Dog Rhodesian Ridgeback Sketch

The Rhodesian Ridgeback is the only recognized dog breed that originates from southern Africa. It is based on old breeds of the former Cape Colony. These dogs, especially those of the Khoi-Khoi, showed the inverted eel mark, the Ridge. They tracked game at long distances, warned of danger and protected settlements. They were later crossed with other breeds by colonial masters and used to guard their farms and hunt lions and other big game. Their job was to track hunting game and keep it tied up in place until the hunters were on the scene.

The domestic dog (Canis lupus familiaris) is a domestic animal and is kept as a pet and farm animal. Its wild ancestral form is the wolf, to which it is assigned as a subspecies. When domestication occurred is disputed; scientific estimates vary from about 15,000 BCE to 100,000 years ago. In a narrower sense, a domestic dog is one that is kept predominantly indoors, and thus denotes a type of husbandry.

Historically, a dog kept to guard the house was called a domestic dog. Another use of the term is to restrict it to socialized (domestic) dogs, that is, dogs that are accustomed to and adapted to living with people in human society. This differentiates the domestic dog from wild, feral, or stray dogs, which are also domesticated but not socialized. The dingo is also a domestic dog, but is provisionally listed as an independent subspecies of the wolf. The common Germanic. Pet name *hunða- (mhd., ahd. hunt) goes back to idg. k̑úu̯ō(n), gen. k̑unós "dog" and is thus related to synonymous Latin canis.