Who else feeds RAW?

Ah, well, Dan . . . . change is hard for some people

I don't have time to read the whole page you link to but I find it interesting. I did find a few errors and some assumptions that just don't make sense to me. Hopefully, when I can read the whole thing, it will all come together.

Thats possible. I'm not sure. I'll have to go back and read Wayne's study when I have time.

I think it is very accruate in determing ancestral lineage(sp) and thats what we are talking about here. The mtDNA is passed from mother to offspring and is only contained in females so the males have no input into the construction.

It's interesting. Hopefully, I'll be able to spend some time and read the whole thing.

I'm not sure which "he" you are talking about here. I think Wayne did offer very strong proof that dogs/wolves are one and the same at least in DNA. It seems that the Smithsonian Institution and the American Society of Mammalogists agree with him. Those are the people whose job it is to decide such things. Who am I to argue with 2 very knowlegable orginizations like that?

THAT'S RIGHT! Ugh.........I can almost hear him now, LOL

So from this statement, I take it that you didn't read the link the first time I posted it, and instead dismissed it out of hand from a quick skim?

Or is it because Dekka threw in the words mtDNA in her post that you sudden believe the exact same link to have more worth and therefore more interest?

Fascinating link Zoom and Dekka.

I see lots of holes in the dogs are wolves models so I think it is important to remember that taxonomy is ever changing as we learn more. It was not until recently that dogs were classified as the same species as wolves and who is to say that will not change again in the future?

Not that this has anything to do with digestive science, but I keep remembering an article I read years ago about how scientists at the time (I believe this was circa 18th/19th century) *knew* that dog's had no actual pain stimulus receptors, and the squealing and squalling when they nailed a dog's paws to a board was just an "instinctive motor response, not indicative of actual pain." It was very common practice at the time to do live autopsies and dissections on animals for that very reason. For a long while as well, science *knew* that children had undeveloped nerve endings and similarly postulated that children couldn't feel pain until they were adults.

The point of this is that science is ever-changing, as Laurelin stated, and things that we *know* to be true today, stand a very good chance of being disproved tomorrow.

Francis Collins (who I mentioned in my second post) was the leader of the HGP and his position is that genetic similarity, and the presence of the same mtDNA in two species, does not mean species 1 came from species 2 - it only means that there is a common ancestor between species 1 and species 2. So a dog and a wolf came from the same mitochondrial mother but not necessarily from one another.

His writings on the mitochondrial Eve are very interesting.

Not everybody has to agree in science. Obviously if everybody agreed nobody would ever continue to research and learn more.

That's been my understanding also. Cousins and siblings can also have the same mtDNA.

I don't remember seeing that link before. That might have been during the time I was typing just as fast as I could trying to keep up. :rofl1:

When it does, I will believe it. Until then, I'm going with the experts who are paid to look at ALL the evidence and make a determination. Right now, they say dogs are wolves and I see nothing contrary to this.

If you read Wayne's research, there is a way to determine that dogs came from wolves and not just a common ancestor. His research also determines that were were what he calls "backcrossings" which I take to mean that the developing dogs interbred back with wolves on several occasions. Wayne's reserach indicates that dogs came from wolves without any other species breeding with wolves to create dogs.

Siblings definately do, cousins don't because they don't share the same mother. They can and do share the same grandmother but that would be apparent.

But what do you see that says they are. Correlation is not necessarily causation. Now I am not saying they aren't wolves (I do feed raw) but behaviourally they are very VERY different from wolves in many key respects. As a scientist myself I keep an open mind. So far there is evidence positively linking dogs and wolves through a common ancestor. That does not mean dogs came from wolves though.

I find many lay people mis read studies and take more from published papers than is really warranted. There are papers which directly condradict each other published in high profile peer reviewed journals. In science its about supporting a hypothesis or not supporting it. NOT about proving conclusively one way or the other.

That was 16-18oz at that time. But she was pregnant and getting 6-8% of her developing weight. The puppies were born healthy, fat, and plump

My adult dogs get 3% - 4% of their body weight.

Wow ! That would be a lot of food for Ollie !

lol I am glad I don't have your dogs!!! Mine get maybe 1% of their body weight.

Really! You'd think being small dogs you would buy less food... But smaller dogs have higher metabolisms.

Weird weiners...

If the mtDNA was passed on without mutations from the grandmother and also passed on without mutations from the mothers (assuming these cousins are children of sisters), the cousins certainly would have the exact same mtDNA.
Grandma has H and gives H to Daughter1 and Daughter2. Daughter1 has H, married to Husband1, and gives H to daughter1-1 and daughter1-2. Daughter2 has H, married to Husband2, and gives H to daughter2-1 and daughter2-2.

Of course, there are natural mutations to our DNA whenever you make a copy, which means Grandma is not TRULY giving "H" to her children - nor did her mother give her "H." She is giving them a strain that can be traced through her family tree by comparing it to other strains - her piece of millions of strains that, according to Mitochondrial Eve thinking, would eventually ALL trace back to the first "human" woman - the woman that marks the real separation of HUMAN as a unique species apart from others. This Mitochondrial Eve, too, would have prior mtDNA that can be traced back through the previous species, before she became uniquely human, to another mitochondrial landmark. This same mitochondrial landmark individual - or the one before it, or the one before it - also contributed to Mitochondrial Ape. It does NOT mean that Mitochondrial Ape necessarily contributed to Mitochondrial Eve. It means that it's entirely possible Mitochondrial ApeEve contributed to the individuals that went on to later contribute through evolution into Mitochondrial Ape and Mitochondrial Eve.


Which means a wolf and a dog could share strains of mtDNA, but it could be because they both got it from a common ancestor - Mitochondrial DogWolfCoyoteFox, who contributed to individuals who went on to evolve into Dog, Wolf, Coyote, and Fox, and whatever else we might want to chuck in there just for fun - NOT necessarily that Dog got it from Wolf. After all, dogs, wolves, and coyotes are all so closely related they can freely crossbreed and produce fully viable offspring, so it's likely that the same common ancestor contributed to all three individual species.


I hope this all makes sense.

I am pretty sure some of my dogs are no bigger than yours. Dekka is 12 pounds. Even Bounce is only 16 pounds.