A scientific paper that begins with the claim: “Modern domestic dog breeds are only ~160 years old and are the result of selection for specific cosmetic traits,” is sure to have more absurdities plastered within. The claim that modern domestic dog breeds are only 160 years old is absurd, and even a moments web search can reveal that dog breeding has been going on for thousands of years, since the first early humans domesticated wolves. Apart from that the idea that breeds do not have temperaments, and that only individuals exist, is contrary to common sense. Here, I would suspect politics.

https://www.amren.com/news/2022/05/looking-for-a-well-behaved-dog-breed-may-not-tell-you-much/

“Americans have as many stereotypes about dogs as there are distinct breeds: Chihuahuas are nervous; border collies are hyperactive; golden retrievers are great with children; and, most infamous, some large breeds — like the American pit bull terrier and Rottweiler — are aggressive.

But a research paper published Thursday by scientists studying the link between genetics and dog behavior suggests that our preconceived notions may be wrong.

Breed means very little in predicting the behavior and personality of an individual dog, the researchers found. That appears to be especially true for traits that are most commonly associated with a dog’s personality, qualities such as cuddliness, friendliness toward strangers and aggression.

“What the dog looks like is not really going to tell you what the dog acts like,” said Marjie Alonso, a co-author of the study and the executive director of the IAABC Foundation, the charitable arm of the International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants.

The study, published in Science, looked at the genes of more than 2,000 dogs paired with 200,000 survey answers from dog owners about their pets’ behaviors. The researchers examined data only on dogs that live primarily as companion animals and did not study how genes influence working dogs bred to perform specific tasks.

Breed accounted for only about 9 percent of behavioral variation in individual dogs and no trait was unique to a single breed of dog, the study found. The researchers speculate that much of the rest of the differences between dogs comes down to individual experiences, training and other environmental factors.

“We do think nearly all the traits are influenced by both genetics and environment,” said Elinor Karlsson, a study author and a professor at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School and the Broad Institute.

“We knew what we were finding wasn’t lining up with people’s stereotypes and what they feel is their lived experience with dogs,” Karlsson said.

Some traits were more likely to be associated with certain breeds — but those largely had to do with functional behaviors such as howling, pointing, retrieving, herding and playing with toys. On average, beagles and bloodhounds are more likely to howl. German shorthaired pointers are more likely to point. Herding breeds tended to be more biddable — or easily trained — and played with toys more than other breeds. And, predictably, breeds classified as retrievers had a greater propensity to retrieve than other types of dogs.”

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abk0639

“Ancestry-inclusive dog genomics challenges popular breed stereotypes

KATHLEEN MORRILL HTTPS://ORCID.ORG/0000-0002-9139-453X JESSICA HEKMAN HTTPS://ORCID.ORG/0000-0002-7296-8307XUE LIJESSE MCCLUREBRITTNEY LOGAN HTTPS://ORCID.ORG/0000-0002-6878-3481LINDA GOODMAN HTTPS://ORCID.ORG/0000-0002-7830-5897MINGSHI GAOYINAN DONGMARJIE ALONSO[...]ELINOR K. KARLSSON HTTPS://ORCID.ORG/0000-0002-4343-3776 +16 authors Authors Info & Affiliations

SCIENCE • 29 Apr 2022 • Vol 376, Issue 6592 • DOI: 10.1126/science.abk0639

What is your dog like?

Modern domestic dog breeds are only ~160 years old and are the result of selection for specific cosmetic traits. To investigate how genetics aligns with breed characteristics, Morrill et al. sequenced the DNA of more than 2000 purebred and mixed-breed dogs. These data, coupled with owner surveys, were used to map genes associated with behavioral and physical traits. Although many physical traits were associated with breeds, behavior was much more variable among individual dogs. In general, physical trait heritability was a greater predictor of breed but was not necessarily a predictor of breed ancestry in mutts. Among behavioral traits, biddability—how well dogs respond to human direction—was the most heritable by breed but varied significantly among individual dogs. Thus, dog breed is generally a poor predictor of individual behavior and should not be used to inform decisions relating to selection of a pet dog. —LMZ

Structured Abstract

INTRODUCTION

Before the 1800s, dogs were probably primarily selected for functional roles such as hunting, guarding, and herding. Modern dog breeds are a recent invention defined by conformation to a physical ideal and purity of lineage. Breeds are commonly ascribed temperaments and behavioral proclivities based on the purported function of the ancestral source population. By extension, the breed ancestry of individual dogs is assumed to be predictive of temperament and behavior. Through our community science project Darwin’s Ark (darwinsark.org), we enrolled a diverse cohort of pet dogs to explore how genetics shapes complex behavioral traits in this exceptional natural model.

RATIONALE

Dogs are a natural system for investigating the genetics of complex traits. Millions of pet dogs live in human homes, sharing our environment, and receive sophisticated medical care. Behavioral disorders are treated with human psychiatric drugs, achieving similar response rates, and genetic studies suggest shared etiology with some human psychiatric conditions.

We developed Darwin’s Ark as an open data resource for collecting owner-reported phenotypes and genetic data and invited any dog owner to enroll their dog. We paired this with low-pass sequencing to capture nearly all common variation in this outbred population. Our inclusive approach achieved the large samples needed to investigate complex traits.

RESULTS

We surveyed owners of 18,385 dogs (49% purebred) and sequenced the DNA of 2155 dogs. Most behavioral traits are heritable [heritability (h²) > 25%], but behavior only subtly differentiates breeds. Breed offers little predictive value for individuals, explaining just 9% of variation in behavior. For more heritable, more breed-differentiated traits, like biddability (responsiveness to direction and commands), knowing breed ancestry can make behavioral predictions somewhat more accurate (see the figure). For less heritable, less breed-differentiated traits, like agonistic threshold (how easily a dog is provoked by frightening or uncomfortable stimuli), breed is almost uninformative.

We used dogs of mixed breed ancestry to test the genetic effect of breed ancestry on behavior and compared that to survey responses from purebred dog owners. For some traits, like biddability and border collie ancestry, we confirm a genetic effect of breed that aligns with survey responses. For others, like human sociability and Labrador retriever ancestry, we found no significant effect.

Through genome-wide association, we found 11 regions that are significantly associated with behavior, including howling frequency and human sociability, and 136 suggestive regions. Regions associated with aesthetic traits are unusually differentiated in breeds, consistent with a history of selection, but those associated with behavior are not.

CONCLUSION

In our ancestrally diverse cohort, we show that behavioral characteristics ascribed to modern breeds are polygenic, environmentally influenced, and found, at varying prevalence, in all breeds. We propose that behaviors perceived as characteristic of modern breeds derive from thousands of years of polygenic adaptation that predates breed formation, with modern breeds distinguished primarily by aesthetic traits. By embracing the full diversity of dogs—including purebred dogs, mixed-breed dogs, purpose-bred working dogs, and village dogs—we can fully realize dogs’ long-recognized potential as a natural model for genetic discovery.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Intelligence_of_Dogs

https://www.oldest.org/animals/dog-breeds/