Mutton, the Woolly Dog

00:00:20
Sarah Lando: Oh my God, really?

00:00:21
Dr. Kaylee Byers: Heck yes, she did.

00:00:22
Sarah Lando: Where do you find the time?

00:00:23
Dr. Kaylee Byers: I haven’t knit in a very long time. Yeah, but this is a while ago.

00:00:27
Sarah Lando: Okay.

00:00:27
Dr. Kaylee Byers: This is back in the before times.

00:00:29
Sarah Lando: In the before times.

00:00:30
Dr. Kaylee Byers: I like the pattern, it’s got this fun honeycomb situation.

00:00:33
Sarah Lando: Ooh, it’s nice.

00:00:34
Dr. Kaylee Byers: With scarves, you want a nice drape-

00:00:36
Sarah Lando: Yes.

00:00:36
Dr. Kaylee Byers: … of the fabric. So you usually go for wool like an alpaca’s very nice for scarves, whereas other fibres that are a little bit more tightly wound, they hold better, so this is a nice drapey one.

00:00:48
Sarah Lando: We love a drape. Well, speaking of wool, that’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about today.

00:00:53
Dr. Kaylee Byers: Oh, well, I could talk about wool for literally days, so I cannot wait to hear all about it.

00:00:57
Sarah Lando: So our story centres around a dog named Mutton. Mutton lived in the 1850s, and the breed was actually called the Salish Woolly dog. Ever heard of it?

00:01:08
Dr. Kaylee Byers: No, I haven’t actually.

00:01:09
Sarah Lando: So this type of dog breed was bred in multiple Indigenous groups in the Pacific Northwest, including the Coast Salish people, and the Woolly dog was so much more than just a dog. It was small to medium size, usually white. Think of, like, a larger Pomeranian that howls.

00:01:28
Dr. Kaylee Byers: Cute.

00:01:29
Sarah Lando: They were known for their wool, especially their wooly undercoat. Their hair was particularly useful in weaving things like clothing and blankets to keep warm during those cold winters. A fun fact, these dogs were traditionally owned and cared for by women, and sadly, the Woolly dog disappeared over a hundred years ago.

00:01:53
Dr. Kaylee Byers: Oh. And I think I know where this is going.

00:01:56
Sarah Lando: Yeah, colonialism.

00:01:57
Dr. Kaylee Byers: Classic.

00:01:59
Sarah Lando: So when settlers started arriving in the late 1700s, a number of things impacted the Woolly dog’s survival. Firstly, Woolly dogs started breeding with the European breeds, and that allowed them to lose their distinctive wooly fur.

Settlers’ machine-spun sheep wool became more popular than weaving dog wool by hand. And as we know, colonization equals disease such as smallpox, displacement, assimilation, and many Indigenous people could no longer care for their beloved dogs. Unfortunately, by 1900, the Woolly dog and the special characteristics found in the Woolly dog’s fur were gone.

00:02:40
Dr. Kaylee Byers: Okay. So we lost the Woolly dog, both because settlers brought in their own dogs that bred with these dogs, and then also the treatment of Indigenous peoples, which impacted also the dogs that they lived with and cared for. So at the beginning you mentioned the dog’s name was Mutton, which is adorable. What’s the deal with Mutton?

00:02:59
Sarah Lando: Yeah. So Mutton is regarded as one of the last identified Woolly dogs. He was adopted by a naturalist in the 1850s named Mr. Gibbs in southwest BC. And when Mutton died in 1859, Mr. Gibbs donated a pelt of Mutton’s fur to the Smithsonian Museum. In 2021, a researcher named Audrey Lynn led a study in collaboration with Indigenous groups to learn about the Woolly dog’s history and cultural significance, and analyzing the DNA.

So that led to some really cool findings. Mutton had a very low percentage of European dog breed DNA in him, despite this being decades after colonialism began, proving that the care that went into preserving this dog breed was true. Mutton was 84% pre- colonial Indigenous dog. So this confirms just how carefully these dogs were bred to maintain their wooly coats.

Before the study was done, there was very little known about the genetics of the Woolly dog, so this way of looking at ancient DNA can help us learn about the past and the impacts of colonialism, because the colonial narrative was that Woolly dogs went extinct because it was way more efficient and marketable to spin sheep wool. But that made no sense to a lot of Indigenous people? Why would they choose to stop breeding this animal that had so much cultural significance?

00:04:22
Dr. Kaylee Byers: Yeah, totally. It’s working, you can have a beautiful wool out of it, why would you transition to something completely new? So now that we have this genomic information, what possibilities could that mean for the Woolly dog?

00:04:35
Sarah Lando: Yeah. So this research has sparked conversations about the possibility of the Woolly dog being able to make a return through selective breeding and gene editing tools. There is a possibility that the Woolly dog could return, but this is obviously something that would need to involve Indigenous peoples and be done with the care that it truly deserves.

00:04:55
Dr. Kaylee Byers: Yeah, I mean I’d say first thing is do the groups for whom this dog has cultural significance, do they actually-

00:05:02
Sarah Lando: Do they actually-

00:05:03
Dr. Kaylee Byers: Want-

00:05:03
Sarah Lando: Want this dog?

00:05:03
Dr. Kaylee Byers: … Yes.

00:05:04
Sarah Lando: Yeah.

00:05:05
Dr. Kaylee Byers: Yeah. So question number one, but really cool to learn about a dog that was kind of like a sheep. Well, Sarah, thank you so much for telling us about the Woolly dog. You’ve really given us something to think about and reflect on as I think about my next knitting project.

00:05:23
Sarah Lando: Thanks, Kaylee.

We hope you’ve been enjoying these short genomic tales. We’ll be back soon for one more Gene Shorts. Gort, Short. In the meantime, be sure to follow us wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening.