Huskies Celebrate 9,500 Years of Bondage

The Husky in our house

Humans have partnered with sled dogs for 9,500 years

To an owner, every dog is special. Maybe your Beagle is brilliant, or your Goldendoodle is hilarious. But some dogs have traits that make them shockingly unique, and not just in their owners eyes—traits that date back thousands of years.

One example is sled dogs, or modern-day huskies and malamutes. These big, fluffy animals make incredible pets and have a history of transporting people across barren, icy landscapes for thousands of years with the help of special heat-regulation and fat-digestion traits. And according to a new study published last month in Science, they may be one of the oldest unique dog types that have sniffed, barked, and run across the earth. The finding could help us better understand all kinds of modern sled dogs, and help keep them from going extinct in our rapidly warming world.

Sled dogs have a rich history alongside groups of people, like the Inuit, that have thrived in the coldest corners of the earth for thousands of years. Mikkel Sinding, the author of the study and an evolutionary geneticist at Trinity College in Dublin, says that up until recently, experts have thought that the sled dog type had co-evolved with the Inuit people two or three thousand years ago. But as it turns out, these pups have a longer history than anyone thought.

To nail down the timeline, researchers sequenced genomes from various dog bones—the oldest being around 9,500 years old, unearthed in the shivery depths of Siberia. They also sequenced DNA from 10 modern-day Greenland sled dogs and a 33,000-year-old Siberian wolf. What they found was that the ancient canine had a lot more in common genetically with the modern-day dogs than the wolf. This hints that this specific group of pup branched off from other dogs around 10,000 years ago, specifically to help usher their human companions all across the globe.

“People used to walk all over the earth until one day, someone got this brilliant idea,” says Sinding. “Somebody can pull me on this [sled], and that is an invention or even technology.”

If we flash back to when that would’ve been, it’d be around the same time that mammoths were dying off, and the ice age was ending. So as the world was changing, humans used their puppy companions to get from point a to point b, sometimes carrying loads as hefty as a polar bear on the sleds behind them.

Another big question answered by the genomic discovery is just how different a modern rough-and-tumble sled dog might be from a pretty poodle or a pouty pug. There are three big genomic adaptations that made sled dogs into transportation powerhouses, says Elaine Ostrander, a comparative geneticist who does research on dog breeds for the NIH.

First off, sled dogs have a high tolerance for eating fats and blubber, whereas our at-home pets mostly munch on carbs. Too much fat for a dog, or person, who lives in temperate climates could mean serious heart disease, she says. Up in the icy wilderness, grains and wheat aren’t exactly common. So sled dogs, much like polar bears, have adapted to eat blubber and fat without the heart health complications.

 OK, I suggest that they have this the wrong way around. Wolves certainly don't have much in the way of carbs in their diets, and until mankind developed agriculture, approximately 10000 years ago, and it spread widely, neither did dogs. Dogs outside the arctic have since evolved to use carbs better than wolves or the dogs in the arctic, where a reliance on wild game or herded animals in their diet remained the dominant food.

The second wild thing about these animals is their ability to control their body temperature in a way that our pups at home might not be able to. If you’ve ever noticed that a husky can be extremely fluffy but still able to keep it’s cool, it’s because its fur is double-coated. That allows it to keep extreme temperatures at bay (which also means, for heaven’s sake, never shave your husky even in the hottest of summers).

If a dog is going to be running in freezing temperatures for long periods of time, regulating their body heat is crucial. But on top of that, sled dogs are also adjusted to hypoxia, says Ostrander. “Their job is to run, and if they run hard enough and long enough they are oxygen-deprived,” she says. That’s where the third adaptation comes in.

After sprinting across a distance, whether it’s in track practice or to catch up with the ice cream truck on a hot day, you’ve probably noticed you’ll need a moment to catch your breath. For dogs that run and run and run, they’ve got to find a solution, which in this case would be developing genes that would allow them to survive even when they are running low on oxygen. People and animals that live at extreme altitudes have adapted to withstanding a low oxygen level that comes along with a mountainous lifestyle. While these dogs aren’t climbing the Himalayas necessarily, they similarly have adapted to a lifestyle where constant strenuous activity doesn’t make them feel as sick or exhausted as it would make other animals who aren’t as used to sledding for hours at a time.

Another recent interesting study regarding the dog/husky relationship: The evolution of puppy dog eyes

New research comparing the anatomy and behavior of dogs and wolves suggests dogs' facial anatomy has changed over thousands of years specifically to allow them to better communicate with humans.

In the first detailed analysis comparing the anatomy and behavior of dogs and wolves, researchers found that the facial musculature of both species was similar, except above the eyes. Dogs have a small muscle, which allows them to intensely raise their inner eyebrow, which wolves do not.

The authors suggest that the inner eyebrow raising movement triggers a nurturing response in humans because it makes the dogs' eyes appear larger, more infant like and also resembles a movement humans produce when they are sad.

The research team, led by comparative psychologist Dr Juliane Kaminski, at the University of Portsmouth, included a team of behavioural and anatomical experts in the UK and USA.

It is published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Dr Kaminski said: "The evidence is compelling that dogs developed a muscle to raise the inner eyebrow after they were domesticated from wolves. "We also studied dogs' and wolves' behavior, and when exposed to a human for two minutes, dogs raised their inner eyebrows more and at higher intensities than wolves.

"The findings suggest that expressive eyebrows in dogs may be a result of humans unconscious preferences that influenced selection during domestication. When dogs make the movement, it seems to elicit a strong desire in humans to look after them. This would give dogs, that move their eyebrows more, a selection advantage over others and reinforce the 'puppy dog eyes' trait for future generations

The exception to the rule?

The only dog species in the study that did not have the muscle was the Siberian husky, which is among more ancient dog breeds.

A Sad Story, But a Happy Ending

Rose Verrill, 13, plays with Sinatra, a Husky
she found wandering near her Seffner home.

Sinatra, a blue-eyed Husky from Brooklyn, turns up in Florida after 18 months missing

Beloved by his teenage owner and her parents, Sinatra disappeared after the girl died in a tragic gun accident. Then earlier this month, he wandered into a neighborhood where people tracked down his family and arranged for them to be reunited this Sunday.

But Sinatra can’t explain what happened in between — an 18-month, 1,200 mile journey that took him from his home in Brooklyn to the streets of Seffner.  Neither can his owners or the family who found him. “I didn’t believe it at first, but when I saw the picture, I broke down in tears,” said Lesmore Willis of Brooklyn, whose 16-year-old daughter Zion Willis died in the accident at a friend’s house in November 2015. The dog had been Zion’s constant companion.

Rose Verrill, 13, found the dog wandering near her Lenna Avenue home in Seffner and her family launched a search with help from friend Jeanne Baldi. A local veterinarian removed an identification chip from Sinatra but couldn’t recover much information. They turned to the Hillsborough County Pet Resource Center and came up with a possible owner’s name and a phone number. But the name, Willis Les, turned out to be convoluted and number was wrong — just one digit off.

 Oh, I thought chips were perfect!

With what information she had, Baldi took to social media. She decided to reach out to a Lesmore Willis whom she found there.
“I never would have thought he was from Brooklyn,” Baldi said. “I messaged Lesmore over Facebook and didn’t think it would lead to anything when I saw where he was from.”

But within a few days, Willis messaged back, saying he used to have a dog but it had been missing for a very long time. Comparing notes, they both spoke of an animal that had a problem with its right foot

Then Baldi decided to send along the photo. Immediately, the mystery of where Sinatra ended up — if not how he got here — was solved. Willis was overcome by emotion, Baldi said, thinking for months that this link with his daughter had been lost to him and his wife Maria. “I told him that he was safe and well taken care of with Denise,” Baldi said.

In his temporary home, Sinatra — like his blue-eyed namesake — seems to enjoy breaking into song. He does a duet with another family dog. “It’s the funniest thing,” said Rose’s mother, Denise Verrill. “He’s been such a wonderful guest and such a sweet dog. I can see why they love him so much.”

In Brooklyn, the grieving Willis family had suffered an added blow when Sinatra disappeared 18 months after Zion’s death. “He’s known throughout the neighborhood as the dog who runs off to chase raccoons and squirrels,” Willis said. “He’s done it before, but usually he comes back no more than 30 minutes later, and he never came back.”

Siberians are well known as escape artists. Sounds like the Willis's were not very good at keeping him secured. It can be tough. Skye has escaped at least 4 times, once in Canonsburg. Her saving grace is that she always goes to someone, anyone. That's why we have our phone number on her collar. It's much quicker than reading a chip.

We Might Need a Few Edits

This Lab Will Clone Your Pet for $50K. Would You Do It? Illustrated with this lovely picture:

OK, that is almost a dead ringer for Skye:

. . . In the fall of 2016, Buhner’s veterinarian took a tissue sample from the dog’s abdomen while he was under anesthesia for a dental cleaning, then sent it to Texas-based animal cloning firm ViaGen in a biopsy kit provided by the company. A surrogate gave birth to three cloned puppies on Jan. 31, 2017; eight weeks later, the Vangemerts welcomed “BJ” (for “Buhner Junior”) and “Ditto” into their home. (A ViaGen employee adopted the third clone.)

Vangemert said she felt an instant bond with the puppies, who look remarkably similar to Buhner—they even have matching lazy eyes. She’s so pleased by the results, in fact, that she plans to clone Buhner “again and again.”

“It really is worth every penny. And especially if you get two,” she said, before adding, “Once this gets around, the waiting list [for ViaGen clones] is going to get long.”

To the dismay of opponents, who consider cloning unethical and frivolous, the demand for pet cloning does indeed appear to be on the rise. In June of 2017, ViaGen had successfully cloned several dozen cats and dogs. By January of 2018, that figure had spiked to “over a hundred,” according to Melain Rodriguez, client service manager at ViaGen Pets, who also said that ViaGen is storing “thousands” of cell lines from which clients could clone their pets in the future.

Here’s how it works. After clients pay $1,600 for genetic preservation, a veterinarian takes a skin punch biopsy from the pet’s abdomen and sends the tissue sample to ViaGen’s subculture lab in Cedar Park, Texas. Utilizing the same technology used to clone Dolly the sheep, and more recently, a pair of macaques in China (potentially paving the way for human cloning)—“somatic cell nuclear transfer”—ViaGen employees remove the nucleus from a harvested egg (oocyte) and replace it with one from the pet to be cloned. . . .

When the pet owner decides to proceed with the cloning process, they pay a 50 percent deposit (the total fee is $50,000 for dogs and $25,000 for cats). Numerous embryos are implanted into a surrogate animal housed at an undisclosed, secure facility in upstate New York. (A local breeder provides many of the surrogates; oocyctes for cat clonings are often harvested from free spay clinics ViaGen sponsors at animal hospitals.)

Cloned puppies and kittens stay at the facility until they are 8 to 12 weeks old. A veterinarian inspects the clones for health issues before they go to their new homes. The remainder of the fee is due on delivery.

When I sent this to Georgia, she responded "Only if we Could  splice out the whining gene." You've no doubt seen YouTube videos of Huskies doing interesting vocal tricks, whining, warbling, or howling? It's great on a video that lasts 3 minutes, and you can shut off, but sometimes, when she really wants something from you, it's gets a little much. We might also like to tone down the "pulling" genes, and the underfur production gene. Skye has already begun to blow her coat, even though it's still freezing out.