Dholes are most certainly canines, and they are yet another example of an animal that cannot be neatly pigeonholed into our current system of classification.

They do retain some features which some people consider to be primitive, notably the possession of more teats than most other canid species, but they also have some features that appear to be more highly evolved than other species, such as their extremely varied vocal repertoire.

But they are certainly interesting creatures.

I believe that dhole contributed to the development of the domestic dog. I realize that this is not a popular view, but some races of dhole are almost identical, phenotypically, to the old-type chow dogs, from the same region of the world where dholes are native. I’m not suggesting that crosses to dholes were frequent or common, but there are accounts of such crosses having been accomplished; I have been unable to find anything about whether the pups from such crosses were fertile but since the chromosomal count for dogs, wolves, and dholes is similar, I suspect that interspecies dog/dhole or wolf/dhole hybrids are probably fertile, at least the females probably are.

The physical similarities between dholes and chows are very apparent to me: the convex profile of the dhole’s skull is similar to the chow’s, as is the intense red color of the coat (bright russet red is the most common color in dholes – and in chows – although every color from cream to black is found on occasion). There are many other similarities. If even a few pups from ancient dhole/dog crosses survived to breed it would serve to have introduced dhole genes into the larger domestic dog gene pool, and human intervention over a few thousand years of domestication helped fashion those characteristics into modern breeds. Many of the more primitive Asiatic breeds of dogs resemble dholes. It’s even been suggested by some that dingoes are descended from dholes, but I do not believe this is so. I believe that dingoes, dholes, and wolves are distinct but closely related species, and that several other species of wolf-like canids once existed in isolated locations, but were assimilated into the more widespread species until they lost their individual species identities and thus became extinct.

Dholes are not as well known to us Americans as wolves, but that’s probably just because most of us are of European, rather than Asiatic, descent, because dholes were at least as common and widespread in Asia as wolves were in Europe, and they figure prominently in folklore there.