Blog Dogs vs. Wolves: How similar are they?
Dogs vs. Wolves: How similar are they?
Take one look at a French Bulldog and you’d be hard pressed to believe that the tiny batlike creature is a descendant of the mighty wolf. But it’s true! All dogs that we know today – from Frenchies to Chihuahuas to Rottweilers– all belong to the same species (Canis familiaris) and all descended from the gray wolf (Canis lupus), estimated by some scientists to be domesticated roughly 130,000 years ago.
What makes the dogs we know today different from wolves?
Apart from the obvious – the fact that dogs live in our homes with us while wolves are wild – there are a few other key differences that still separate man’s best friend from their apex predator relatives.
Dogs and wolves have some different physical features.
Wolves are generally larger than domestic dogs; they have longer legs, larger paws, and longer muzzles. While they do vary in size depending on where they live, male gray wolves can weigh up to 145 pounds. There are a few domestic dog breeds like the Mastiff that are exceptions as they are much larger than wolves, but the average domestic dog clocks in at around 40-50 pounds.
Domesticated dogs have different temperaments than wolves.
As the lives of wolves and humans began to intertwine more, the behavior and general temperament of these wolves evolved. Over time, wolves became less fearful of and aggressive towards humans, drawing the two ever closer together. The mutually beneficial relationship that blossomed led to the natural selection of behavioral traits in wolves that favored tameness and enabled the wolves to continue to thrive with their human counterparts. From here, humans got involved and began to selectively breed wolves for traits that were most useful to them, whether that be a strong prey drive to assist them with hunting, a highly protective nature to act as guardians, or other traits they wanted emphasized. This selective breeding has led to the wide array of domestic dog breeds we know today.
How are dogs and wolves still similar today?
Despite the wide variety of breeds of dogs we know today – there are over 400! – all of them still have several key things in common with the wolf.
Dogs and wolves share much of the same DNA.
Genetically, dogs and wolves are extremely similar. In fact, they share about 99.9% of the same DNA. Not only this, but they also each have 39 pairs of chromosomes which means that dogs and wolves could successfully mate and produce offspring. The highly honed sense of smell, social behavior, prey drive, and scent marking that are expressed in both wolves and domestic dogs are just a few examples of how this high degree of genetic overlap presents.
Both wolves and dogs need to eat a raw diet to thrive.
Just like their ancestor the wolf, the domestic dogs we know and love today need to eat a meat-based, raw diet to be able to truly thrive.
Like wolves, dogs are anatomically designed to break down, digest, and draw nutrients successfully from raw food, including raw animal organ meat and bones. Both wolves and dogs are armed with shorter GI tracts than humans and stomach acid that is much stronger and can handle a much higher level of bacteria. They also have strong, sharp teeth meant for ripping into and chewing raw meat and bone.
While we’ve reviewed plenty of similarities between wolves and domestic dogs, this may be the most important one of all. Your dog is no longer roaming the woods hunting its own food, but it still needs to be fed a diet that best supports its anatomy and, like wolves, what’s best for our dogs is a truly raw diet.