wolf in the GSD lineage? - Page 2

www.wolfdog.org/eng/44.html

jc.carrol,

this website gives you a good view of the beginnings.

Alaskan Malamute and Siberian Husky shows the closest relationship to the wolf

http://www.fhcrc.org/about/ne/news/2004/05/20/doggenome.html

I've heard the same rumors about wolves in the early GSD bloodline. I too would ask "Why?"  I've known several wolf-dog mixes owned by friends or acquaintances and only one was good at protecting his owner and property. The rest either didn't care or ran.  The one that was good at protection could get out of any fenced yard and was prone to raiding chicken coops. Not a good herding prospect, I'd think.

I have here, an original typed document, with the SV letterhead at the top.

This document is dated March 1933 and is hand signed by Max v Stephanitz (Royal Prussian captain of Cavalry and 1st President of the "Verein fur deutsche Schafererhund (SV) '

The following is an extract from that letter, which mentions the breeding of GSD's to wolves.

The amateur breeding of the German Shepherd Dog or Alsation, that originated about 40 years ago, started with dogs that were taken from sheepherding dogs, and ever since it has found new blood amongst those dogs, as this is the only way to keep, preserve and improve the natural tendancies by healthy breeding.

The maintainment that occasionally is heard of, mostly in foreign countries, that in later times the German Shepherd Dog or Alsation has been crossed with the Wolf to "improve the breed", is quite untrue and originates from meanness, jealousness or foolishness. This maintainment if refuted by the impossibility to obtain useful dogs from such hybrids, caused by the completely oposing mixture of character attributes of wolf and dog. It can only be believed by people who have a quite unsufficient or superficial knowledge of the characteristics of the body, skull and character of Wolf and german Shepherd Dog or Alsation.

 These are the words of the man himself. I think I'll believe Max's version.

Julie

Very well put Julie!  Even in his book, "The German Shepherd in Words and Pictures" Capt. Max denies the existance of wold in the ancestory of the GSD.

One question, does anyone on this board know what the mitochondria are in the cell?  They are the respitory centers for each individual cell and one of the few cellular organelles that contain its own DNA.  Interestingly enough, these organelles are inherited from the maternal side only via the egg, with limited to no mutation from mother to offspring.  In other words, the offspring of each female has the same mitochodrial DNA as the mother.  It takes many many years for this type of DNA to become altered.  It would not surprise me in the least to observe that there may only be one or two variations in th GSD itself and that the sequence is not that much different that that of the chiuahua or the wolf.

Before evidence of paternal inheritance was discovered it was assumed that mtDNA was strictly the result of maternal inheritance, and therefore an exact copy of the mother's mitochondria, but then there's the mutation factor.
The mtDNA mutates at about 20X faster than nuclear DNA (nucDNA), one particular region appears to mutate 1.8X faster than any other region of the mtDNA, because of greater variation found there.  This results in about one mutation every 25 to 40 generations (perhaps 50 to 80 years or more, in the case of dogs).  So you may be right about on, in that assumption.

All breeds of domestic dog are descendants of a SINGLE progenitor, the (primitive) gray wolf, and therefore each is as closely related as any other could be.  The difference really, is that each breed's genome is composed of a subset of the allelic richness found in the gray wolf.  Selective breeding pressures have gone this way and that, for each breed, creating homogenous pairs of alleles that have reduced the variable characteristics available for that particular breed, canalizing them toward a specific purpose.  Some good/bad/indifferent has resulted in recessive features not found in the wolf (like floppy ears, curled tails, certain coat patterns) or in the varieties of canine diseases we have discovered that had lied dormant all along, many afflicting one breed moreso than another, while some good/bad/indifferent characteristics and dormant genes have been purged from each breed.

"The canine model is perfect for human research, because we share 85 percent of our genetic makeup with dogs," he said. "And we share 300 common diseases."~E.Ostrander

We just might even share a few POST-speciation mutations down the line with our canine friends, independantly.  For example, small dogs all bear a tiny piece of regulatory DNA that shuts off the gene that produces a powerful growth factor.  The theory is, a possible result of mutation of "minuture gray wolf" from 15,000 years ago, and a trait that has since disappeared from the wolf population (or maybe not).  Assortive mating pressures from human intervention have catered to the success of this gene in dog breeding, while the human "hobbits" of the Malaysian islands met their demise from natural selection.

There's something like 10 subsets of the gray wolf, all wolves are not the same.  When you use one single wolf, or even 5 from a similar region, you can expect different results from each.  What if the founder of the Czechoslovakian wolf dog was a sire, instead of a dam?  What if it wasn't a wolf from the Carpathian mountains, and instead a massive Canadian wolf?  Stereotyping wolves should be even less easier than stereotyping our gsd's bloodlines!

I doubt the selection criteria for the 1950's Czech border patrol was even intended for what would be considered 'ideal' for the average modern handler, in a social lifestyle.  A home and setting, or even a 'working relationship' probably wasn't what they had in mind.  Conducting a single cross, then stabilizing for "type", and later backcrossing, doesn't seem like it was entirely without some forethought.  Perhaps they wanted approachable dogs, that could sustain for themselves, requiring less maintenance.  There's no real seduction to it, from my point of view, because high on my criteria, is a dog that really wants to interact with the handler.  Which is about the last thing a wolf cares about.