Overview
- Researchers analyzed more than 2,700 canid genomes spanning the late Pleistocene to today, publishing the findings in PNAS with a team from the American Museum of Natural History and the Smithsonian.
- Almost two-thirds of breed dogs and all sampled village dogs carry detectable wolf ancestry from interbreeding that occurred roughly 1,000 generations ago.
- Czechoslovakian and Saarloos wolfdogs show the highest proportions at 23–40%, while Anglo-French tricolor hounds carry 4.7–5.7%, Tamaskans about 3.7%, Shiloh shepherds 2.7%, and chihuahuas about 0.2%.
- Wolf ancestry trends higher in larger working, Arctic, hunting, and pariah breeds and lower in terriers, gundogs, and scent hounds, with some large guardian breeds showing no detectable signal.
- Wolf-derived segments include olfactory receptor regions enriched in village dogs and a Tibetan wolf-like variant linked to high-altitude tolerance in Tibetan mastiffs, while reported personality associations remain correlative and descriptor-biased.