is a wolf considered a dog?

Question

i say it is... cuz i thaught its a ancestor of a dog.. but people are telling me its not!... anyone know any links to prove me?

Answer 1

This is how it goes... Wolves came first, dogs are merely domesticated wolves. 15,000 years ago early humans formed a partnership with wild wolves and began living together, as time went on artificial selection and adaptation occured and created a new domesticated sub-species of wolf that became known as the "dog". Calling a wolf a dog is chronologically incorrect because wolves existed long before dogs came about and dogs came from wild wolves that started living with humans. Therefore dogs are wolves... not vice versa.

Excerpt from Wikipedia.. Molecular systematics indicate that the domestic dog (Canis lupus familiaris) descends from one or more populations of wild wolves (Canis lupus). As reflected in the nomenclature, dogs are descended from the wolf and are able to interbreed with wolves.


You can find all the proof at these links... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog
http://www.idir.net/~wolf2dog/wayne2.htm
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/01/5/l_015_02.html
http://www.nhm.org/exhibitions/dogs/evolution/evolution.html
http://www.txtwriter.com/Onscience/Articles/familydog.html
http://publications.royalcanin.com/renvoie.asp?type=1&id=102393&cid=112791&com=4&animal=1&lang=2&session=2001330

Answer 2

a wolf is not a dog, but a dog is a wolf. They are in the canine family. A wolf is:Canis lupus. A dog is Canis lupus familiaris, which is a subspecies of wolf- STILL considered a wolf though, since they can interbreed. A different species would either have sterile offspring or unable to have offspring.
There is no species Canis familiarus (or domesticus). Some people just made that up because they want to distinguish their dog from wolves. In the scientific community, it is not a recognized species name.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog

That article also mentions how dogs originated from wolves- humans domesticated wolves (by stealing wolf pups or taming with meat) and bred them for certain characteristics, which is how we got all of the different breeds of today.

Answer 3

It's a good question. But wolves are wolves and dogs are dogs. They are from the same geneology and were at one time the same thing but now they aren't. Like a horse and a zebra they are the same thing without being the same thing. Wolves and dogs are very close depending on the breed. German Shepherds are the closest dogs to a wolf also saying the closest to the wild. Wolves must kill for surrvival they know no food without blood coursing through it's vains. A dog is apadted to eating plain stale food. Wolves have a fear of humans but dogs don't. What differs the two are the looks, size, and adaptations. You can get two answers. None are wrong technically. It depends on how it's looked at either in terms of physical features, and mental adaptations or the geneology that created them both.

Answer 4

from the google sites i went to, most only have wolf-dog hybrids. I know that wolves are canine but they are generally not considered a domestic dog. if you are interested in owning a wolfish looking dog, look into alaskan husky, siberian husky, eskimos, and malamutes. the alaskan husky is a wolf-dog hybrid, 60-70% dog, and the rest is wolf. here are some sites you might like to take a look at. good luck with your question. hope i helped.

http://www.canismajor.com/dog/wolves.html

http://exoticpets.about.com/cs/wolfdogs/a/wolfdogs.htm

oh. according to this site, wolves are not dogs, they are the ancestors of dogs who have "descended from the wolves, jackels, and coyotes"

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/wolves/wolfdog.html

take the test its rather interesting..

Answer 5

they're the two area of the comparable family individuals, and it is likewise believed that the black coats wolves have certainly got here from dogs. there grow to be by no ability allot of black colored wolves interior the previous. recently further and extra have been seen. this black color would have in basic terms come from dogs, and it style of feels lady wolves would locate it greater suited, and mate with the black wolves, as we are seeing it greater. there is even wolf-dogs hybirds, interior the wild and domesticated. there is a number of of theories of how wolves have been given domesticated. the main rational one is present day, and it relatively is that wolves domesticated themselves. interior the previous there is not any grow to be human beings would have had no time to coach and cultivate wolves, first of all human beings then would have not have had sufficient understanding to accomplish that, yet in addition they did no longer have time, as they did no longer have technologies to do issues for them. this would have occurred approximately 10,000 years in the past, while wolves would be attracted to human rubbish dumps, and consume from there. through fact the wolves have been nearer to human beings over the years the terror of human beings would are becoming to be slimmer and the flight distance (distance at which an animal will run from a human) have been given smaller, till they simply became area of our existence. nonetheless there are scientists which disagree with this, and say that 7000-8000 years in the past we domesticated wolves, as there are archeological websites with dogs wearing colours.

Answer 6

They are part of the canine family. All breeds of dogs that we have today originally came from the wolf.

Answer 7

Same family but really quite different, the wolf would eat your dog. that sounds awful I know but its true..They are both canie!

Answer 8

They are the same Genus(canus) which is why they can breed together however they are different species the wolf is species is lupus and the dog species is domesticus(I think) but that only means that they have evolved a little differently but their DNA can still be remotely linked

Answer 9

wolf is species, dog is a species. they both belong to the canine family.

Answer 10

No! They are a different. Look it up on the web for yourself.
It'll give you something to do.