Luc, as you as an academician already know, “common” language as we find it in the dictionary quite often stands in contrast to “technical” language. In this case, Ian Baxter especially has encouraged us to stop using the term “dwarf” when what we mean is merely that the dog is small.  The reason for this is that there are two quite different ways (genetically and developmentally) to produce a small dog – via. Chondrodysplasia (= dwarf) and via endocrine dysfunction/lack of secretion or production of growth hormone (miniature).

 

I and my colleague Bob Timm have wholeheartedly agreed with this, because separating the two is enormously helpful in the study of the INITIAL (i.e. Iron Age-Roman era) burst of different morphotypes in dogs -- which is what we are interested in and have published through our series (which is not done even yet!) in Archaeofauna.

 

To expand a little bit on what I said to Hannah: “Dwarf” has a technical meaning or implication, which is that the dog’s humeri (and other limb bones) manifest a very high ratio between greatest length and minimum shaft diameter, and that the dog does not stand very tall because its epiphyses fuse very early. Such a dog will also, because the genes for chondrodysplasia that it carries do not affect all skeletal parts in the same way, have a normal or nearly-normal sized head and a normal spinal length. Combining this with the very short limbs that the disease produces gives the “appearance” of a dog with a very long body. But that is only an appearance; the body is of normal length (i.e. for a eumorphic or “primitive” dog) but the limbs are very short.

 

Miniature dogs, by contrast, are small all over. In other words, within limits which are sometimes somewhat “stretched” by selection for particular uses, they retain eumorphic proportions. Bob and I went into great detail on this in our third paper in the dog series, because I wanted to follow up some research done at Berne back in the 1940’s on skull development in miniature dogs. I researched this initially because I was hopeful that I could find a way to certainly identify skulls of chondrodysplastic dogs (dwarfs), because I expected that chondrodysplasia would affect the dermal vs. the endochondral parts of the skull. Unfortunately this does not appear to be the case; however, as often happens, in the course of this wrestling match with the conceptual angel, I did find out that we could clarify our language in yet another way, i.e. by advocating for the term ‘juvenilized’ as opposed to ‘paedomorhic’. So Luc, if you haven’t reviewed dog paper no. 3 and you’d like a copy, write me off list and I’ll send you one. Or all three if you need ‘em.

 

Lastly, the question you raise about certain large dogs having high limb indexes is important. The PRIMARY reason for this is that limb indexes in mammals scale by the animal’s weight. Therefore, massive animals have much thicker limbs than do tiny animals, and the relationship is not geometric. Rather, they scale by something called the ‘law of elastic similarity’. This can make the limb bones of an English Bulldog or a Cane Corso look like a giant version of a chondrodysplastic dwarf, and yet they are not small dogs (and incidentally Luc, this statement directly illustrates HOW technical language differs from common usage, for “technically speaking” quite a large dog may be a dwarf). Whether there is ANY degree of chondrodysplasia in the genome of the English Bulldog is, so far as I know, not known; neither do I know whether chondrodysplasia in dogs has ‘multiplication factors’ or pleiotropisms which would make it more severe in some dogs and less in others. I suspect that the latter may be so, and I also suspect that English Bulldogs do have SOME degree of chondrodysplasia – but again, the PRIMARY reason that they have massive limb bones is because they are heavy dogs.

 

I have gone into the allometric effects of massiveness in excruciating detail for the benefit of horse owners – since the 1970’s when Swiss rider Christine Stuckelberger won the World Championship and then the Olympic Gold Medal in Grand Prix de Dressage upon an absolutely enormous horse (17+ hands high, nearly 1600 lbs. in weight) – since then, to win in international competition in this sport it has been “necessary” for every competitor to have an enormous horse, and today some of them are even bigger than was Stuckelberger’s horse Granat. This is a silly and destructive fad (destructive because huge horses simply cannot execute the maneuvers correctly or with any degree of gracefulness, and it is also provably destructive of the massive animal’s soundness to even ask it to perform the maneuvers). I am always one to kick butt around silly and destructive fads, and I have used every publication outlet at my disposal to present to horse owners the rules of physics which govern bone development and movement in massive animals. But the same rules which apply to horses also apply, and in equal measure, to dogs or to mice for that matter. So, again Luc or anybody else who wants a nice color .pdf that explains this, write to me and I’ll be glad to send it along; the article is entitled “Bigger is Not Better”. Cheers – Dr. Deb

 

 

 

From: Luc Janssens [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Friday, March 29, 2019 10:59 AM
To: Deb Bennett
Subject: Re: [ZOOARCH] Wee dogs in the Roman period

 

Interesting linguistic discussion Deb,

 

the smallest poodle (less than 30 cm high) is called miniature in English as I understand it or toy, but  dwerg=dwarf in Flemmish and Dutch, and nain in French and nano inItalian, which is also dwarf when translated (any suggestions for other languages?).

 

So I am afraid I do not understand the difference between dwarf and miniature unless it relates to chondrodystrophism but that is also seen in large dogs

could you help me to understand?

 

many thanks,

 

Luc

 

 

From: Analysis of animal remains from archaeological sites [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Hannah Russ
Sent: Friday, March 29, 2019 10:12 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [ZOOARCH] Wee dogs in the Roman period

 

Thanks to all those responding on and off list, especially Deb for providing such detailed and useful information.

 

In summary, the humerus is from a (very) small dog, but the reasons for being so small are not as straight forward as dwarf or miniature. 

 

Since finding the humerus I have also found a mandible and partial tibia that are consistent with being from the same 'variety' of dog, possibly the same individual. 

 

I'll collate all the relevant info and references that I have received early next week and circulate to the list.

 

Happy weekend all!

Thanks again and best wishes, Hannah

 

On Fri, 29 Mar 2019, 00:31 Deb Bennett, <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Dear Hannah –By private Email I have sent you a couple of comparisons. Also, please go back and review Bennett & Timm 2016, the ethnography paper that also gives stratigraphic sequence at Vindolanda, so that you can relate the time context of your wee dog humerus to the Vindolanda site.

 

All small dog humeri are, to some extent, curved or “bowed”. What marks a dwarf hound is the ratio between greatest length of the bone and its minimum shaft diameter. Again, our paper from 2016 covers this, and Ian Baxter’s many papers distinguishing dwarf from miniature hounds also provide the necessary ratio numbers. Dwarfs have ratios over 8, sometimes as high as 14.

 

So your wee little dog is not a dwarf, but a miniature, and a rather small one at that. Look at the MacKinnon paper cited in our bibliography – it’s in the ‘Dogs Through Time’ volume – for measurements on the Yasmina skeleton, which is about as small as yours. Also, K.M. Clark supposedly has a paper on a very tiny dog from Silchester – this was supposed to be out as a Britannia monograph more than a year ago, and if you (or anyone else on this list) has seen it I’d sure be grateful for a copy. We cited Clark in Bennett & Timm 2017 as ‘in press’.

 

I composited the comparison figure that I sent you privately from your photo and one of mine showing a small dog humerus from Vindolanda, but the Vindo. specimen is significantly larger than yours. The figure is scaled to the caliper measurements: yours is 83 mm and the Vindo. specimen is 96. To my knowledge, there are no dogs as small as yours from the Roman era (or even from the modern era) which would be considered dwarfs; they are miniatures.

 

This is the more certain with specimens of Roman date than it would be, were you looking at modern dogs. The reason for this is very important – whereas Roman-era dogs are just beginning to differentiate from the ancestral ‘yeller dog’ of Dingo-like morphology, modern dog types and breeds that were once genetically and morphologically distinct have, after WWII, almost all been crossbred to some extent. A question I have asked again and again (I am sure I’ve driven Ian nuts with this) is – what do you get when you cross a dwarf dog (i.e., a dog that carries the genes for chondrodysplasia) with a miniature dog (i.e., one that carries genes that affect endocrine function by inhibiting production of growth hormone)? Morphologically, do you get an intermediate?

 

Sometimes, I think you do. I have a friend who has an excellent little bitch whose daddy was a Miniature Pinscher (a miniature) but whose mamma was a Dachshund (a dwarf). Cutest damn dog I ever saw, slightly long in the body, very wide across the chest, but not so short on the leg as your typical modern Dachshund; pointy nose and bat ears; sweet-tempered and smart. I’d love to have accurate DNA on her AND a viable dataset to compare it with; and I covet her skeleton (though I’m not likely to get it -- because of course, I never cut up my friends).

 

Have a look at the attachments. Cheerio – Deb Bennett

 

 

From: Analysis of animal remains from archaeological sites [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Hannah Russ
Sent: Thursday, March 28, 2019 6:56 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [ZOOARCH] Wee dogs in the Roman period

 

Hello all,

 

I've been having a lovely journey through the ZOOARCH archives this afternoon looking for information about small dogs in the Roman period. There was a lot of useful stuff there and I've read Deb Bennet's and Ian Baxter's work on the subject - but I wanted to send through a link with images of the specimen as it's something I've not come across before, so want to make sure before I say anything ridiculous! To me, this looks like a dwarf (rather than miniature) due to the bowing? Is this something that should be said with only one bone? (and am I correct?!)

 

I have a complete, fused right humerus. I was recovered from a site in Northamptonshire, UK, with artefacts dating 2/3 century AD. GL is 83mm.

 

Images can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/246206449391634/posts/312668006078811/

 

Any thoughts and corrections welcomed.

Best wishes, Hannah

¯ * ¬ - .   ><{{{°>   . - ¬ * ¯ * ¬ - .   ><{{{°>   . - ¬ * ¯ * ¬ - .   ><{{{°>   . - ¬ * ¯ * ¬ - .   ><{{{°>   . - ¬ * ¯ 

 

Dr Hannah Russ FSA

www.archaeology.biz

 

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