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I've read that Russians have been performing selective breeding on Red Foxes for about fifty years, aiming to make them tame. The wikipedia article says

The experiment was initiated by scientists who were interested in the topic of domestication and the process by which wolves became tame domesticated dogs. They saw some retention of juvenile traits by adult dogs, both morphological ones, such as skulls that were unusually broad for their length, and behavioral ones, such as whining, barking, and submission.

I wonder, since dingoes are completely wild dogs that have only relatively recently split off from domesticated dogs, do they show more 'wolf-like' characteristics? That is, has their life in the wild selected against domestication genes?

Perhaps the best way to phrase the question is have dingoes gained more of the genes/traits that silver foxes lost in the Russian domestication experiment?

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  • $\begingroup$ Just to clarify, by "wolf-like characteristic", I suppose you mean "characterstics that are shared with wolves but not with dogs", is that right? $\endgroup$
    – Remi.b
    Oct 18, 2015 at 1:22
  • $\begingroup$ Well, I suppose "not all dogs", since there may be kinds of dogs that have some of those traits. I guess "non-domesticate traits" might be a better phrase, but the whole subject seems tricky. $\endgroup$
    – user151841
    Oct 18, 2015 at 16:09
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    $\begingroup$ The question is interesting +1. To my knowledge, the level of domestication of Dingo's ancestors is debated. And when having a quick look at the wiki article it seems to be quite a mess indeed. I think one could draw quite a good answer from wiki>Dingo and its references. $\endgroup$
    – Remi.b
    Oct 18, 2015 at 17:56

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