We all know our domestic dogs are canines. But I imagine most people don’t realise that there are approximately 36 different species of the canine family around the world.
Including all wolves, foxes, jackals, African wild dogs, coyotes, dingoes and raccoon dogs.
But only a few of those are biologically compatible to interbreed with our domestic dogs. They are, grey wolves, coyotes, golden jackals, Ethiopian wolves, and the pampas fox.
Dingoes are also biologically compatible, but they weren’t included in the list above as technically they descended from domestic dogs already, that reversed and went wild over thousands of years.
Over the centuries, people, or nations, have purposely had programmes of interbreeding our dogs with these other compatible canines, or the interbreeding has happened in the wild, and here is a list of some that we know of, that exist today.
Probably the most commonly known are wolf dogs, such as these…
1. Czechoslovakian
2. Saarloos (Netherlands)
3. Calupoh (Mexico)
4. Lupo (Italy)
5. Russian Volkosob
6. American Wolfdog
7. Tamaskan (Finland/United Kingdom)
8. Ethiopian
The purpose of this breeding may have been for security, or to reintroduce natural abilities that may have been diluted by domestic inbreeding, or possibly to improve health durability.
But other known hybrids are…
1. The Sulimov Dog (Russia), a golden jackal and domestic dog cross developed to create an exceptional scent-detection dog.
2. Naturally occurring jackal–dog hybrids in Croatia.
3. Coydogs in North America, crosses between coyotes and domestic dogs.
4. Dogxim (Brazil), a rare pampas fox and domestic dog hybrid. To clarify, the pampas fox is not actually a true fox, foxes are not known to be biologically compatible with domestic dogs for producing hybrids.
The most common domestic dogs used in deliberate hybrid breeding are German Shepherds, but other breeds used include Siberian Huskies, Alaskan Malamutes, Belgian Shepherds, or Laikas.
Though probably the most unusual known mix is a wolfdog that was tested and recorded as a cross between a male Polish Hunting Spaniel, similar to our UK Springer Spaniel, and a female grey wolf, quite tricky I imagine, maybe that’s what the springs were used for ?
