The American Kennel Club participated in the study, helping scientists get DNA samples from more than 400 dogs. But that doesn’t mean all dog lovers are welcoming the new evidence. For breeders, the pharaoh-hound findings are a particularly nasty surprise, like looking under a supposed 18th-century armoire and discovering the mark of Pottery Barn. “I wasn’t there 2,000 years ago, so I’m not going to dispute the study,” says Jodi Lewis of Leavenworth, Kans., who owns nine pharaoh hounds. “But it’s like talking about politics or religion–you have your beliefs, and I have mine.”
Still, the study isn’t all bad news for breeders. For one thing, it proves they know what they’re doing: although they’ve been at work for only 150-odd years, they’ve managed to breed lines that have highly distinct genetic signatures. In other words, purebreds really are special. The study has more surprises in store, too. As it turns out, the wrinkly Shar-Pei and the stately Afghan are closely related–and although neither looks much like a wolf, both are closely related to their lupine ancestors. As for the poor pharaoh hound, head researcher Leonid Kruglyak says he “hopes nobody will be too upset.” Terriers date back only to the 1800s and, he notes, “people still seem to like them.”
