What breads of domesticated dogs are closely related to wolves?

All domestic dogs descend from wolves. It's entirely possible and likely that coyotes and jackals have found their way into the gene pool from time to time as well.

Research the domestication of fur foxes in Russia to see how fast selective breeding can change an animal, then understand that we've been playing with the dog's gene pool for 10,000+ years. That's more than ample time to turn wolves into yorkshire terriers.

Many people mistakenly believe huskies and malamutes to be more closely related to wolves. This is actually not true, both breeds have been completely domesticated for hundreds or even thousands of years. People learned a long time ago that wolves make poor working dogs, they were domesticated for a reason after all. However wolves have been used in breeding programs to introduce fresh blood or certain phenotypes.

However just because huskies and malamutes phenotypically resemble wolves doesn't mean they are closely related any more so than chihuahuas are. The only reason these primitive breeds resemble wolves is because there was never a desire to breed them for specific looks, just working functionality and temperament. Physically they didn't get very far from wolves. Temperament-wise, though, they are miles and miles and miles apart from wolves and have little in common with their wild ancestors.

I've read numerous times that the breeds still most closely related to wolves are the sight hounds (Afghans, greyhounds, etc). I don't know how true this is, but understand that the domestic dog as a whole is officially classed as a subspecies of the gray wolf for a reason. The only difference, really, is temperament. Size and shape only vary because natural selection doesn't come into play and weed these traits out like they would in the wild. Feral dog populations that are allowed to revert to a wholly natural state, though, will revert to a wolf-like, coyote-like, or dingo-like phenotype.

[Add] All this talk about bread is giving me a craving for turkey stuffing.

Dogs Related To Wolves

Looking wolf like doesn't necessarily make a breed any more related to the Wolf. Many of the the East Asian breeds look nothing like Wolves, yet they are more genetically similar to a Wolf than Huskies or Malamutes. How a dog looks doesn't mean squat.

They have all been bred from wolves and other wild canines, however now they lack the wolf mindset to a point. They are domesticated while wolves are not. Also just because a dog resembles a wolf does not mean that it is any closer related than a Chihuahua.

All our dog breeds of today are the outcome of selective breeding wolves. Other wild dogs would of without a doubt been put into the mix; Dingos for the Australian Cattle Dog and Fennec Fox for the Chihuahua.

Breeds often can look 'similar' to a wolf include:

- German Shepherd Dog

- Siberian Husky

- Malamute

http://www.dogbreedworld.com/dogbreeds/wolflikebre...

Siberian Huskies,Alaskan Malamutes and German Shepherd look like wolves.

You may not believe me,but Shih Tzu are one of the closest related dogs to wolves.

It's breeds not breads. It is thought that they all came from wolves. The breeding has been intensive for centuries which has enabled dogs of differing appearance to evolve. I expect you could find wolf dna in every dog just as chimpanzee dna is similar to ours.

Yes, Huskys for one, were derived from wolves, and that makes sense since they resemble them quite a bit. Also, German Shepards I believe also descend from wolf relations.

According to "Inside of a Dog" by behaviorist Alexandra Horowitz (a pretty good read btw), the dachshund is the genetically closest to the gray wolf.

They are all related to wolves. But the most common dog that resembles wolves are Huskies :)