The is a man in Oregon who raises what is called the American Indian Dog, and he said that it is descended from dogs that were kept by the Native American people for centuries. They have a similar look as the native Australian Dog, the Dingo. Kim LaFlamme also raises purebred Peruvian Paso horses, and he uses the AI Dog as a stock dog , so they are a working dog breed. It looks like they are more trainable than the Dingo is, from what @Dwight Ward’s article indicated, but the size and body build looks similar enough to make me wonder if they are not from the same basic origins. http://www.indiandogs.com/
Domestic dogs found in every neighborhood are inbred to the extreme to produce a particular outcome like appearance or function, which brings all the negative effects of inbreeding into play.
I'd never heard of the AI dog before. They are a pretty good-looking animal. I'm glad they've been rescued from extinction.
In that sense you could say that ANY dog recognized as a human manipulated breed is over-inbred. I think of German Shephards with their back hip problems as an example.Breeding dogs that are too closely related seems to the problem and the motive is to produce the particular outcome that Ed speaks of.
Re: my last post, I should have said "almost any". It seems that. American Indians were aware of this problem and prevented breeding by too closely related dogs. That they did this over the span of centuries is quite remarkable.
So I wonder if we could raise the bar to the level of animal cruelty, along with keeping a dog essentially a prisoner since they are always tied or locked up. First thing they do is run when loose.
Good thoughts, Ed. I've had quite a few dogs and I never put any of them on a chain for even a short time. If you can't set up a fenced-in yard or other big space for them you shouldn't have the pet.
Any feral animal is more intelligent than its domesticated cousin, because it has to survive in the wild. Old Hal