The Breed Characteristics of the American Dingo
The American Dingo is notable for looking exactly like a dingo. People who saw my dog would constantly question why I had a wild dog in my home and how I had managed to get it.
The American Dingo has a fluffy tail that it holds above its back, though not touching its back, in a “fishhook” formation. Its always tan and sometimes has white spots. The American Dingo is said to come between 35 to 55 pounds by the breed registry, but there are dogs both above and below this spectrum.
Carolina Dogs are very healthy dogs that can run for miles. Active, healthy, and intelligent, they display all the traditional characteristics of a primitive breed. This means that they arent necessarily as obedient as other types of dogs. My dog is not food- or play-motivated at all. She simply plots against me.
It took me two years to realize that my dog, pictured above, looks like a dingo because she is a dingo.
Primitive dogs are breeds that have been met with limited interference by humanity. People have made Dachshunds shorter and Labradors happy to be alive, but primitive dog breeds remain very close to their wolf origins. Primitive dog breeds include:
Of all primitive dog breeds, only dingos, American dingos, and New Guinea dogs still roam in packs. Thus, I got the most primitive type of wild dog I possibly could—because Im an achiever.
The most primitive of all dog breeds share dingo characteristics. They are a tan or golden color and have a thick coat and pointed ears. They will also likely never play fetch.
Pure dingoes may not be rare
But pure dingoes may not be as rare as we think, according to authors of a new genetic study.
“While some dingoes have a dash of domestic dog, as a population they are retaining their genetic identity,” researcher Kylie Cairns of the University of New South Wales said.
But she found there was less genetic purity of dingoes in states where there is more culling of the animals as “wild dogs”.
“If we want to keep dingoes in the wild, we need to reduce culling and we need to think better about how we do it,” Dr Cairns said.
The new research, published in the CSIRO journal Australian Mammalogy, has renewed longstanding debates about the identity of the dingo and how to manage it.
Researchers announced in 2015 that genetic tests had shown “extensive hybridisation” between dingoes and domestic dogs was amounting to “death by sex in an Australian icon”.
Dr Cairns and colleagues challenge these conclusions in their analysis of DNA samples from over 5,000 wild canids.
Australia-wide, 64 per cent were pure dingo, she said.
“Over the past 200 years theres definitely been a process of hybridisation … but the animals that are in the wild are still mostly dingo,” said Dr Cairns, who is supported by a grant from the Australian Dingo Foundation.
“Even in New South Wales theyre holding their own, theyre retaining their genetic identity.”
Her figures showed 24 per cent of canids she surveyed in NSW were pure dingo.
The researchers also suggest “wild dog” culling programs perpetuate a “myth” about how many feral dogs are across the continent.
“There are not that many feral dogs living in the wild, contrary to popular belief,” said Dr Cairns, who reported only 31 feral dogs in her sample.
In fact, culling wild canids could threaten the purity of the dingo gene pool by making it more likely female dingoes will breed with dogs, Dr Cairns said.
She points to her data showing areas of Australia where dingoes are not as widely culled have a higher percentage of pure dingoes. These include Western Australia (97 per cent), South Australia (91 per cent) and the Northern Territory (98 per cent).
Dingoes are a native predator that play an important role in the ecology and should not be killed in national parks, Dr Cairns said.
Culling should not be carried out in the dingo breeding season, and needs to be more targeted to areas where there are stock losses, she added.
But Peter Fleming, a research leader at the NSW Department of Primary Industry, disagrees with the conclusions made by Dr Cairns and her colleagues.
He said the data in the new paper in fact showed a lot of similarities to earlier research he co-authored, which found hybridisation was extensive.
But Dr Cairns and colleagues had used different definitions of key terms, Dr Fleming added.
“It’s a bit of a straw man argument. First of all you redefine what feral is, you redefine what a pure dingo is, and then all the arguments fall into place afterwards.
“It would appear the authors wish to create their own dingo myth to replace the wild dog myth.”
Dr Fleming said dingoes were in greater numbers now than before European settlement, and that culling was necessary to prevent negative impacts on livestock, wildlife and human wellbeing.
Culling is already targeted and not endangering dingoes, he added.
“There is no data to support the idea that culling is a threat to dingo purity,” Dr Fleming said.
“Contrary to Cairns et al’s concern, reducing free-ranging dog populations in the targeted areas is more likely to prevent further introgression [spread] of modern dog genes.”
Communities can help protect wild dingo populations by:
Desexed dogs cannot breed with dingoes.
They are also less likely to roam.