Some Notes On Carolina Dogs

I was watching a show last night on National Geographic Channel about the origins of the dog when I saw a familiar sight: A pack of yellow dogs. Pronounced 'yaller dawgz', these are wild dog's from the Carolinas and Georgia. I remember seeing them occasionally as they ran across fields around my house, or the occasional tentative road crossing. I remember that a pack of them had once treed a cousins boyfriend for hours while he was hunting. That was the only attack I ever heard of though.



The thing is that I remember asking where they came from and someone said that they were just feral dogs. Once porch dwellers, now they had lived wild for several generations. I thought it was sort of funny that they all looked a lot a like.

Now I see that they have another name besides 'Yaller Dawgz', they are being called the American Dingo. According to this piece by American Geographic:

Brisbin was studying the origins of the world's remaining wild, ancient dogs, including the dingo, which may have reached Australia walking alongside that continent's original human inhabitants thousands of years ago. Such primitive dogs are uncommon because the canine passion for choosing diverse mates often complicates breeding patterns.

Brisbin was struck by the physical appearance of an American wild dog that ended up in a pound near his South Carolina home. "You look like a dingo," he thought in a moment of revelation, "I wonder how many of you other guys are out there that look like dingos?"

The answer: possibly quite a few, but only in selected places. Although their wild numbers seem to be rapidly decreasing, Brisbin located a number of these animals in secluded areas far from the presence of humans or domestic dogs. Their appearance first led him to propose his theory of their ancient origins—they could have arrived in America along with the earliest migrating humans across the Bering Strait land bridge. If so, Carolina Dogs could be among the earliest dogs to enter North America many thousands of years ago.

How cool is that? That means that these are not domestic dogs gone feral, but America's first dog. They are very primitive in structure and have some unique habits not shared by other dogs.

That settles it, I am getting one.