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National Geographic : 2002 Jan
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match is enhanced. Man has been the great mixer and matcher. "Breeds haven't evolved; breeders have just selected for certain features. In the past 300 or 400 years they could ruth lessly select for features they wanted and very quickly get them," says Sampson. By way of example he offers the work of a friend, Bruce Cattanach, a fellow geneticist who studies mice professionally but shows boxers for a hobby. "Boxers are supposed to have docked tails," says Sampson, "but veteri narians don't like to do that sort of cosmetic surgery anymore, so Bruce decided to try to breed a tailless boxer." It didn't take long. To get his wish, Cattanach crossed a boxer with a tailless Welsh corgi, then took the tailless offspring that looked most like a boxer and mated it to other boxers. Eight years and four generations later he had natural tailless boxers in the showring winning competitions. "The size difference in dogs is more variable than any other species," says Cattanach, "and people since the beginning of time have been working hard to select for certain types-big dogs as guards, speedy dogs for hunting, lap dogs for company. To go from a standard poo dle to a toy, it's fairly easily done. But I don't know of any other species you'd want to do it with. I'm sure you couldn't do it with mice." Such is the remarkable power dog breeders wield. All of which advances the belief that humans really are in charge, which brings us back to the original question: If we're so smart, why do we work so hard while dogs loll around? Could it be that humans aren't the cleverest half of this ageless duet after all? A FTER OUR LONG CLIMB in the Scottish Highlands, Roddy MacDiar mid and I stop in a pasture in Glen Fyne so he can show off some of the maneuvers with Mirk and Dot that have won him prizes in sheepdog trials, including the Scottish and British national brace championships. He has the sheepdogs round up a small flock of ewes, hector them around a barrel and across obstacles, bring them to us, circle us, and take them away, all with just a toot here and there on his shepherd's whistle. It's quite a show, with the dogs under complete control all the time. Afterward we load Dot and Mirk into the trunk of the car, and I treat MacDiarmid to a soda at the local pub, where he talks glowingly of his exceptional dogs. Then we part, he to walk around the corner to his house in Cairndow, I to go 35 miles down the road to Colintraive, where I'm stay ing with friends in a cottage overlooking the Isle of Bute. We're pouring a wee dram of Scotch when the phone rings. "It's Roddy," says my host. "He needs you." "Is this Angus?" asks the shepherd, sound ing drained and con cerned. I answer that it is. Search-and-rescue dogs "Would you kindly look in the boot of your car?" he asks sheepishly. "I believe I left my dogs there."' 0 played an important role in the aftermath of September's terrorist attacks: national geographic.com/ngm/0201. AOL Keyword: NatGeoMag DOGS: A LOVE STORY
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