Discovering Your Dog’s Lineage: Wolves, Domestic Breeds, and Home DNA Tests
A few years ago, when my wife and I were visiting family in a small coastal town in Maine, we heard a story that there was a hairdresser’s salon on Main Street whose owner kept wolves as pets, and that he often brought them to work. We had to see. So we went to his storefront and there they were, cuddled up between the two salon chairs where he and a partner were cutting hair. The wolves saw us come in, and immediately jumped up to come check us out.
In an instant, my thoughts shifted from This is the coolest thing ever to This was a huge mistake, as their claws tapped on the shop’s linoleum floor. These were big animals, standing as tall as my hip as they approached. My wife and I exchanged a look, both of us wondering if we were in danger. I moved in front, and when the lead wolf reached me, it reared up to put his paws on my shoulders in what I can only describe as the most terrifying bro-hug I’ve ever experienced. Its bright and clear blue eyes were on level with mine, and even though I probably outweighed it by more than a little bit, as its front paws made contact with my shoulders it gave me a definite shove backwards. If it had wanted to, it probably could have knocked me to the floor, easy prey for the other one that quietly circled behind both of us.
But it had no interest in knocking me down. Scary as the greeting was, the wolves were only saying hello, and after letting us scratch their necks they returned to their spot on the floor and ignored us while we had the briefest possible conversation with the shop’s owner before hurrying out into the safety of the street.
From Wolves to Domestic Breeds
Maybe keeping wolves as pets seems like a bad idea. In the 1990s, National Geographic ran an article (which I’m having trouble locating now) about the (at the time) popular trend of raising domesticated wolves, and documented some breeders’ efforts to mix North American grey wolves with modern dogs, in a sense, attempting to fast-track the domestication process that our stone-age ancestors undertook in the deep recesses of human history. As I remember it, the results of such breeding efforts were highly mixed, often producing aggressive animals that couldn’t be kept with other pets, and that were often dangerous to their owners and other humans in their proximity.
Dogs were humankind’s first adventure in domestication, but the process as to exactly how that happened is still not perfectly understood. In the second episode of the rebooted series Cosmos, “Some of the Things that Molecules Do,” host Neil de Grasse Tyson connects the complex interactions between large molecules, such as DNA, to the much more complicated and drawn-out process of animal domestication. In this made-for-TV version, the process of wild wolves becoming domestic dogs seems relatively straightforward, inevitable even. New research is showing that this process has been anything but.
Writing in the Atlantic in 2016, Ed Yong explores how new archaeological research, in particular key finds in Europe have yielded preserved ancient DNA, which, he writes, is “refram[ing] the debate around dog domestication.” He continues, “the big question is no longer when [domestication] happened or where, but how many times.” The major implication of this new genetic research is that it suggests that there were at least two separate instances of domestication, one in Europe, and one in eastern Asia, principally China, events which yielded two distinct, and at one time geographically isolated populations of domesticated dogs. Yet, according to researchers, this does not mean that these two separate populations have remained separate or intact over subsequent millennia. In fact, research done by Greger Larson, of Brasenose College at Oxford University, appears to show that a more recent (though still prehistoric) westward migration of the eastern dog population eventually replaced (perhaps through interbreeding) the early indigenous European breeds. What this means, in terms of dog evolution, according Larson, is that “Today’s eastern dogs [i.e. current eastern breeds] are descendants of the Ancient Eastern ones. [T]oday’s western dogs…trace most of their ancestry to the Ancient Eastern migrants.”
This research is still debated, with some scientists pointing to the considerable evidence supporting the single domestication event narrative, while others propose alternate scenarios, including differing migration patterns, or situate the single domestication event at a different location in Eurasia. A 2021 meta-analysis of available data still favors the single domestication hypothesis. Larsen, Yong points out, believes his research more comprehensive, given that his investigation takes both genetic and archaeological data into account. One thing complicating the many branches of this field, however, is (as Yong explains) that “no one knows how fast dog genomes change,” meaning that it is unclear “how long ago must these lineages have diverged to build up these many differences in their genes?”
Dogs and wolves remain closely related, much more so, for instance, than humans and chimpanzees. Dogs and wolves can—and often have—interbred with one another, post-domestication. Yet, writes Yong, there is “no living group of grey wolves…more closely related to dogs than any other, which means that the wolves that gave rise to dogs are now extinct.”
Yong and the researchers he interviews don’t speculate on what this common, but now vanished ancestor might be. There are numerous species of wolves that have disappeared since the last glacial maximum who might be possible contenders, including the beringian wolf, the late Pleistocene wolf, and the cave wolf. Much of the difficulty in isolating the most likely ancestor lies in the poor preservation of mitochondrial DNA in fossils, so that most studies rely on analyses of partial samples. There remains, of course, the possibility that even if domestication originated in one location, and not two as Larson’s research suggests, that more than one species of these now extinct canids contributed to the advent of the domesticated dog.
What an At-Home Test Can Do For You
All this talk about wolves and breeds and lineage and migration may leave you wondering where your pet falls on the spectrum. If you’d like to know more, there are a range of home dog DNA test kits available that will allow you to learn more about your pet’s origins. The two most highly recommended kits are the Embark Breed + Health test, and the Wisdom Panel Premium home test. Both of these will compare your pet’s genome to growing databases containing millions of entries, and will allow you to trace—especially for mixed breeds—your dog’s lineage. Unfortunately, their analysis won’t trace your dog all the way back to prehistoric times, although with certain pets they can trace lineages back to “village dogs,” local populations of wild domestic dogs who are descended from indigenous populations of animals that, according to Embark, “precede the formation of modern breed dogs.”
Having your pet’s DNA tested can go beyond the novelty of knowing how close your pet is to its grey wolf cousins. Cornell University’s College of Veterinary Medicine points out that these tests can help identify markers indicating predisposition to certain genetic conditions, vulnerability to specific illnesses and also sensitivity to certain medications. Digitized reports allow for easy sharing with your pet’s doctor. So, while it’s unlikely you’ll ever know exactly how much wolf there is in your pet, you can join in the fun of learning more about your their ancestry, while giving yourself some additional peace of mind about your pet’s health.