Dogs and gray wolves differ by roughly 0.2 percent of their DNA. To put that in context, the closest wild relative of the wolf is the coyote, which differs by about 4 percent. Dogs are, genetically, twenty times closer to wolves than coyotes are.

So which breed is closest? The answer is known, and it is not the one most people guess.

The same species, split in two

DNA analysis established that the wolf is the ancestor of the dog and that both sit within Canis lupus. Some genetic comparisons between individual wolves and dogs run as high as 99.9 percent similarity.

The early assumption was that all dogs descended from a single wolf population in China. The Chinese were certainly among the first to breed dogs deliberately: the Shar-Pei, whose name means sand skin, existed thousands of years ago and was used as a war dog before it was ever a companion.

More recent work complicates that. Several civilisations appear to have domesticated dogs independently at different times, and a 2017 study proposed domestication from two separate wolf populations, one in Asia and one in Europe.

How long dogs have been with us

Researchers at Durham University put domestication at roughly 15,000 years ago, which places it before agriculture. The dog was our first domesticated animal, and we acquired it while still hunting for a living.

Dogs were also one of the very few domesticated animals present in the Americas before European arrival. Indigenous peoples used them for transport before the wheel reached the continent, and the wolf itself held a place of deep significance in many of those cultures. Our article on the wolf and Native American tradition covers that history.

The four closest breeds

The CanMap project, begun in 2010, collected DNA from close to a thousand dogs across 85 breeds specifically to answer this question. According to Dr Robert Wayne, a canine biologist and molecular geneticist at UCLA, the four breeds genetically closest to the wolf are:

• Shiba Inu
• Chow Chow
• Akita
• Alaskan Malamute

Three of the four are East Asian, and the Shiba Inu in particular is nobody's idea of a fearsome animal. Genetic closeness has very little to do with looking or behaving like a wolf, which is the most useful thing this study demonstrates.

The caveat matters too: 85 breeds is a small sample of the several hundred that exist, and a wider study could produce a different list.

Why the question is harder than it looks

Thousands of years of interbreeding have blurred the lines to the point where tracing a straight line from any modern breed back to a wolf is close to impossible.

The European Lupa research project found the gray wolf to be the ancestor of most dogs, including breeds as far from a wolf in appearance as the Golden Retriever, the English Bulldog and the Basset Hound.

Modern breeds are also a very recent invention. Most of what we now think of as fixed breeds were established within the last two centuries, and it is only in the last hundred years or so that dogs have been bred systematically for personality rather than for work. A dog from a few hundred years ago would be barely recognisable next to its modern namesake.

What is left of the wolf

The differences between a wolf and a dog come mostly from us. The prevailing view is that humans tamed wolves first as hunting companions and later as guards, and selected across generations for the traits that made that work.

A 2017 observational study comparing 15 dogs with 12 wolves found the difference is not attention or intelligence. Its authors reported that wolves pay as much attention to humans and to each other as dogs do, and may even exceed dogs at learning by watching another of their own kind.

What separates them is willingness. Dogs, the same authors noted, cooperate more readily because they accept humans as social partners. Wolves do not, and no amount of hand-rearing reliably changes that.

Which is the real answer to the question. The wolf remains a wild animal, and the closest dog breed is still a long way from being one.

Keeping the wild version close

Our wolf painting collection includes the grey wolf in forest and snow compositions.

For textiles, our wolf blanket collection covers throws in several sizes, and our wolf t-shirt collection carries tribal and Native American designs including the Indian Chief Wolf T-Shirt.