida recently!
I’m pretty sure there are coyotes in MOST states. We sure have them here in Austin, and some have even made it to Manhattan. Hawaii is the only state I’d vouch DOESN’T have them!
Not really. The textbook ring species is geographically varied, such that you get one trait in one location, and a slightly different trait in a location next to that, and so on. But dogs of different sizes are all found mixed together: You could easily have a chihuahua, a beagle, a German shepherd, and a St. Bernard all living on the same block, easily within the range over which individual dogs will roam.
I don’t think the “ring” in ring species need necessarily be geographical. I’d argue that dogs do qualify, because the individuals at the extreme ends of the size spectrum cannot interbreed, as has been pointed out over and over, and yet gene flow across the spectrum can, and does, still happen.
But that’s just a quibble about the definition of “ring species”.