African village dogs are dogs found in Africa that are directly descended from an ancestral pool of indigenous dogs. African village dogs became the close companion of people in Africa, beginning in
North Africa
North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...
and spreading south.
Dogs entered Africa from the Middle East
The oldest dog remains to be found in Africa date 5,900 years
before present
Before Present (BP) years, or "years before present", is a time scale used mainly in archaeology, geology and other scientific disciplines to specify when events occurred relative to the origin of practical radiocarbon dating in the 1950s. Becau ...
(YBP) and were discovered at the Merimde Beni-Salame Neolithic site in the Nile Delta, Egypt. The next oldest remains date 5,500 YBP and were found at Esh Shareinab on the Nile in Sudan. This suggests that the dog arrived from Asia at the same time as domestic sheep and goats. refer page 620 The dog then spread north to south down Africa beside livestock herders, with remains found in archaeological sites dated 925–1,055 YBP at Ntusi in Uganda, dated 950–1,000 YBP at Kalomo in Zambia, and then at sites south of the Limpopo River and into southern Africa.
Genetic diversity
In 2009, a genetic study of African village dogs found that these were genetically distinct from the non-native and mixed-breed dogs. The village dogs of Africa were a mosaic of native dogs that arrived early into Africa, and non-native mixed breed dogs. The
Basenji
The Basenji ( /bəˈsɛndʒi/) is a breed of hunting dog. It was bred from stock that originated in central Africa. The Fédération Cynologique Internationale places the breed in the Spitz and primitive types. The Basenji produces an unusual y ...
clustered with the indigenous dogs, but the
Pharaoh Hound
The Pharaoh Hound or is a Maltese breed of hunting dog. It is traditionally used for rabbit-hunting in the rocky terrain of the islands; the Maltese name means "rabbit dog".
It is classified by the Fédération Cynologique Internationale in it ...
and the
Rhodesian Ridgeback
The Rhodesian Ridgeback is a large dog breed bred in the Southern Africa region. Its forebears can be traced to the semi-domesticated ridged hunting and guardian dogs of the Khoikhoi. These were interbred with European dogs by the early colonist ...
were predominantly of non-African origin.
Local variations
There are different types of African village dogs:
* Avuvi: a pariah-type village dog from
Ghana
Ghana (; tw, Gaana, ee, Gana), officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It abuts the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, sharing borders with Ivory Coast in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, and To ...
* Baganda Dog: a
Lurcher
A lurcher is a cross-bred dog resulting from mating a Greyhound or other sighthound with a dog of another type, commonly a herding dog or a terrier. The lurcher was for hundreds of years strongly associated with poaching; in modern times it ...
-like large game hunting dog from Uganda, named after the
Baganda
The Ganda people, or Baganda (endonym: ''Baganda''; singular ''Muganda''), are a Bantu ethnic group native to Buganda, a subnational kingdom within Uganda. Traditionally composed of 52 clans (although since a 1993 survey, only 46 are official ...
tribe.
* Bagirmi Dog: a large dog with piebald colour, named after the Baguirmi Department of Chad.
* Cameroon Dog: a hunting dog from West Africa, of medium size and primitive type, with erect ears, long legs and short coat, often piebald in colour, named after
Cameroon
Cameroon (; french: Cameroun, ff, Kamerun), officially the Republic of Cameroon (french: République du Cameroun, links=no), is a country in west-central Africa. It is bordered by Nigeria to the west and north; Chad to the northeast; the C ...
.
* East African Dog: a hunting dog from
Kenya
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, large in size.
* Hahoawu: a "clean" medium-sized (11 to 14 kg) watch dog from
Togo
Togo (), officially the Togolese Republic (french: République togolaise), is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Ghana to the west, Benin to the east and Burkina Faso to the north. It extends south to the Gulf of Guinea, where its c ...
, with a far sight and a coat of fawn or red colour, well adapted to city life, named after the Haho river.
* Liberian Dog (a.k.a. Liberian Terrier): a
terrier
Terrier (from Latin ''terra'', 'earth') is a type of dog originally bred to hunt vermin. A terrier is a dog of any one of many breeds or landraces of the terrier type, which are typically small, wiry, game, and fearless. Terrier breeds vary ...
-like dog from West Africa, small and reddish-brown, named after Liberia.
* Madagascar Hunting Dog: a hunting dog from
Madagascar
Madagascar (; mg, Madagasikara, ), officially the Republic of Madagascar ( mg, Repoblikan'i Madagasikara, links=no, ; french: République de Madagascar), is an island country in the Indian Ocean, approximately off the coast of East Africa ...
.
* Manboutou Dog: a local variant of the Nyam Nyam kept by the Mangbetu tribe of the
Democratic Republic of the Congo
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (french: République démocratique du Congo (RDC), colloquially "La RDC" ), informally Congo-Kinshasa, DR Congo, the DRC, the DROC, or the Congo, and formerly and also colloquially Zaire, is a country in ...
.
* Nyam Nyam (a.k.a. Zande Dog): a small hunting dog from Central Africa with erect ears, a curly tail and a short coat of fawn colour, though to be similar or somehow related to the Basenji, named after the Zande tribe.
* Simaku: a
ratter
A rat-catcher is a person who kills or captures rats as a professional form of pest control. Keeping the rat population under control was practiced in Europe to prevent the spread of diseases, most notoriously the Black Death, and to prevent d ...
from
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...
, also used for cleaning yards (by scavenging waste), developed by crossing
pariah dog
Pye-dog, or sometimes pariah dog, is a term used to describe an ownerless, half-wild, free-ranging dog that lives in or close to human settlements throughout Asia. The term is derived from the Sanskrit ''para'', which translates to "outsider".
T ...
s with terriers.
* Sudan Greyhound: an extinct hare-hunting dog from Sudan.
* West African Mouse Dog: an extinct small (36 cm)
Doberman Pinscher
The Dobermann (; ), or Doberman Pinscher in the United States and Canada, is a medium-large breed of domestic dog that was originally developed around 1890 by Louis Dobermann, a tax collector from Germany.
* Zulu Dog: a small guard and hunting dog with a square muzzle and a fawn coat, named after the Zulu tribe.
Moreover, it is debatable whether the following breeds also belong or belonged to "African village dogs".
*
African Hairless Dog
African hairless dogs, also known as Abyssinian sand terriers, were hairless dogs from Africa. It is unknown if any examples still exist.
This breed of dog, also known as the African Sand Dog, is known for being “semi-wild” meaning they tend t ...
: a probably extinct hairless dog.
* Bisharin Greyhound: a hare-hunting dog from Sudan, with erect ears and a curly tail, named after the Bishari tribe.
* Dinka Greyhound: a
Greyhound
The English Greyhound, or simply the Greyhound, is a breed of dog, a sighthound which has been bred for coursing, greyhound racing and hunting. Since the rise in large-scale adoption of retired racing Greyhounds, the breed has seen a resurgenc ...
-like pariah hunting dog from Sudan, of a rougher type than the other Sudanese breeds, with a short, fawn coat, named after the
Dinka
The Dinka people ( din, Jiɛ̈ɛ̈ŋ) are a Nilotic ethnic group native to South Sudan with a sizable diaspora population abroad. The Dinka mostly live along the Nile, from Jonglei to Renk, in the region of Bahr el Ghazal, Upper Nile (two out ...
tribe.
* Egyptian Hairless Dog: an extinct hairless dog, close relative or perhaps even the same breed as the African Hairless Dog, small in size (41 cms), with drooping ears.
* Shilluk Greyhound (a.k.a. Shilluk Dog): an antelope-hunting dog with a robust body and semi-erect (folded) ears, usually of red colour with a black mask, named after the Shilluk tribe.
* Zanzibar Greyhound (a.k.a. Zanzibar Dog): a large (68 cms) hunting dog from
Zanzibar
Zanzibar (; ; ) is an insular semi-autonomous province which united with Tanganyika in 1964 to form the United Republic of Tanzania. It is an archipelago in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of the mainland, and consists of many small islan ...
, with erect ears, a robust body and a red-white colour, believed to be developed by crossing Salukis with pariah dogs.
Basenji
The Basenji ( /bəˈsɛndʒi/) is a breed of hunting dog. It was bred from stock that originated in central Africa. The Fédération Cynologique Internationale places the breed in the Spitz and primitive types. The Basenji produces an unusual y ...