New guinea singing dogs, dingo, Carolina dogs and other wild canids..

Saya

What are your thoughts on these dogs? The local zoo in columbian park has two New guinea singing dogs kinda why I'm posting this.

My questions are what are your thoughts on these wild canines?

Dingo are thought of as pests and some think of them as something to protect due to them being very primitive like canine that might have been what ancient canines that lived with man looked like..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dingo

Carolina dogs are located living in isolated stretches of longleaf pines and cypress swamps in the Southeastern United States.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolina_Dog

New guinea singing dogs are my favorite they are known for their unique vocalizations.

They of coarse live on the island New guinea and are very scarce they are afraid of humans and avoid them if they can. The NGS dogs are in zoos and some people do own them for studying or breeding to keep populations up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Guinea_Singing_Dog

A new guinea singing dog owner told me raising them have been a challenge in ways they are like shiba inu high prey drive, fast, and intelligent, but much more intense then a shiba inu. They are great escape artists and they plan and execute their escapes pretty well..

I might be able to meet a NGSD up close when this one owners takes trips. Which would be great.

Right now I'm still trying to decide what type of career I want to do and right now wild canines have sparked my interest.

I'd really like to work with and study about either dingo, NGSD and Carolina dogs on their behavior..

I plan to volunteer at the wolf park that's 20 minutes away from me soon. They do seminars and things like that so that will be a good start to work there and learn about wolf, coyote, and fox behaviors.

I also like African wild dogs they are amazing too.

I'm just making this thread to see what are your thoughts on these wild dogs?

BradA1878

Have you checked out The Aboriginal Dog Breed Society? The have a lot of info on these wild aboriginal dogs.

ayk

This is just my impression, but I think the NGSD are on the verge of extinction? May not be many to study. :-( The captive/zoo/pet population is said to be inbred to the point that males lacking a testicle is considered normal. They really need a shot of new blood, but new singers can't be found or heard in New Guinea anymore. I guess they could use Australian dingos as an outcross, but that may lead to the loss of the singer’s unusual traits. Ie. Would a singer still be a singer if it can’t sing?

Dingos are pretty neat dogs. There’s a book titled something to the effect “Dingos in Australia and Southeast Asia” that you might find interesting. The greater threat to Dingos is mixings with domestic dogs rather than people killing them for being pests though.

I’m completely uninterested in Carolina dogs. A good part of me still thinks they are feral mixes of more recent times and not a primitive wild breed.

There’s one wild canid that missed your list. The Dhole. They just don't get enough publicity.

shibamistress

The Dhole! I was reading the list looking for the Dhole, so thank you for adding them! Here is a dhole page: http://www.cuon.net/dholes/

I'm totally interested in wild canids. We should also add African hunting dogs (or African painted dogs), like these: http://www.painteddog.org/

the point about NGSD brings me back to our conversation on breeding...that is really sad that it is considered normal if a male has only one testicle. And it complicates my thoughts on the breeding question.

I'm pretty interested in all of them, and conservation efforts. I wonder if Dingos are at all like coyotes? I make the comparison because coyotes are so often thought of as pests, and coyotes often go after pets, even dogs, and don't seem to breed with domestic dogs that commonly. But I guess Dingos do? (Looking at Ann's statement above, something I'd seen as well). I wonder if they kill domestic dogs?

anyway, they are all really interesting.

ayk

Here's a good link describing the NGSD breeding plan:

http://newguinea-singing-dog-conservation.org/BreedingPlan.html

Saya

Oh yeah Dholes I remember reading on them..

Thanks for the link Brada.

Yeah the New guinea singers are not doing to well.. =(

I hope some are still in New guinea..

Yeah Dingo and NGSD sorta look alike, but if one would breed them together it'd just be a Dingo/Singer mix.. The mix might have singers traits, but they might loose them too. =\

Maybe things will go well and they'll find evidence of them.

gadingo

Carolina Dogs are typical pariah morphotypic dogs of mixed ancestry. There is very little evidence (genetic or otherwise) to connect them with the ancient aboriginal dogs of the SE US. The original testing performed in the late '90s (I was working with Dr. Brisbin and others at the time) was, at best, inconclusive--showing that some Carolina Dogs tested could be grouped with other primitive dog breeds/types. But so can Chows, Huskies, German Shepherds and other domestic breeds that probably went into several strains of registered "purebred" Carolina dog bloodlines. All these breeds have been, at one time or other, extremely popular, with many of each breed most likely discarded or turned loose when they proved to be too much to handle. These strays (those who survived) would then be free to mix into the general stray/pariah/feral dog population of remote, rural areas.I know firsthand of registered Carolina Dogs with long coats and blue eyes--obvious evidence of possible recent husky/chow influence.

I myself started with a pair of registered Carolina Dogs from Dr. Brisbin back in 1997. I bred a full littermate brother/sister pair and produced several litters of fairly uniform Carolina Dogs. I then took the best female from those litters (a perfect dingo look-alike) and bred her back to her father. In that highly inbred litter, I produced: two perfect Carolina dogs, two dogs identical to longcoated german shepherds, and one very husky-like male with light eyes and a full curled tail. I placed all pups and stopped the experiment at that point for concern of health complications due to excessive inbreeding. What this proved to me was that there are LOTS of hidden genes in the Carolina Dog population and linebreeding/inbreeding (as opposed to assortative matings) will, over time, manifest these hidden traits.

Carolina Dogs are basically populations of dogs of European (domestic) descent who have, over successive generations, and through the process of natural selection, reverted back to a primitive behavioral/morphological/ecologicaI phenotype. These dogs would be physically similar, or possibly identical to the aboriginal dogs present prior to European settlement (though not genetically related), due to both being created through the pressures of natural selection. The Carolina Dog would represent domestication in reverse. This would be a situation where a completely domesticated animal would have fled to the wilds/semiwilds of the rural SE US to evolve as a completely new type (breed) free of direct human intervention and/or supervision. Those domestic physical and behavioral traits not suited for survival in the wild would have been selected against and removed from the gene pool. This would represent a reemergence of the "original dog type" which first emerged over 12,000 years ago. Such pariah types exist all over the world and are by no means unique. Technically, a "Carolina Dog" would be a dog born from UKC/ARBA registered parents--a pedigreed dog or one allowed into the breeding program by Dr. Brisbin or his associates. In other words, the Carolina Dog "breed" was created from mixed pariah dog stock taken from the rural SE US and turned into a registered breed--just like the Canaan Dog, the Telomian, the Basenji, the Santal Hound, etc. in other parts of the world.

ShikokuSpirit

Thanks for that @gadingo.

Judging purely by appearance alone, to me it seems that the Dhole & African Hunting Dogs are actually "wild canids". Whereas the Singers, Dingos and Carolinas I would consider as "domestic dogs" who have gone wild but in essence they are still dogs.

shibamistress

That was super interesting, gadingo...thanks for posting it.

It does seem like the dholes and african hunting dogs are not really dogs....just canids. I don't know about the others. Dingos, I believe we know that they have an Asian dog ancestor, right? Is that true of Singers too?

Kevin

Anyone familiar with the South American Bush Dog?

Saya

Thank you so much gadingo.

Wow I never heard of the South American Bush dog! They look neat.

There's two singers at the park zoo near me they are pretty neat. most times that I've came to see them they were sleeping it was hot at the time.

gadingo

Check out the New Guinea Singing Dog Conservation Society website for a wealth of information on Singers. Jan Koler-Matznick is the force behind this organization and she has dedicated the past several decades of her life studying these amazing dogs. Lots of info on the website, including links to her behavioral studies, etc. She has also written a very compelling paper on her theories on the evolution of the dog. She, among others, believe the dog was "a dog" way before humans got involved and that the original dog was something similar to the dingo or singer. As a current shiba owner, I was pleased to find out from her that shibas are one of the closest breeds to singers genetically. This was confirmed in a series of DNA tests done around 2001-2003. I'm not sure if any other Japanese breeds were included in the study, but I would expect them to test out similarly.

WCP

edit/fix: @hondru this thread got me into reading a bunch of basenji stuff so I got mixed up with the singers and basenjis. its kinda easy because they both like to vocalize together and look a bit similar

Heidi

Sorry, I think I missed something, but what does the Congo have to do with it?

shibamistress

That's super cool about the Shiba being closest to the NGSD....wow!

Huh....I'm confused abut the Congo too....

It was interesting checking out the Conservation society website linked above. They did compare NGSD to Basenji and Shibas. The do kind of resemble Shibas a bit.