Here’s a hint:
Photo by Nicole Schmied. Â
This is actually not a prick-eared golden retriever, but a normal working-type golden retriever whose ears happened to have been caught in the wind.
Golden retrievers, especially working-type ones, are pretty much natural-looking dogs. The drop ears tend to make people think they are pretty far removed from their wolf-like ancestors, but as I’ve mentioned on here before, there was a study of body language signals in wolves and several domestic dog breeds at the University of Southampton in England. Of the breeds sampled, it turned out that golden retrievers had retained more of the wolf’s body language than all the other breeds in the study except the Siberian husky. Goldens even bested German shepherds in this regard.
There is a lot of discussion about whether pedomorphosis or neoteny causes these deficits in the various breeds of domestic dog, and as someone who thinks we need to be very careful about using neoteny and pedomorphosis as a catch-all for the domestication process, I still think it needs to be explored a bit more.
I do know there is a clear difference in body language from smaller breeds of dog and larger ones. I’ve never met a Jack Russell that knew what a play bow was, and I’ve seen golden retrievers respond to wolf body language on television in almost exactly the same way they’d respond to another dog.
It’s a very complex question, and I don’t think we have the answers yet.
I have a very easy time seeing that dogs and wolves are the same species, but I think others, who are less accustomed to more wolf-like dogs and own smaller ones, like terriers, may be hung up here.
Questions do arise about what criteria may determine a “species”, when two examples of birds (for instance) may appear to differ only by apparently minor variations in coloring or habitat, and are labelled as different species; yet canines as different in structure as a greyhound, a Basset, a Pekingese, a mastiff, a Chow, (and a wolf) are all lumped as one species.
No doubt the “lumpers” and the “splitters” have debated this at length!
I wish their was a more extensive study with more primitive and modern breeds.
I also believe they should only use dogs ages 3-7 years old. Sense dogs can become more assertive once mature,as well as dogs that had poor socialization can become accustomed to doggy body language and behavior by then. If studying play behavior as well then 1-5 years may be the best.
I do believe dogs that where bred for fighting other dogs,animals or humans would show less submissive signals,sometimes none at all. Although it will depend on the breeding as well,a game bred Pit bulls behavior is very different then many pet/show ones.
The look away is pretty much the only submissive signal I tend to see in these type of dogs,including my own guard dog breed.
I like the prick eared look,I now wish there was a GR line with them.
They need a huge study.
There is a reddish golden herding breed from Germany called a Harzer Fuchs that looks something like this:
http://view.stern.de/de/picture/Sommer-Harzer-Fuchs-Maeusejagd-Aufgepasst-Braun-Animal-2188493.html
Big question is where did the GR get its wolffishness: in Newfoundland? Or in the UK? Or somewhere else?
My guess is it would have been in Newfoundland, but you’ll note that the Labrador has less wolfishness than the golden retriever.
This study is interesting, but you need to take it with a grain of salt. VERY low n.
But I do think dogs like Cavaliers and French bulldogs are clearly different in their behavior from “normal” ones.
Speaking of Lab/GR temperament differences, and with N’s, are you familiar with the paper Svartburg wrote in 2006 on breed personalities …he dropped all breeds where N < 40. Total data set included 16000+ dogs.
This found Labs and GRs to be VERY different…Labs more fearless, curious, aggressive and sociable than Goldens. Flatties were similar to Labs.
Also looked at show vs working differences. Quoting from conclusions: "Selection towards use in dog shows correlates positively with social and non- social fearfulness, and negatively with playfulness, curiosity and aggressiveness, whereas selection towards use in Working dog trials is positively correlated with playfulness and aggressiveness. Thus, even though the behavioural traits that are investigated here can be assumed to be evolutionarily stable, which the similarity between breed groups (Svartberg and Forkman, 2002) and correspondence to traits found in wolves (Fox, 1972) and other species (Gosling and John, 1999) suggests, rapid changes along these dimensions seem to be possible in a relatively few generations. It seems that the domestication of the dog is an ongoing process, which stresses the importance of behavioural considerations in dog breeding. This is an issue in the breeding of Working dogs of any type, but perhaps even more important in the breeding of pet dogs. "
That’s largely because the number of working golden retrievers in Sweden is quite small.
Those white show dogs aren’t really a good representation of the breed.
Probably more accurate to say that the Goldens didn’t “get” those behaviors, but rather that they simply weren’t lost or modified as much as in the other breeds. The study also stated that those behaviors were used in play among dogs of the same household, rather than between dogs that were strangers to one another. That would seem to be an important point.
In the terriers, particularly, how they acted in encounters with strange dogs almost certainly would be quite different than with a group of dogs that they know and with which they have already established relationships.
The wolffishness could also have been acquired by outcrossing to wolves ….perhaps a subspecies that is now extinct, or an indigenous dog with a fair amount of wolf blood. As Scotty has speculated (useful speculation, btw) in previous posts, there is good reason to think wolves were strongly modified by persecution. Maybe the non-persecuted wolves worked out a degree of symbiosis with local fishing people’s before gun toting Europeans began depleting natural wolf populations and selecting wolf populations for the wary. So far as I know this is pure fantasy, But it seems possible.
I don’t buy the idea that fishermen brought strongly wolf-like dogs to Eastern North America and these dogs kept their wolf traits while the dogs of Europe lost wolf traits.
I noticed the small N’s and the fact that the Labs tested were kennel dogs, while the Goldie’s were pets. So yes, the broad picture is interesting….details likely to be noise.
PDE has a picture up of what looks like a chocolate wolf. I’ve been wondering how the chocolate gene came into the retriever breeds (Chessies particularly). Seems likely that the short, dense waterproof double coat may have come from a beast that evolved under the horrid climate around the Grand Banks in a niche that required getting wet.
The PDE wolf is a black wolf that is fading. This happens because North American wolves have hairs that hold pigment very differently from domestic dogs.
It’s not just me who makes that speculation. John Bradshaw makes the same claims in Dog Sense, which is a very good book.
It’s perhaps a bit misleading to call them “wolfish” behaviors– possibly technically correct, but bringing something quite different to mind for many people. I prefer to think of the behaviors described as being “basic canine” or perhaps “primitive” behaviors. Not surprising, in that the sorts of dogs that contributed to the Golden’s ancestry were largely unmodified sorts of “basic dog”.
They would look pretty good :-)
I’d be willing to bet that the reason why goldens (and flatcoats) are quite good a reading, reacting to, and using an extensive vocabulary of dog/wolf language is due to the fact that they are expected to work even in large groups of dogs and need to be able to communicate with each other to maintain healthy relationships. Unfortunately though, in the stronger show lines that I’ve observed these characters traits are not as common any more. And also, the fact that labs have been bred to more task oriented than goldens or flatcoats will probably account for the reduced vocabulary they show.
If someone where to really study this, there are several variables that need to be taken into account. One of the most important ones is simply the living conditions of the dog being studied (in a pack, kenneled or part of family etc.) Not exactly easy to study and control all of the variables needed.
Very good points, Ramin.
I’m not sure what I really think of the study but I am impressed that the photographer caught the photo at the split moment that the ear was up and not showing the inner ear as in most of the up ear caught photos that I have where you are looking at the inside of the ear. Very cool photo. The German breed you mention I think normally has a mask…
Oh, I looked up the breed name and I am seeing a number of open faces.
Yeah but I think most are not e/e’s but clear sables.