Fonni’s dog: morphological and genetic characteristics for a breed standard definition

Abstract

Italy is home to several populations of native dogs that reside only in certain demographic regions. Such dog populations have not been under tight selection by humans and, as such, have never been officially recognised as breeds. One such population is the 'Cane Fonnese' or Fonni's Dog, which features uniform morphologic and behavioural traits that reproduce across generations, thus qualifying Fonni's Dog as a true breed eligible for recognition by national or international breed registries. The Fonni's Dog population examined in the present work is native to Sardinia, where they are used as property or livestock guardian dogs. As such, they are greatly appreciated by the local populace. We have carried out morphological evaluations on 200 Fonni's Dogs with the aim of developing a standard breed definition upon which the foundation of the Fonni's Dog breed can be based. We have also reported genetic data of the Fonni's Dog compared to four other established breeds sampled from the same geographic area.

Genetic Characterization of the Yugoslavian Shepherd Dog – Sharplanina, a Livestock Guard Dog from the Western Balkans

“…It is genetically well distinguished from other livestock guard dogs from the Western Balkans, Karst Shepherd and Tornjak [25]. We report levels of genetic diversity in YSD which are in the range of those reported by Dimitrijević [2008] and Ceh and Dovc [25], and are comparable and in some cases even higher than those found in numerous dog breeds studied to date by means of nuclear microsatellites [4,[11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23]. Thus, despite the decline of the YSD population after both 20 th century World Wars, this breed remains genetically highly diverse.…”

“…That, along with the historical variations in population sizes, have resulted in the considerable inbreeding and loss of genetic variability in certain purebred dog populations [5][6][7][8], as well as in the increased incidence of inherited diseases [9][10][11]. Although genetic make-up of numerous dog breeds has been studied to date [4,[11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23], the knowledge regarding genetic structure of non-cosmopolitan dog breeds and local canine populations is still grossly lacking [21,24].…”

Studies of modern Italian dog populations reveal multiple patterns for domestic breed evolution

“…Additionally, seven local landrace populations, defined as distinct dog varieties unique to a specific geographic region with historically limited breeding populations, are included in this study. The latter are not recognized by any purebred canine registry but, nonetheless, may display a genetic pattern consistent with other purebreeds (Alam, Han, Lee, Ha, & Kim, ; Puja et al., ; Tanabe, ; Wijnrocx, Francois, Stinckens, Janssens, & Buys, ; Yoo et al., ), such as has been observed for one Italian regional population, the Fonni's Dog (Dreger, Davis, et al., ; Dreger, Rimbault, et al., ; Sechi et al., ). By focusing our analyses on breeds with diverse phenotypes that have all originated in a single country, we aim to employ genetic data to expand upon historical breed formation accounts and define the modes by which humans have produced recognizable and diversified dog breeds.…”

Selection Signatures in Italian Livestock Guardian and Herding Shepherd Dogs

“…In the literature, only a few genomic studies focused on the Italian shepherd dog breeds, mostly based on microsatellites [ 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 ] or on the identification of genes specifically related to sheepdogs [ 14 , 15 ]. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to investigate the genomic regions that best differentiate and characterise Italian herding and livestock guardian shepherd dogs genotyped with a high-density SNP chip.…”