Pariah dogs

[vineyridge]

A dog wandered up and moved in with me and my other dogs. She’s sweet as can be, very delicate and light boned, about knee high, with a smooth, yellow coat. Her ears are terrier type and her face is kind of rat terrierish/dachshundish, but I’ve never seen a yellow terrier with a black mouth. What she does remind me of is what we used to call a yellow cur–that is one that has been so mixed for so long that it has become a type. And the yellow curs that used to just hang around remind me a lot of what are now called “pariah dogs”.

So I have been pondering how long it takes to create a yellow cur from unlimited dog breeding without human intervention in the types bred; and I’ve also been wondering if we still have pariah dogs in America. (I’m assuming that the dogs of the Native Americans that came with them from Asia tens of thousands of years ago were pariah dogs, and I’ve been wondering what happened to all of them.)

[RPM]

Wow, I haven’t heard the term “pariah dog” in years and I can’t even remember when I first heard it. More likely I actually read it, probably in some older dog book. It is really cool to see it used here on COTH! I’ve also heard the term “yellow cur” in years past. Was that what the original Old Yeller was supposed to have been (the one in the book if not the movie one)?

One took up with me a long long time ago when I was a child. It was about the time the movie “Old Yeller” came out and I named her Yeller. She was much smaller than the movie Yeller, had a short coat, and, as I recall, sort of terrier ears. Dogs were always following me home in those days …

[Gestalt]

Interesting! I’m gong to look that up. I’ve never heard the term pariah dog, but I have heard yellow cur.

[beowulf]

Pariah dogs are a dime a dozen down south. Some people breed them and call them South Carolina Dingo Dogs.

Imho it doesnt take long – maybe five generations… That seems like a short time, but it’s possible: in two years I watched (and tried to catch) the band of GSD looking dogs around my neighborhood when I was down south: when I first moved there, they already had some young puppies and the female was obviously nursing them – they looked like tan versions of GSDs without much of a saddle marking… and then THOSE puppies had puppies, and they were very much resembling the “yellow cur” - smaller than the GSD-type dogs, upright triangular ears, agouti but not black/tan. The first thing to go is their domestic appearance - most of those traits are recessive anyway (like long coats, floppy ears). India has a great example of what pariah dogs look like.

They are all over the world. The ‘wild dog’ (as in feral) tends to diverge towards short furred, lean/angular limbed, triangular upright ear, broad head with good stop to the muzzle, narrow rib-cage and build, and usually a brown, tan, or seedy color – all in all, mesomorphic dogs that could almost resemble a coyote. The diverge towards this bauplan because they need to to survive: tan/brown to blend in, smaller to survive while still sustaining themselves on small meals, and generally, shorter fur because they tend to be bepopulate in hotter climes.

I ‘have’ a “South Carolina Dingo Dog” - here is my pariah dog:
As a puppy, after she stole my phone…
Taken a few years ago, being walked by a friend

We picked her up off of the side of the road in Aiken, SC after she was struck by a cop car - he did not stop. My suspicion is she came from a “breeder” down the road that bred these things (why?!). We had her for four years and when a friend of the family wanted a dog (100% child safe) for their child, we offered them to take her for a weekend. They never gave her back. She’s a nice dog. We named her Abra, from – “Abra was ready, 'ere I called her name – And though I call’d another, Abra came.” (Solomon On The Vanity Of The World).

We definitely still have pariah dogs here. Take a look at shelters down south. If I gave you a nickel for every dog I saw that looked just like Abra (and I wondered - could that be her sister? Her dam?) I’d be more destitute than I already am.

[BEARCAT]

I had a pariah. Looked very similar to the previous poster’s.
She was at the shelter as a Basenji x
Basenjis, Pharaoh 's hounds are considered pariahs.
if you look up Royal Bahamian Potcake, you might be able to find more information since those are in more closed populations on Bahamian islands. (And I think someone had a great sense of humor coming ip with that name!)