Fuegian Extinction.

The Fuegian dog (perro yagán) is an extinct domesticated version of the culpeo (Lycalopex culpaeus). Think of her as culpeo 2.0. Culpeo's, while similar in phenotype to foxes (Vulpini), are actually more closely related to wolves and jackals, & are in a separate genus within the South American fox fam. Lycalopex. Zorro (en espanol)...

There are 2 remaining specimens of the Fuegian dog. These include 1 taxidermied specimen in the Museo Salesiano Maggiorino Borgatello in Chile...(see in native display below as well as in the blk/wht. foto annotated "Juan Vila") and another in the Fagnano Regional Museum in Tierra del Fuego, Argentina...

Lets be clear! The Fuegian Dog is an entirely separate limb on the tree we call "dawg". Now extinct, the point is moot...but some investment in DNA testing in the remote highlands of Tierra del Fuego would be fascinating. How hybrid were these beasties? Are there any tendrils remaining amongst living canids there? In a 2013 article, "Molecular Identification of a Fuegian Dog Belonging to the Fagnano Regional Museum Ethnographic Collection, Tierra del Fuego" by Romina Petrigh & Martin Fugassa, it is revealed that:
"Native-European contact in Tierra del Fuego was a rapid process, for which little ethnographic information has been produced. Although the Fuegian dog seemed to have been important to Selk'nam people's life, the taxonomic status of this extinct animal is still uncertain. The aim of the present work was to determine the zoological identity of a taxidermized canid belonging to a Fagnano Regional Museum collection, Río Grande, Tierra del Fuego. For this purpose, DNA from Fuegian dog and patagonian wild canids (Lycalopex culpaeus, Lycalopex griseus and Lycalopex gymnocercus) hairs was extracted. An mtDNA Region Control fragment was amplified by PCR and sequenced. Sequence alignment was performed among the sequences that were obtained in this research and the Canis lupus familiaris sequence from GenBank. Pairwise analysis showed a higher identity between the Fuegian dog and the culpeo fox (97.57%), with greater divergence with the current domestic dog (88.93%). These results were supported by the molecular phylogenetic analysis, suggesting atypical fox domestication by hunter-gatherers."

This clearly indicates novel domestication. Which is to say: unusual.
In the extreme climate, was it one particularly precocious Zorro, who perhaps approached a Selk'nam encampment...& skirting the fringes & acquiring an occasional tidbit...made the subtle shuffle to domestication? Or was it a large & gradual faction? It is this mystery alone that feeds my curiousity as regards all dogs & their divergence on the road less traveled, of wolves...foxes...& those wild others who consciously chose unfettered freedom in lieu of an indenture to man.

I wonder at the trade-off. Would any wild beast choose a life of buffoonery...child-replacement...juvenalia & all of the other tortures we inflict upon our "best friends" & their roles in modern society. No, I know of no wild thing who would electively select such confines & disgrace.

The horrors that the Fuegian indigenous peoples endured cannot be ignored (though, they seem to have been, largely). Hence my including additional films regarding their systematic slaughter. What savagery. Sometimes, I am ashamed at being human.