Oh met a dog the other day said
to be a gsd x dingo apparently not uncommon in australia where thhe dig and owner originated. - was surprised at the mix perhaps ignorantly had always thoughts dings were not suitable as pets the owner said they are not uncommon in australia and know as camp dogs

That was never something I came across when I was out there, but after a wee check of google it appears that the Australian Cattle Dog goes back to the Dingo and is a cross of that originally and also possibly the kelpie.
It seems that it's not that uncommon out there?

I wouldn't have thought a wild dingo would be suitable as a pet, no - but I'd be more concerned about the legalities of it.  Wolves and wolf crosses require a licence here, not sure if it would apply to a dingo cross though.

If it is a wild animal it would but then if they brought it across with them from Au then I would think it is not a Dingo cross as I don't reckon it would have been allowed, a bit like most the wolf crosses are not either, well not in the UK.

I have met a dingo in a Pet home in a flat in Warsaw.  Two pups were born in teh Warsaw Zoo, and they decided to hoem them to knowledgeable dog owners.

The dog was very primitive and intolerant of male dogs.  Had a few behaviours more strongly developed, liek trying to dig through the concrete floor.

To be honest they are no different to the Feral Canaan dogs, except perhaps more ancient, as the Dingo is an ancient Feral dog.

I wouldn't have thought a wild dingo would be suitable as a pet, no - but I'd be more concerned about the legalities of it.  Wolves and wolf crosses require a licence here, not sure if it would apply to a dingo cross though.

A dingo or F1 or F2 dingo mix would require a lience as well just like wolfs and there F1 and F2 mixes do.

But is a Dingo classified by DEFRA as a wild animal, as it is in fact a Feral dog???  Just like a Brumby is a Feral horse.

Is there not Dingo blood in some of the Australian dog breeds, not sure if it is Cattle Dogs or Kelpies?

oh said that visually it looked more gsd but clearly was a cross. Interesting what the man really had and the legalities not to mention potential temperment problems as for common and known as campdogs maybe urban myth ? the owner explained that dogs often mated with dingos and produced x pups
Owner said he bought the dog over here with him but didnt mention anything else. Maybe australian cattle dog x gsd

Many years ago - back in the 60s  Janet Edmonds(as she was known as back then)well known in the Mal world had a pet dingo th she kept along side her Mals.I could be wrong but think it was called Digger.

> Interesting what the man really had and the legalities not to mention potential temperment problems as for common and known as campdogs maybe urban myth ?

I read a story a couple of years ago about a man who had a tame Dingo as an assistance dog in either Aus or NZ but was having problems due to regulations prohibiting keeping them as pets.... something like that anyway! I'm sure Google will find it.

Its been too long since I left Aus but thought (many years ago) in some states, GSDs had to be neutered due to the concern of them mating with Dingos. Like many animals, Dingos are wonderful in their natural surroundings but they are not one I should like to share my home with. The unpredictability, & anyone pretending/fooling themselves that they would make a family pet/companion are setting both them & the dog up for disaster.

Their facility in reading human faces sets them apart from wolves and makes possibility of domestication more likely
http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/journal/dingoes-skilled-at-reading-human-

> anyone pretending/fooling themselves that they would make a family pet/companion are setting both them & the dog up for disaster.

Dingos are not a native wild animal but the result of domesticated dogs becoming feral, albeit a very long time ago, when the Aborigines first came to the continent.

The dog I know who was socialised and acclimated to humans as a domestic puppy would be from birth had no issues more than any other more primitive and dog dominant breed would.  He was politely freindsly to all humans, and largely ignored other dogs, unless challenged) but was possesive of the Dachs bitch he lived with and would not tolerate a male near her.  He4 was about 5 years old when I met him first, one of two dog puppies homed as pets.

There is a difference between a tame animal that was not imprinted to humans from birth (say a cub found and raised) than one raised like any other litter, where they would imprint on humans being handled from birth.

The situation really is no different to that of the Canaan dogs where the breed was developed from taking feral desert born litters to then use by the military for their superior ability to cope with the climactic conditions (due to natural selection while wild).

I expect the prohibition against accidental crossbreeding with Dingos was to prevent the feral stock being made unpredictable by the addition of say guarding traits or larger size, less suspicion/fear of man etc.

Dingoes skilled at reading human gestures
By:Emma Young | March-5-2010
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The ability of wild dingoes to react to social cues from humans sets them apart from wolves in the smarts department, a new study shows.
Dingo at Fraser Island (Photo: Bradley Smith)
Dingo at Fraser Island (Photo: Bradley Smith)
Open Gallery

Dingoes skilled at reading human gestures
Open Gallery
DINGOES OFTEN GET bad press. "People usually think of them as vermin," said Bradley Smith at the University of South Australia.

But new work shows dingoes are extremely smart -- smart enough to respond to human signals in ways that wolves cannot, and are able to solve problems that leave dogs frustratingly foxed.

"Dingoes are very misunderstood. In fact, they're well-adapted to our environment and really intelligent," Bradley told Australian Geographic.

Genetic work indicates that dingoes evolved in East Asia. They were probably tamed for use as a source of fresh meat and to protect villages, and they were brought to Australia, presumably for the same purposes, somewhere between 5000 and 3500 years ago. While dingoes are important to Aboriginal culture, they haven't been selectively bred in Australia, and they mostly live wild.

Response to human cues
(Photo: Bradley Smith)

Dingo from the Fraser Island population View Gallery

Bradley has studied genetically pure dingoes living at the Dingo Discovery Centre near Gisborne, Victoria. Part of the project investigated dingoes' ability to respond to human gestures. Dogs are very sensitive to human body language, whereas hand-reared wolves can learn to understand only some signals. If food is hidden inside one of two containers, and a person briefly points to the correct pot, a dog puppy will quickly find the food, while a hand-reared wolf pup will not (and neither will a primate).

Bradley found that dingoes had no problem with this test, although they aren't quite as good at following pointing as dogs. The results were published recently in the journal Animal Cognition.

In another test, Bradley's team placed food within a V-shaped, transparent fence. Thus, to get to the food, an animal has to first move away from it. "Dogs are really bad at this. They bark and look back at the experimenter, asking for help," he said. But wolves have no problem with this task - and, the researchers discovered, neither do dingoes. "They're really amazing at it," he said. The research for this test is due to be published in the journal Animal Behaviour.

Human impact on evolution

Bradley thinks that the performance of dingoes, part way between wolves and dogs, can probably be attributed to early domestication in Asia, which may have involved selective breeding of animals that were better at communicating with people. If there has been no selective pressure to lose the ability over the past few thousand years, there's no reason for it to have been lost, he said. In this way, dingoes might be a representative example of what some of the earliest domesticated dogs were like.

Others aren't so sure. Lyn Watson, director of the Dingo Discovery Centre, thinks the dingoes' performance reflects not a human impact on their evolution but an enhanced ability to communicate across the species barrier, no matter what the species. "They are very curious animals - in that way they're more like cats," she said. "And if they're raised with other pets in a family, they create a team with that other species."

Either way, the work reinforces Lyn's personal experience that dingoes are smart, she said. "We joke around here that you shouldn't leave your cheque book lying around, because they'll forge your signature."
Dingoes skilled at reading human gestures
Dingoes skilled at reading human gestures

The ability of wild dingoes to react to social cues from humans sets them apart from wolves in the smarts department, a new study shows.
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But is a Dingo classified by DEFRA as a wild animal, as it is in fact a Feral dog???  Just like a Brumby is a Feral horse.

Is there not Dingo blood in some of the Australian dog breeds, not sure if it is Cattle Dogs or Kelpies?

Yep DEFRA classes the dingo as a dangerous wild animal. If there is any dingo blood in cattle dogs or kelpies it would be so long back they would not need a licnce as its on f1 and f2 hybreds with lienced species that need liences. like the sarlouswolf dogs and checwolf dogs the wild content was added so long ago they dont need a lience unless reasont wolf was added in the last 2 gens.

"Family Canidae:
All species except those of the genera Alopex, Cerdocyon, Dusicyon, Otocyon, Pseudolopex, Urocyon, Vulpes and Nyctereutes.
The species Canis familiaris, other than the subspecies Canis familiaris dingo, is also excepted."
http://archive.defra.gov.uk/wildlife-pets/wildlife/protect/documents/dwa-animallist.pdf