Kunming dog
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China| Kunming Quan | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Other names | Chinese Kunming Dog, Kunming Dog, Kunming Wolfdog, Chinese Kunming Wolfdog | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Origin | China | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Dog (domestic dog) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The Kunming dog, Chinese Kunming Dog, Kunming Wolfdog, or Chinese Kunming Wolfdog (Mandarin: 昆明犬 Kūnmíng quǎn) is a wolf-dog breed of working dog developed in Kunming, China in the 1950s from Alsatians hybridized with local dogs; even wolf–dog hybrids. It was recognized as a breed in 2007. It is frequently used by the police and military in its country of origin and has been exported to various other countries.[1] It is the only working dog breed developed in China with international recognition. The Kunming Dog is also used to perform many duties. These include, but are not limited to, discovering odors emitted by narcotics and explosives, uncovering human remains, and saving people.[2]
The Chinese Kunming dog, German Shepherd dog, and Belgian Malinois dog are breeds of Canis lupus familiaris, belonging to the family Canidae of the order Carnivora, which are distributed worldwide.[3]A 2021 behavioural study further examined the breed's ancestry and found that the behavioural stereotypes of the Kunming dog were more consistent with origin from a cross between Kunming indigenous village dogs and German Shepherd Dogs than from Eastern German Shepherd Dogs.[1]
Physical characteristics
The breed has two recognised coat-colour populations: dogs of the Wolf Black (WB) population display black and yellow colouring distributed across the whole body, while dogs of the Back Black (BB) population have a black back with yellow on the abdomen and limbs.[4] Male Kunming dogs are usually 60-75 cm in height and female Kunming dogs average a height of 60-65 cm in height making them slightly smaller.[2]
Working roles
A 2024 study described the Chinese Kunming dog as a working breed widely used by the army, customs, and police in China.[5]The breed is widely deployed by China's public security authorities, customs services, fire services, and military, performing roles including tracking, detection, security protection, and rescue operations. [6] China's national security authorities are urging police across the country to favour the use of a home-grown dog breed over German Shepherds, Rottweilers, Malinois and Springer Spaniels, as Beijing relentlessly pursues self-reliance.[7]
History
In the 1950s, Yunnan police in China selected 20 local wolfdogs from the high-altitude plateau city of Kunming for breeding and training. These dogs, with coats colored "wolf black" and "straw yellow", and some with black backs, became the origin of the three major strains of the Kunming dog.[8] Over the following decades, the Kunming Police Dog Base led a systematic breeding programme, applying successive rounds of group selection and other scientific methods to establish a stable, reliable working breed.[6]
In 1988, the breed passed ministry-level verification and was formally named the "Kunming dog," marking its official recognition within China's policing system.[6]
In 2007, the Kunming dog was included in the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization's World Watch List for Domestic Animal Diversity, making it China's first, and so far only, police dog breed to receive international recognition for independent intellectual property rights.[9]
