Silver fox pelts
One of the most overlooked differences between domestic dogs and their wild relatives is that domestic dogs have thicker skins.
I don’t know if any analysis has been made by breed, but in general, dogs have thicker skins than wolves do. (Yes, I know what book I just quoted!) Inuit prefer to use dog skins for their garments because they don’t tear as easily and are more easily sewn.
My grandpa, who trapped both red and gray foxes for their fur, often told me of how hard it was to prepare a fox pelt, simply because the skin broke so easily.
Because of their thin skin, a fox can be killed with a shotgun at the same distance and the same size shot that one could kill a rabbit.
Now, one would think that wild dogs would have thicker skin.
After all, wild dogs have to run around in heavy cover. They have to attack recalcitrant prey species that can fight back.
So why would dogs have thicker skins?
There are several possibilities:
- Dogs or their camp wolf ancestors were selectively bred for their pelts. Dog pelts are customary in some East Asian cultures, as well as the aforementioned Inuit. The thicker skin has all the advantages mentioned earlier in this post.
- Because hunter-gatherers domesticated the wolves that became dogs, they were actively used in the pursuit of very large and dangerous prey. The prey species they may have been hunting were far more dangerous and aggressive than wolves would have hunted on their own, so the camp wolves developed thicker skin as a defense mechanism.
- Living in high densities increased the chances for aggressive interactions between dogs or camp wolves. Thicker skin allowed the dogs to put up with regular violent scraps.
- Perhaps dog fighting was a much more common activity and use than previously realized. Perhaps one of the earliest uses for dogs was to have fighting contests. Thicker skin would have given dogs advantages in any acts of canine pugilism.
- Dogs had to live with people who were often warring with each other and were using very sophisticated weapons. The dogs were often killed in these fights between humans bands, but dogs with thicker skins would have been better able to survive.
- Dogs also guarded camps from large predators. In the wild, a wolf could easily move on if a large predator showed up. However, a dog or camp wolf that had bonded very strongly with a human family would have been less likely or less able to flee. It would have to stand its ground when the big predators came by.
All of these could be selective pressures for domestic dogs to have developed thicker skins. None of these are mutually exclusive.
This thicker skin also would have advantages for when dogs hunt other canids. It seems that the only advantage that a pack of hounds would have against a wolf is that they have thicker skin. One wolf is still much stronger, much faster, and possesses bigger teeth and more powerful jaws than any dog. A pack of thick-skinned dogs would have been better able to fight a wolf.
If you can think of other reasons why dogs would have such thick skins, I would be interested in considering it.
I’ve noticed that this difference seems to be entirely over-looked. I don’t know of any other domestic species that have thicker skin than their wild counterparts.
I don’t believe this is a “neotenous” or “pedomorphic” trait. I believe that the thicker skin exists for a practical reason beyond the fact that dogs are domesticated.
Whatever the reason or reasons, this difference has been properly considered in the dog domestication literature.
Understanding dog skin might actually give us more clues about the domestication process. Perhaps we could find the gene or genes that cause dogs to have this thicker skin.
Science has spent too much time looking a dog skulls and jaws for clues to the domestication process– with somewhat dismal results. Dog and wolf jaws and skulls overlap too much for really conclusive answers to be found.
This skin difference holds much more promise. It seems that it is a near universal trait that dogs are thicker-skinned than of their wild relatives.
And that has to be worth looking into.
Sighthounds in general do not have thick skins. Their skins tear easily. I wandered around the yard rolling dog skins between my fingers and found that the IGs have the thinnest, next is Azawakh, next is Salukis, with Halfghans, Afghans, and the Tazi the thickest. The Greyhounds I’ve had in the past also had very thin skin. I’m thinking maybe this has to do with skin elasticity, as a function of speed. There was a study in Borzois that found skin elasticity was an indicator for speed, their postulate was that it was related to elasticity of the joints and tendons.
http://www.nktelco.net/teine/speed1.htm
I wonder how they compare to wolves. I wonder if they are thicker skinned than wolves are.
I know there are breed differences.
I have not seen any comparative studies on the thickness of skins, but I can say that golden retrievers are quite thick skinned compared to beagles.
A beagle and a golden can run through the same thicket, and the beagle will be cut to pieces, and the golden won’t at all.
Of course hair length has something to do with it, but my smooth-haired golden boxer never got cut up in the brambles and briars the way beagles do.
My dad had a smooth dachshund when he was growing up that would get great big gashes on him whenever he went hunting with the beagles.
If you feel the skin around a golden retriever’s neck, the skin is pretty thick. I’ve seen them get cuts that look awful but really aren’t that bad at all.
Beagles and Goldens also have different coats. The Golden coat is poofier and would provide greater protection from abrasions. This is pretty obvious with our dogs, the smooth dogs get more scratches than the hairy ones, from brush and stuff in the yard. The Azawakh that have a very thin coat (some of them have such short hair that they almost feel velvety or flocked) get scratched very easily, they end up with a lot of scars.
Yeah, but the golden boxer was smooth-haired, shorter haired than any beagle.
She ran through the same brier patches and never got the bad cuts.
http://retrieverman.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/golden-boxer-standing.jpg?w=450&h=337
Bet the goxer had longer legs than the beagle.
Maybe the goxer was up where the tips of the brambles were, where the branches bend away easier.
Yeah, but it doesn’t matter.
Multifloral rose thickets are so dense and so tall here that if you’re through them, you’ll get cut.
I do know that my grandpa said something about his foxhounds getting cut up, too.
And foxhounds are retriever and golden boxer sized.
A trait doesn’t have to be advantageous to stick, btw. It just has be to non-detrimental.
That’s certainly true, but this trait has a lot of advantages. It’s almost like an adaptation to so many things dogs would have face in their history with us.
It’s interesting that Coppinger says St. Bernards are very thick-skinned. I wonder if this trait is particularly true of Molossers.
Molossers were used in war and an in gladiator competitions. They are derived from livestock guardian dogs that protected flocks from wolves, bears, and probably lions and leopards, too.
I think the pelt factor is also worth considering.
I know that fur-farmed foxes are selected for having more workable pelts, although I don’t know if this corresponds with thickness of skin.
I have not seen any comparative analysis of dog and wild dog pelts.
I think we need one.
It may not have been advantageous at first, but then was selectively bred for. Loose skin seems to be pretty breed specific as well. Sighthounds have pretty tight skin, our Danes definitely did not.
I can’t decide whether it was selectively bred for or whether it is an adaptation to the various things dogs would face as domesticated animals.
It’s driving me crazy on the sighthounds.
I’d like to know how their skin compares to that of the wolf.
For a borzoi, the only advantage it would have against a wolf is its speed and ability to grip the wolf before it can stand and fight.
If the borzoi has a thicker skin than the wolf, then it has another advantage.
(I don’t know if it does or not.)
I think this has to be something more than something that has been bred for in a few breeds. I think it’s something pretty near universal.
I am reading accounts of dogs tearing wolves apart in Bruce Hampton’s The Great American Wolf.
I think there has to be something more to this thicker skin issue than has previously been examined.
Have you ever vaccinated a grown whole ferret? After that, all dogs seem to have skin like butter.
The first time I tried to vaccinate a ferret ( a whole grown female, subQ on the neck skin) I gave up trying to get the needle in;
my friend said she could do it, AND BROKE THE NEEDLE OFF INSIDE OF THE FERRET, then gave up and stuck the ferret in the rib skin, leaving a bump that lasted quite awhile.
After that I made sure to do it myself, at least I know when to give up.
One veterinarian said she never gave ferrets a vaccination in the neck skin like you would a dog, because the needle wouldn’t go in. She vaccinated them in some other place – I forget where,
by then, I had simply ordered shorter stouter needles to put on the syringe.
Female ferrets probably have thicker skin for the same reason that female sharks are said to have thicker skin than male sharks – male sharks ‘play’ rough.
A male ferret grab the female on the neck with his teeth – grow thick skin or die young.
Pet store male ferrets don’t have too thick of skin – I guess it has to do with lack of hormones (the pet store sells already fixed ferrets).
The same hormones that make so many changes in a whole ferret – they stink more, have a different texture of hair, the whole male ferret has the same heavy looking face that a whole tom cat has, etc – these hormones also make for heavier skin.
And that makes sense, animals fixed young don’t have enough of the hormones to change them to the adult state, and babies don’t need the thicker skin of an adult.
As to why dogs have thicker skins than wolves? I don’t know – never heard of that.
The betta, also know as the Siamese fighting fish grows long fins because the males with fast overgrowing fins healed faster than the normals.
Fighting dogs and breeding the quick healers, probably wouldn’t cause a gene for thicker skin, but the quicker healing dogs probably already had a different mix of hormones to begin with.
Hormones and the immune system affect each other.
I have read that Iniut line their parka hoods with wolf fur because their frozen breath doesn’t form on wolf fur like it does other furs. Dog fur? Ask Cruella.
Maybe the breed of dog matters?
It is possible, as mentioned by Jess, that the thicker skin is a side efferct of something else – like the immune system.
I’m sure breed matters. I don’t know why this hasn’t been explored. This seems to be a really important difference between wolves and dogs that no one has looked at closely.
(I know about why you must spay female ferrets.)
I heard that the parka hoods came from wolverines because ice doesn’t form on their fur. But it could have been wolves.
Why would Molossers, Canadian Inuit dogs, and retrievers have such thick ski? They really aren’t related breeds.
It seems to me that there is an adaptation that happened as a result of domestication. I just don’t know whether it is the result of selective breeding or natural selection.
Sled dogs and retrievers are both in the cold.
Sled drivers sometimes drive their dogs long hours during very cold weather – a dog (or a wolf) would be smart enough to get shelter for most of the day during extreme weather.
Retriever are in cold water during fall weather, sometimes in ponds with ice.
Wolves could just wait for the ice to freeze over. Or the wolf would just swim across then get out.
A duck retriever gets in and out of the water over and over, and might sit, wet and cold, waiting for another flock of birds.
Greyhound breeds often come from the Mediterranean Sea area or the dry areas near or east of there – like the ancestors of the Borzoi and Scottish Deerhound probably did.
The reason why wild dogs have thin skin is what Jess said about the need for speed. Wild dogs are built to run.
However, I don’t know whether sight hounds are thinner skinned than wolves.
They are thinner skinned than the average dog is.
They are also very highly specialized and are one of the earliest specialized dogs.
They are basically canine cheetahs.
They can run faster than any wild dog, but they can’t run as long or as hard as a wolf or a sled dog.
They are sprinters, not distance runners.
I’ve been thinking about it and thin skin in sighthounds may have something to do with heat dumping as well. Easier to dump heat if your skin is thin with veins close to the surface.
However, that doesn’t account for muscle mass and size. Greyhounds heat up very fast and overheat quickly, due to their greater mass than Salukis, there is actually an article in Performance Sighthound Journal about it where they ran Salukis and Greys and checked temps.
Cheetahs are very bad about overheating.
After running something down and killing it, they have to rest a bit and cool off.
Because they hunt out in the open, it attracts competitors.
Cheetahs are about the only wild animal in which comparisons with sight hounds make sense. Wolves are endurance runners, as are all the of larger, hypercarnivorous, pack-hunting dogs.
I developed a thick skin on this blog from
The raticule bill inflicted on my papa and
I.
Willie I bet you could take any fox!
Sure can, ask gizmo.
hunting dogs go thru thicker cover than a wolf. So one reason for both skin AND coat is “where are you working the dog”. A dog that has to go thru thick cover will need more protection than one that doesn’t. Wolves may go thru such cover, but as a rule, they don’t do it as much. Ditto for water retrievers. LGD and fighting dogs both need some heavy duty protection that won’t be found in wolves. And so forth. I think you’d need to see what the general skin thickness is of various purebred dogs and see if there’s a pattern before asserting that it’s distinguishing. Are all Wolves identical? I’d doubt it.
Incidentally, sheep vary in their skin — the Dorper being noted for it’s thick skin and desireable hide for tanning vice the majority of sheep.
Peggy Richter.
But gray foxes hunt almost exclusively in dense, thorny thickets.
Why would they have such thin skin?
And they climb trees, too.
One of my Chatties was attacked by two Pitbulls yesterday while being walked by its owner and her 11 yo daughter. Even with a grip on the throat the Chattie has no visible wounds. Just a lot of lost fur. This was after kicking the two PitBulls to release her Chattie. All said and done, if this was a benefit to the Retriever traits, then God Bless. It prevented a lot more damage from occurring. My wife is meeting with the owners at the Veterinarian right now. Hoping there isn’t any hidden damage we don’t see.
Sengimage-
I hope your little bird dog is ok. I have known a lot of softer gun dogs that have taken a long time to get their confidence back around other dogs after a bad scrap.
I was about to type a smartass comment about mistaken identity, random chances, and provocation, but seriously, I hope your dog is fine, and the other owner apologizes.
Thanks Bill,
I appreciate your restraint. It was actually pretty tough for the 11yo girl to stand by and watch two dogs trying to kill her family pet. Thankfully she did not walk her dog by herself like she originally planned and her mother was there.
Their dog was actually walking about 30 yards behind these dogs with the owner and her 11Yo daughter. The Pitbulls were downhill from them. They swung around and pulled their owner “a 6ft tall well built man” landing him on his ass. They bolted back towards the Chattie who was already assuming a submissive position on his back as these dogs charged at him and his family, with belly exposed. These dogs went straight for the throat. And it turns out there were puncture wounds and bruising discovered later at the Veterinarian. People came flying out of their homes to assist the mother and daughter. The PB owner yanked the adult PB off the Chattie with a lot of punching and kicking to get it to release. The younger pitbull required the same from the chattie owner who already released her dog to help pull the pitbull off of it. Homeowners threw a blanket over the Chattie as soon as the second Pitbull also released and hurried it indoors, while the PB owner had already tied the older dog to a nearby tree and started to beat it relentlessly. And other people where trying to control the younger dog which was still flailing trying to get at the door where the chattie had gone through with a rescuer.
Development security arrived. The police were notified and the Dog warden was called.
As it turns out the person with the pitbulls has had this problem before and his dogs have attacked other dogs in this development. The dog warden will likely be requested to remove the dogs from the owner or put them down for the potential violence they pose to other pets and bystanders.
Clearly, the PB owner has no idea what he’s doing. And can’t control his dogs that are obviously aggressive towards other dogs. I wonder why???
I don’t blame the PB for this. Its clearly on the back of their owner where this behavior has come. And the owner fits the description of a transplanted inner city youth who came into the area for whatever reason and brought the same mentality with him about these dogs. Of course his parent were not home. So this Young teenager (a rather large one) is solely responsible for the care of his PB’s during most of the day. Things that make you say …. hmmmmm?
How is your dog doing today? Is the wound area hot, puffy, or tender? Any swollen areas like the glands? Is the dog active and happy or glum and lazy? I hope the dog okay now.
My guess is different wolf subspecies may vary in skin thickness, and a further guess is that the wolves adapted to hotter desert or tropical environments might have developed thicker skins for protection to compensate for the thinner coat of hair–this would fit neatly into your mideastern wolf as the first domesticated(therefore passing this trait on to dogs), wouldn’t it, retrieverman? A lot of selecting and adapting have gone on since those days, though. As to differences in dog types–Sighthounds do indeed seem to have thinner skins! I have had an Azawakh, a Saluki, and a Greyhound/Saluki cross, and they would get ripped up much more than other dogs, doing the same things(running through brush, fighting, and–shudder–hitting barbed wire fences!)–but the SPEED at which they had these encounters also certainly contributed to the severity of the wounds! Of the 3, the Saluki had a fairly thick coat, and had way less rips and injuries. Other people I know with wire-coated sighthounds(like deerhounds or staghound types) say that coat makes all the difference in injury prevention, so hair is a factor as much as skin. My wolf hybrids of varying percentages never had any particular problems that way–but they had thick pelts. Nor have I had much problem with my little Basenjis, who really zip through the brush regularly! My coonhounds have obviously thicker, looser skin, and short, dense coats, and despite severe excercise in the thickest of thorny brush, rarely have more than an occaisional nick or two, and that will usually be on their ears. In dealing with tiresome bipedal primates, I personally have had to develop a VERY thick skin:)…….
And don’t forget dog beatings. The bones of sled and working dogs in the far north sometimes show broken spinous processes of the vertebrae, a strong indicator of beatings as well as a response to hauling heavy panniers.
retrieverman asked regarding foxes and why they have thin skins if brush is a factor. Dunno. Is there a chart showing which species has what thickness? Rabbits, for example?
It might well be a factor regarding HOW foxes get thru brush (and not all foxes are heavy brush animals. There isn’t enough brush in the CA desert for any of the fox species there to need thick skin. Nor are artic foxes regularly in thick brush). but the creep of foxes is somewhat different than even the short legged approach of a basset. You only see that kind of slink in some coyotes and some BCs.
Or it could be different solutions for the same problem.
It’s certainly an interesting question.
Peggy Richter.
What about those Russian fox experiments? Those were foxes raised for fur so there might be some mention if they developed thicker skins.
If they did maybe it was just linked to tameness, like the drop ears etc.
That is possible, and I did consider it.
However, fur-farmed foxes, domesticated or not, have still undergone selection for to make their pelts more workable.
I do know that wild-type red foxes have pretty thin skin.
[...] or something to snuggle into. Dogs can be kept outside continually. They can get used to it.http://retrieverman.wordpress.com/2010/09/04/why-do-dogs-have-such-thick-skins/Dogs have thicker skin than wolves. This difference seems to be entirely over-looked. I don’t [...]