The dog (Canis familiaris or Canis lupus familiaris) is a domesticated descendant of the wolf. Also called the domestic dog, it is derived from the extinctPleistocene wolf; the gray wolf is the dog's closest living relative. The dog was the first species to be domesticated by humans. Experts estimate that hunter-gatherers domesticated dogs more than 15,000 years ago, which was before the development of agriculture. Due to their long association with humans, dogs have expanded to a large number of domestic individuals and gained the ability to thrive on a starch-rich diet that would be inadequate for other canids.
The Canadian Eskimo Dog or Canadian Inuit Dog is a breed of working dog from the Arctic. Other names include qimmiq or qimmit (Inuit language word for "dog"). The Greenland Dog is considered the same breed as the Canadian Eskimo Dog since they have not yet diverged enough genetically to be considered separate breeds, despite their geographic isolation.
The breed is threatened with extinction, with a 2008 estimate of only 300 purebred dogs. Although once used as the preferred method of transportation by Inuit in the Canadian Arctic, by the 1960s traditional working dog teams became increasingly rare in the North. Contributing factors to the breed's decline include the increasing popularity of snowmobiles for transportation and the spread of infectious canine diseases. Controversy surrounds the intentional killings of a debated number of Inuit sled dogs between 1950 and 1970 by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, as well as recent efforts to increase the breed's population. (Full article...)
A team of fourteen mixed-breed dogs mushing. Mushing is a general term for a sport or transport method powered by dogs, and includes carting, sled dog racing, skijoring, freighting, and weight pulling. More specifically, it implies the use of one or more dogs to pull a sled on snow. The term is thought to come from the French word marche, or go, run, the command to the team to commence pulling. "Mush!" is rarely used in modern parlance, however; "Hike!" is more common in English.
The Yukon Quest, formally the Yukon Quest 1,000-mile International Sled Dog Race, is a sled dog race scheduled every February since 1984 between Fairbanks, Alaska, and Whitehorse, Yukon, switching directions each year. Because of the harsh winter conditions, difficult trail, and the limited support that competitors are allowed, it is considered the "most difficult sled dog race in the world", or even the "toughest race in the world"—"even tougher, more selective and less attention-seeking than the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race." The originator envisioned it as "a race so rugged that only purists would participate."
In the competition, first run in 1984, a dog team leader (called a musher) and a team of 6 to 14 dogs race for 10 to 20 days. The course follows the route of the historic 1890s Klondike Gold Rush, mail delivery, and transportation routes between Fairbanks, Dawson City, and Whitehorse. Mushers pack up to 250 pounds (113 kg) of equipment and provisions for themselves and their dogs to survive between checkpoints. Each musher must rely on a single sled for the entire run, versus three in the Iditarod. (Full article...)
Image 24Schematic anatomy of the ear. In dogs, the ear canal has a "L" shape, with the vertical canal (first half) and the horizontal canal (deeper half, ending with the eardrum) (from Dog anatomy)
Image 45A drawing by Konrad Lorenz showing facial expressions of a dog - a communication behavior. X-axis is aggression, y-axis is fear. (from Dog behavior)
Image 56The difference in body size between a Cane Corso (Italian mastiff) and a Yorkshire Terrier is over 30-fold; both are members of the same species. (from Dog anatomy)
... that Chuck Eisenmann went from professionally pitching in baseball to owning and training the dogs that starred on the Canadian television series The Littlest Hobo?
... that the album series Jingle Cats spawned Jingle Dogs, Jingle Babies, and a Japanese video game in which "the object is to breed and care for cats, which begin to sing when they're done copulating"?
...that the Caribou Inuit people are defined by their fur clothing, use of sled dogs and their snowhouses?
...that a legend says that when Philip de Braose irreverently spent the night in a church dedicated to Saint Afan, he was struck blind the next morning and his hunting dogs went mad?
...that the Koitsenko were the honorary elite of the Kiowadog soldiers, who tribal lore says called themselves that because they had dreams or visions of dogs?
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