Differences in the Behavior of Landraces and Breeds of Dogs - Genetics and the Behavior of Domestic Animals - page 215

individual born in 1893 ( Larson et al., 2012 ) and all golden retrievers back
to two brothers ( Coppinger and Coppinger, 2001 ).
Whichever the definition, good dogs are bred to good dogs. Breeding is
restricted not only within the breed but often to superior performers (further
decreasing heterozygosity). Crossbreeding is thought to disrupt the motor
pattern-specific behavior in the offspring ( Coppinger et al., 1985 ). Except
for accidents, modern herding and hunting breeds are sexually isolated from
the larger population of dogs.

Hazard Avoidance
In the motor pattern-specific breeds, the hazards to be avoided are similar to
those for sled dogs. Both individual and reproductive survival depend on the
quality of the performance. Humans provide the care for and protection of
these animals. Hazards are capricious, and survival rests with the handler. In
a sense this is a true mutualism: one species is responsible for the foraging,
reproductive, and hazard-avoidance functions in return for the proper display
of a behavior which immediately and materially benefits the human, but not
the performing animal. Dogs are physically or reproductively culled on the
basis of their relationship with the human.

Evolution
Existing breeds of herding dogs and gun dogs are all very recent. Breed
topics often state that a particular breed is “ancient,” but was improved by
crossbreeding “recently.” Creation of new breeds is still active in the live-
stock industry, especially in places of intense livestock development such as
New Zealand and Australia (huntaways, kelpies, Queensland blue heelers).
Creation of new breeds of gun dogs slowed in the U.S. with the banning of
commercial hunting, but recently the interest in dogs used in finding or
assessing endangered species has stimulated new types. There was consider-
able breed creation activity in the market-gunning era of the 19 th

century

(e.g., Chesapeake Bay retriever).
The point is that these motor pattern-specific breeds are in a sense
species-specific in that an inventory of the quality, frequency, and sequenc-
ing of behavior (an ethogram) will identify the animal taxonomically. They
are also locally created, often by a single breeder or group. What this means
is that a particular population of animals was isolated from the rest of the
gene pool in some discrete locality for some short evolutionary period.
Historically they are often traced to founder animals.
How is it possible in a few generations to create a population of animals
which displays breed-specific motor patterns, displays to birds and not to
rabbits (or vice versa), and, just as important, does not display other motor
patterns specific to other breeds? Certainly, environmental conditioning plays
a part in these matters, but our attempts to raise one breed in the situation of