When the Europeans first traveled to North America did the indigenous people living there have domesticated dogs?
Yes.
Ignorance fought.
When Cortes arrived, in what is now Mexico City, the indigenous had domesticated dogs. They had a special breed. I forget the Nahuatl word for it. And it was a food source. The Spanish made fun of them because they ate dogs.
Chihuahua or Xoloitzcuintle, most likely.
Yes, Xoloitzcuintle, that is the breed. Thank you MrDibble.
The Carolina Dog, or American Dingo, was recognized in the1970s. Considered “pariah dogs,” a general class to which various feral or semi-feral dogs are assigned, they are believed to be free-living dogs descended from dogs the Native Americans brought across the Bering Strait. They were eking out a living in remote, swampy areas unnoticed, until the government built a large, controlled-access nuclear facility in the area and began monitoring the environment.
Some also purpose bred dogs, the Salish wool dog was bred for its white woolly fur.
The native Hawaiians also got into the act.
So does that mean that canine domestication occurred around the world, perhaps at different times, independently? In other words, the dogs domesticated in North America are completely unrelated to the dogs domesticated in Turkey or China, and there is no common ancestor to all domesticated dogs?
No. Domestication occurred somewhere in Eurasia, the exact location being disputed. They arrived in the Americas either with the first migrants across the Bering Land Bridge from Siberia, or else were traded from group to group later until they spread throughout the New World.
Dingos seem to have reached Australia well after the aboriginals arrived, probably through contacts through Indonesia.
Recent research seems to indicate that modern dogs are descended from a wolf lineage that is now extinct.
Interesting reference. Note this paragraph which sums up the difficulty to in figuring it all out (bolding mine):
One early theory on the origins of dogs pointed at the Dhole, an Asian wild dog that is more social and less territorial than wolves. Though genetically distinct from wolves and dogs the article does add to the argument that wolves as we know them were unlikely to be domesticated without intensive breeding that seems unlikely in the early dates suggested for the original domestication of dogs.
It should not be surprising that dogs and wolves interbred quite frequently in the thousands of years since the lines “separated”. And remember that gene flow wen both ways- if you see a black wolf in the wild in North America, you can bet it got its coloring from a dog ancestor.
And interbreeding between dogs and wolves continues to this day. In fact this year I was confronted by a ‘wolf’ that was eager to approach me, something that wolves normally don’t do. He was all white, which was another sign that he wasn’t pure wolf. I ended up scaring him away using the horn on my truck and eventually he wandered off into the woods. I haven’t seen him since.
I contacted the local office of Wildlife and Parks and when I described the animal they said that it was a half dog/half wolf mix and they knew where his range was. Their advice was to scare him away and avoid contact since they consider him a wild animal and not a pet.
He was “eager” to approach you, but you were in a truck? How does that work?
I’m not sure that white wolves necessarily get their coloring form dog ancestors.
The origin of the gene for white coat color in wolves is not known, but there is no reason to think it originated in dogs.
Uhhh I was driving up my street to my house and he approached and stood in the middle of the street right in front of my truck and wouldn’t move. I see wolves and coyotes around my property now and then (I live in Montana) and have never seen one approach my vehicle and stand there until I scared him away.
Yeah, especially since there are many mammals that evolve white coats in norther climes.
The Newfoundland dogs are descended from dogs that were indigenous to the island.
That article is confusing and gives no source for that claim. Without better sourcing, I’m gonna call bullshit.