About This Quiz
In 2008, the Westminster Kennel Club awarded the Best in Show honor to a beagle -- a first for the breed. But what exactly is a dog breed is and how did the different breeds, from the tiny Chihuahua to the massive Great Dane, originate?For each breed recognized by groups such as the American Kennel Club, there exists some type of breed standard. This standard is a full description of what the ideal specimen of this breed should look like and how it should act.
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With artificial selection, people select the traits they want to continue instead of "survival of the fittest." Traits favored by people may or may not be directly beneficial to the animal.
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Guide dogs are typically golden retrievers, Labrador retrievers and German shepherds.
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In order to be an effective guide dog, the animal cannot be trained to expect food in return for good behavior.
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The fox terrier (wire) has won Best in Show a whopping 13 times.
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Close breeding means that purebred dogs are uniform in appearance. It's difficult to escape genetic problems because so many of the dogs in that closed population share the same ancestry.
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You can't breed one Labradoodle with another Labradoodle and get Labradoodle offspring, because they aren't a part of a pure breed. Genetically, you're instead breeding a heterozygote to another heterozygote.
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Today, there are more than 350 recognized breeds, an infinite number of mixes and dogs that are no breed at all.
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The Labrador retriever was the most popular breed in 1997, 2002, 2006 and 2007.
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German shepherds are the most common type of police dog because of their intelligence, strength, aggression and sense of smell.
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