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The Shepherd or Police Dog 
is only one of the many kinds of Shepherd dogs 
that are found throughout the world. 
The English name of Alsatian Wolf Dog leads 
us to the second great error usually accepted by the 
layman, namely, the wolf origin of the breed. Aside 
from the fact that the wolf is the common ancestor 
of all dogs, he had nothing whatever to do with the 
establishment of the latter-day Shepherd. It is pos¬ 
sible that, along the Russian border, in parts of 
Hungary, in the Balkans, and possibly in the earlier 
days in the Pyrenees, crosses were effected with 
wolves upon the Shepherd dogs, but these had no 
bearing up the establishment of the breed, for dogs 
of this breeding were not typical and were never 
used. All the latter-day experiments that I know 
personally between Shepherd dogs and tame wolves 
were dismal failures. 
While the wolf is undoubtedly the progenitor of 
the dog, and we find remains of the forms of true 
wolves in the early stone age, there have been no 
discoveries of the true dog until the upper Pliocene 
period, where, with the first discoveries of the Homo 
Sapiens, or speaking human beings, we also find the 
first indications of the true dog. 
The most important find in this direction was 
made in the beginning of this century on the estate 
of Count Poutiatin, near Moscow, and is known 
as Canis Poutiatini. The skull formation of this 
early dog shows a decided resemblance to the skulls 
of our latter-day Shepherds and deviates consider- 
