I smiled yesterday afternoon when I heard some talk on All Things Considered about DNA studies to determine the evolution of man’s best friend.
Today, I found this article on CNN about the study. Many breeds turned out to be relatively “new” on an evolutionary scale, including the Pharaoh Hound and the Ibizan Hound, once thought to be 5,000 years old. The recent spur of diversity in dogs is due to, you guessed it, human breeding. According to the article
a surprising 30 percent of genetic differences among dogs can be accounted for by a few hundred years of intense inbreeding — far more than the so-called racial differences between humans.
Genetic profiling may be taboo among humans, but I wonder if it will ever become a part of “Best in Show” type competitions. Or indirectly, could studies like this cause dogs like the Pharoah Hound to go out of style because they are not as ancient as once believed?
But more to the point… would it be at all possible to genetically isolate the “yappy” dog gene in order to weed out that irritating trait in smaller dogs? Please?
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