Portal:Dogs

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The dog (Canis familiaris or Canis lupus familiaris) is a domesticated descendant of the gray wolf. Also called the domestic dog, it was selectively bred from a population of wolves during the Late Pleistocene by hunter-gatherers. Dogs were the first species to be domesticated over 14,000 years ago, before the development of agriculture. Due to their long association with humans, dogs have gained the ability to thrive on a starch-rich diet that would be inadequate for other canids.

Dogs have been bred for desired behaviors, sensory capabilities, and physical attributes. Dog breeds vary widely in shape, size, and color. They have the same number of bones (with the exception of the tail), powerful jaws that house around 42 teeth, and well-developed senses of smell, hearing, and sight. Compared to humans, dogs possess a superior sense of smell and hearing, but inferior visual acuity. Dogs perform many roles for humans, such as hunting, herding, pulling loads, protection, companionship, therapy, aiding disabled people, and assisting police and the military.

Communication in dogs includes eye gaze, facial expression, vocalization, body posture (including movements of bodies and limbs), and gustatory communication (scents, pheromones, and taste). They mark their territories by urinating on them, which is more likely when entering a new environment. Over the millennia, dogs have uniquely adapted to human behavior; this adaptation includes being able to understand and communicate with humans. As such, the human–canine bond has been a topic of frequent study, and dogs' influence on human society has given them the sobriquet of "man's best friend". (Full article...)

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A fawn-colored pug, the most common coloring.

The Pug is a breed of dog with the physically distinctive features of a wrinkly, short-muzzled face, and curled tail. An ancient breed, with roots dating back to 400 B.C., they have a fine, glossy coat that comes in a variety of colors, most often fawn (light brown) or black, and a compact, square body with well developed and thick muscles all over the body.

Pugs were brought from China to Europe in the sixteenth century and were popularized in Western Europe by the House of Orange of the Netherlands, and the House of Stuart. In the United Kingdom, in the nineteenth century, Queen Victoria developed a passion for Pugs which she passed on to other members of the royal family. (Full article...)

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Credit: Doug Noon

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.

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A mongrel, mutt, or mixed-breed dog is a dog that does not belong to one officially recognized breed, including those that result from intentional breeding. Although the term mixed-breed dog is sometimes preferred, many mongrels have no known purebred ancestors.

Crossbreed dogs, and "designer dogs", while also a mix of breeds, differ from mongrels in being intentionally bred. At other times, the word mongrel has been applied to informally purpose-bred dogs such as curs, which were created at least in part from mongrels, especially if the breed is not officially recognized. (Full article...)

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The following are images from various dog-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Example of a dog making prolonged eye contact with a human (from Domestication of the dog)
Image 2Two Shih Tzu puppies (from Puppy)
Image 3Diagram of a wolf skull with key features labelled (from Domestication of the dog)
Image 4Sled dog types, sketched in 1833 (from Domestication of the dog)
Image 5Skeleton of a dog:1. Cranium 2. Maxilla 3. Mandible 4. Atlas 5. Axis 6. Scapula 7. Spine of scapula 8. Humerus 9. Radius 10. Ulna 11. Phalanges 12. Metacarpal bones 13. Carpal bones 14. Sternum 15. Cartilaginous part of the rib 16. Ribs 17. Phalanges 18. Metatarsal bones 19. Tarsal Bones 20. Calcaneus 21. Fibula 22. Tibia 23. Patella 24. Femur 25. Ischium 26. Pelvis (from Dog anatomy)
Image 6A cavapoo and maltipoo running back while playing fetch (from Dog behavior)
Image 7Bison surrounded by grey wolf pack (from Domestication of the dog)
Image 8Lateral view of a dog skull, jaw closed (from Dog anatomy)
Image 9A dog's teeth (from Dog anatomy)
Image 10A mongrel puppy (from Puppy)
Image 11Basset Hound (from Puppy)
Image 12A labradoodle puppy and a Golden Retriever puppy playing together (from Puppy)
Image 13Basenji puppy (from Puppy)
Image 14The dog diverged from a now-extinct population of wolves 27,000–40,000 years ago, before or during the Last Glacial Maximum, when much of the mammoth steppe was cold and dry. (from Domestication of the dog)
Image 15Golden Retriever puppy (from Puppy)
Image 16The dog's retina shows the optic disc and the eye's vasculature. (from Dog anatomy)
Image 17Cavapoo puppy (from Puppy)
Image 18Puggle puppy (from Puppy)
Image 19Montage showing the morphological variation of the dog. (from Dog breed)
Image 20St. Bernard puppy (from Puppy)
Image 21The Greenland dog carries 3.5% genetic material inherited from a 35,000-year-old wolf from the Taymyr Peninsula, Arctic Siberia. (from Domestication of the dog)
Image 22Petroglyph depicting two dogs hunting – Tassili n'Ajjer, Algeria (from Domestication of the dog)
Image 23Cart dogs, c. 1900; different in appearance but doing the same work (from Dog type)
Image 24The nose of a dog (from Dog anatomy)
Image 25Cave wolf skull, Natural History Museum, Berlin (from Domestication of the dog)
Image 26Mammoth bone dwelling, Mezhirich site, Ukraine (from Domestication of the dog)
Image 27West Highland White Terrier puppies (from Puppy)
Image 28Reduction in size under selective breeding – grey wolf and chihuahua skulls (from Domestication of the dog)
Image 29Lateral view of a dog skeleton (from Dog anatomy)
Image 30Newborn Basenji puppies (from Puppy)
Image 31A little mongrel puppy on the shore, on Halong Bay (from Puppy)
Image 32Sled dog types, sketched in 1833 (from Dog breed)
Image 33The 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)
Image 34Sled dogs, 1833 (from Dog type)
Image 35External anatomy (topography) of a typical dog: 1. Head 2. Muzzle 3. Dewlap (throat, neck skin) 4. Shoulder 5. Elbow 6. Forefeet 7. Croup (rump) 8. Leg (thigh and hip) 9. Hock 10. Hind feet 11. Withers 12. Stifle 13. Paws 14. Tail (from Dog anatomy)
Image 36An 1897 illustration showing a range of European dog breeds (from Dog breed)
Image 37Tesem, an ancient Egyptian sight-hound (from Dog breed)
Image 38Frontal view of a dog skull (from Dog anatomy)
Image 39Bloodhound puppy (from Puppy)
Image 40German Spitz puppy (from Puppy)
Image 41Schematic 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 42Map depicting possible phylogeographic origins of dingoes, New Guinea singing dogs, and Island Southeast Asian and Oceanian dogs, based on recent genetic evidence (Fillios & Taçon, 2016) (from Domestication of the dog)
Image 43Newborn Welsh Springer Spaniels (from Puppy)
Image 44Chihuahua mix and purebred Great Dane (from Dog breed)
Image 45The difference in overall body size between a Cane Corso (Italian mastiff) and a Yorkshire terrier is over 30-fold, yet both are members of the same species. (from Domestication of the dog)
Image 46Mandible of the oldest recognised dog discovered in Bonn-Oberkassel, Germany, and dated 14,200 years old (from Domestication of the dog)
Image 47A 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 48Ancient Hawaiian petroglyphic depiction of an ʻīlio (Hawaiian Poi Dog) (from Domestication of the dog)
Image 49Montage showing the coat variation of dogs. (from Dog anatomy)
Image 50Jack Russell Terrier puppy (from Puppy)
Image 51Dog knee (from Dog anatomy)
Image 52Chihuahua puppy (from Puppy)
Image 53Lateral view of a dog skull, jaw opened (from Dog anatomy)
Image 54Pitbull (from Dog breed)
Image 55NASA astronaut Leland D. Melvin with his dogs Jake and Scout (from Dog behavior)
Image 56A dog's whiskers (from Dog anatomy)
Image 57Australian Cattle Dog puppy (from Puppy)
Image 58President Lyndon B. Johnson with a basket of puppies in 1966 (from Puppy)
Image 59"Five different types of dogs", c. 1547. (from Dog breed)
Image 60An extinct Turnspit dog, 1800 (from Dog type)
Image 61Watercolor tracing made by archaeologist Henri Breuil from a cave painting of a wolf-like canid, Font-de-Gaume, France, dated 19,000 years ago (from Domestication of the dog)
Image 62A wolf mandible diagram showing the names and positions of the teeth (from Dog anatomy)

Did you know (auto-generated) - show different entries

... that Time paid Alfred Wertheimer $3,000 to use a picture of Elvis Presley singing to a dog?
... that Palmire Dumont, a pioneer of LGBT nightlife in "Gay Paree", was among the first members of the French Bulldog-Owners Club and met other bulldog owners in her lesbian bar?
... that with only three of the six guns in his P-51 Mustang working during a dogfight, Claude J. Crenshaw managed to shoot down four enemy aircraft?
... that an attempt to use automated dialogue replacement in the Reservation Dogs episode "Deer Lady" failed because the voice sounded too much like Yoda?
... that depictions of Tobias and the Angel, unusually for a religious subject, typically show Tobias's dog?
... that the author of Sugar Dog Life ended up buying and raising a cactus after drawing one in the manga?

More did you know... - show different entries

...that Buster, the dog of British Labour politician Roy Hattersley, earned his owner a criminal record after killing a goose in St. James's Park, London?
...that the appearance of a dog in a Hutch ad campaign doubled sales of pugs in India in 2003?
...that Bamse was a St. Bernard dog that became the heroic mascot of the Free Norwegian Forces during the Second World War?

...that Adolf Hitler owned a German Shepherd named Blondi, and was so fond of her that he allowed her to sleep in his bedroom?
...that the most common breeds for use as guide dogs are Labrador and Golden Retrievers?
...that Ashley Whippet became the first disc dog on August 4, 1974?
...that Marie Antoinette supposedly walked to the guillotine with her pet Papillon under her arm?

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Stubs : Aksaray Malaklisi, Alopekis, Argentine pila dog, Armant (dog), Banjara Hound, Barbado da Terceira, Braque Dupuy, Bruno Jura Hound, Bulgarian Scenthound, Cane Lupino del Gigante, Cane Paratore, Cantabrian Water Dog, Barrocal Algarvio, Český fousek, Faroese Sheepdog, Georgian Shepherd, German Spitz Mittel, Gończy Polski, Grand Griffon Vendéen, Himalayan Sheepdog, Hygen Hound, Indian Spitz, Japanese Terrier, Kaikadi (dog), Koyun dog, Kumaon Mastiff, Levriero Italiano, Mahratta Hound, Majorca Ratter, Montenegrin Mountain Hound, Northern Inuit Dog, Phu Quoc Ridgeback, Plummer Terrier, Porcelaine, Pyrenean Mastiff, Rampur Greyhound, Romanian Mioritic Shepherd Dog, Romanian Raven Shepherd Dog, Saint Miguel Cattle Dog, Sapsali, Sarabi dog, Sardinian Shepherd Dog, Schweizer Laufhund, Segugio Italiano, Segugio Maremmano, Segugio dell'Appennino, Sinhala Hound, Slovak Cuvac, South Russian Ovcharka, St. Hubert Jura Hound, Stichelhaar, Taigan, Tazy, Telomian, Treeing Cur, Vikhan, Villano de las Encartaciones, Villanuco de Las Encartaciones, White Shepherd, White Swiss Shepherd Dog, Xiasi Dog More stubs...
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