Dog breed
The Fuegian dog, or Yahgan dog, or Patagonian dog (Spanish: perro fueguino, perro yagán, perro patagónico; Ona: wuisn) is an extinct type of canine. The Fuegian dog was bred and domesticated from the South American culpeo, also known as the culpeo fox (Lycalopex culpaeus).
There are very few remaining museum specimens or examples of the Fuegian dog; one is at the Museo Salesiano Maggiorino Borgatello in Chile, and another is at the Fagnano Regional Museum in Tierra del Fuego, Argentina.
Characteristics: Fuegian dogs had erect ears, sharp snout, longer straight fur, and a thick tail and were tawny-colored or entirely white. Surviving images show them to be a similar size to the wild culpeo, which weighs 5 to [dose — ask your vet] (11 to 30 lb), or roughly the size of a Shetland Sheepdog. Samuel Kirkland Lothrop reported that their height ranged from 11 to 20 inches, while Ricardo E. Latcham reported them as being over 60 to 23.6 cm (23.6 to 9.3 in). Gauchos called these foxes "maned dogs" because of their resemblance to the maned wolf. Lucas Bridges described the animals as like "a stunted cross between an Alsatian police dog and a wolf".
It was described by French navigator Louis-Ferdinand Martial, who headed the 1883 scientific expedition to Cape Horn, as "ugly, with long tawny hair and a sharp snout, it looks quite like a fox".
In line with Jaksic and Castro's delineation into two separate animals, observations of Europeans described a smaller lighter colored dog that were employed in hunting tuco-tucos, and a larger darker colored dog that was employed in hunting guanacos.
Behaviour: Although the distribution of the Fuegian dog corresponded with that of the Yahgan people, individual animals may not have been protective of their human owners. Julius Popper, one of the primary perpetrators of the genocide against the local indigenous population, wrote that: "I never saw them, no matter how large their number, take an aggressive attitude or defend their masters when these were in danger".
Characteristics: Fuegian dogs had erect ears, sharp snout, longer straight fur, and a thick tail and were tawny-colored or entirely white. Surviving images show them to be a similar size to the wild culpeo, which weighs 5 to [dose — ask your vet] (11 to 30 lb), or roughly the size of a Shetland Sheepdog. Samuel Kirkland Lothrop reported that their height ranged from 11 to 20 inches, while Ricardo E. Latcham reported them as being over 60 to 23.6 cm (23.6 to 9.3 in). Gauchos called these foxes "maned dogs" because of their resemblance to the maned wolf. Lucas Bridges described the animals as like "a stunted cross between an Alsatian police dog and a wolf".
It was described by French navigator Louis-Ferdinand Martial, who headed the 1883 scientific expedition to Cape Horn, as "ugly, with long tawny hair and a sharp snout, it looks quite like a fox".
In line with Jaksic and Castro's delineation into two separate animals, observations of Europeans described a smaller lighter colored dog that were employed in hunting tuco-tucos, and a larger darker colored dog that was employed in hunting guanacos.
