Types of dog skull

Abstract

Nowadays more than 400 dog breeds exist all over the world. Domestic dog breeds are known for their great variability concerning their skull shapes.Some of the dog skull conformations take their name by their resemblance to human craniosynostoses and examples are brachycephaly and dolichocephaly. Dogs such as Bulldogs,Pugs and Boston terriers can be recognized by the shape of their face that is ’’pushed in’’, their underbite and their shallow orbits and they are classified as brachycephalic dogs. Dolichocephalic dogs tend to have a narrow and long snouts that are set forward and examples are Saluki, Borzois and Collies. Mesaticephalic dogs are defined dogs having the same facial and cranial length region and equal size of upper and lower jaws and examples are Beagles, Cocker spaniel, Great Danes and more others. In my thesis I have concentrate in the variation of the skull shape and how the shape is influenced by the genetics and how the humans are evolved in this process by the selective breeding of animals.