nuebe gaming But how much does breed shape a dog’s health and behavior?

At the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show this week, thousands of canine contestants will try to measure up to a set of exacting breed standards.Image

The perfect pug?Look for a deeply wrinkled face with a distinct black mask and a tightly curled tail.Image

The ideal Afghan hound has the silky hair of a pageant queen set off by “long and punishing” jaws.Image

An exemplary Dalmatian should have spots between a dime and a half dollar in size.Image

A top-ranked basset hound is heavy-boned, with velvety, hang-low ears.Image

A blue-ribbon Bichon frisé should have a soft, springy coat reminiscent of clouds or cotton candy.Image

But how much does breed shape a dog’s health and behavior?

By Emily Anthes

Feb. 9, 2025

Humans have a long history of reshaping their canine companions, which evolved from ancient wolves. At least 10,000 years ago, Arctic peoples were using selective breeding to create sled dogs, cold-tolerant animals with the stamina to pull heavy loads over long distances. Over time, people bred dogs for a diverse and increasingly specialized array of roles.

gila4d slot

“Hunting things underground, hunting things overground, hunting things flying, hunting things in the water, running around in little wheels to turn your spit,” said Kathryn Lord, an evolutionary biologist at the UMass Chan Medical School and the Broad Institute. (The now-extinct turnspit dog was once a mainstay of European kitchens, where it was used to power fireplace meat-roasting spits.)

Still, historically, the priority was performance — breeding dogs that were good at their jobs.

Calls for school crackdowns have mounted with reports of cyberbullying among adolescents and studies indicating that smartphones, which offer round-the-clock distraction and social media access, have hindered academic instruction and the mental health of children.

That changed in the 19th century with the rise of Victorian dog fanciers, who began to codify existing breeds and to invent new ones. Rather than creating skilled working dogs, they aimed to engineer “the perfect physical specimen,” said James A. Serpell, an emeritus professor of ethics and animal welfare at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine.

Breed clubs created prescriptive standards that specified exactly how the perfect pointer (or bulldog or foxhound) should look. They identified dogs that fit the bill and registered them as official members of those breeds. Then, they used those dogs — and only those dogs — to breed more just like them. As a result, each breed became a distinct, reproductively isolated population.

ImageCredit...Alexey Kuznetsov/AlamyA few genetic tweaks can yield very different dogs.

In humans, physical appearance is the product of many different genes, each of which typically has a small impact. For example, hundreds of genetic variants are known to affect height; many of these variants make less than a millimeter of difference.

PESO99

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber? Log in.

Want all of The Times? Subscribe.nuebe gaming