alternate canid domestication

We all know that the domestic dog comes from the wolf,however there seems to have been experimentation with other canids. The Hare Indian dog and Tahtlan bear dogs may well have been domesticated coyotes and the Selk'nam people tamed a close relative of the warrah. Plus the Island fox may'v been kept by California Native Americans,the fennec is commonly kept as a pet, Russian domesticated red fox and Sulimov jackal-dogs. I know why the wolf was the most successful and don't want that eliminated. Just the possibility of other canids that were thru selective breeding were domesticated,widespread and used.
 
The Fuegian dogs went extinct alongside their masters, leaving only the wild culpeo (in a different genus than the warrah) they were domesticated from. The best way for their survival might be to increase its range, which means increasing the range of the Fuegian peoples. The easiest way for that is to have them colonise the Falklands and maybe develop a maritime culture from there, settling at least South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. They'd bring their "dogs" alongside them, using them for meat, fur, warmth, etc.

Eventually they get settled into missions on the Falklands to Christianise them and to get them off the land which Europeans would rather have for sheep raising. Here, their dogs are discovered by some Royal Navy admiral or someone important and brought back to England, and eventually more Fuegian dogs are brought to England and incorporated into some breeding program to increase their numbers. Their numbers remain small and they are prone to various diseases and ailments due to the small founder population, but end up associated with certain elites throughout the remainder of the 19th and into the 20th century.
 
Perhaps an earlier rise of large-scale North American grain agriculture has a butterfly effect of foxes adopted as verminators?

Basically, early North Americans were generally part-time farmers for a long time, and when they did create permanent settlements said settlements seemed to be more dependent on sea/riverfood than cereals and pseudo-cereals, IIRC. It was not until about 300 AD that they really made a go of maize, and not until 900 AD that maize varieties that could perform as staple crops really developed in the Eastern Woodlands.

Earlier grain agriculture-perhaps maize somehow gets brought in earlier, or some freaky polyploid mutant grass allows grain farming earlier-and we have more granaries developing earlier, and more experiments done at protecting them from vermin, and bam-the gray fox becomes the American equivalent of the cat!
 
I think earlier fox farming in Europe, I could see it become a thing in the 18th century at least
 
Perhaps an earlier rise of large-scale North American grain agriculture has a butterfly effect of foxes adopted as verminators?

Basically, early North Americans were generally part-time farmers for a long time, and when they did create permanent settlements said settlements seemed to be more dependent on sea/riverfood than cereals and pseudo-cereals, IIRC. It was not until about 300 AD that they really made a go of maize, and not until 900 AD that maize varieties that could perform as staple crops really developed in the Eastern Woodlands.

Earlier grain agriculture-perhaps maize somehow gets brought in earlier, or some freaky polyploid mutant grass allows grain farming earlier-and we have more granaries developing earlier, and more experiments done at protecting them from vermin, and bam-the gray fox becomes the American equivalent of the cat!

But they already had dogs, wouldn't it make more sense to just breed a terrier sort of dog instead?
 
But they already had dogs, wouldn't it make more sense to just breed a terrier sort of dog instead?

Probably, but a man can dream.

Also, IIRC terriers were used to hunt rats, not mice. Maybe a terrier-type dog to hunt mice could work, but I feel like you need something with more flexibility than the average dog (even small ones) to squeeze after mice.
 
Probably, but a man can dream.

Also, IIRC terriers were used to hunt rats, not mice. Maybe a terrier-type dog to hunt mice could work, but I feel like you need something with more flexibility than the average dog (even small ones) to squeeze after mice.

But are foxes flexible enough to do what a terrier-type dog couldn't? If they aren't you'd need to domesticate some other carnivore, probably some sort of weasel or other small mustelid (ferrets are domesticated after all), or maybe some small wildcat (bobcats might be too big for the job, but they're IIRC the smallest wildcat found north of Mexico). Although it would seem that dogs were good enough for the Mesoamericans when they needed to control pests (IIRC that is the origin of the chihuahua).
 
I read somewhere years ago that the South American bush dogs domesticate easily, but I can't confirm that with a Google search, so... maybe? Same for the dhole of India...
 
Doing this, don't you have to go back a fair ways? To before there was anybody living in the Americas? If so, that seems to limit your options.

There's also the issue of temperament. The canids that became our dogs did because they had certain characteristics lending themselves to domestication (not just taming), & not all canids have that, or they'd all be *dogs.

However...if you accept some interbreeding with domestic dogs...
 
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