page_title: New Guinea singing dog
section_title: Relationship with humans
hierarchical_section_title: New Guinea singing dog / Relationship with humans
caption_attribution_description: English: Singing Dog Murray Being Trained
context_page_description: The New Guinea singing dog or New Guinea Highland dog is a dog native to the New Guinea Highlands of the island of New Guinea. Its taxonomic status is debated. It is closely related to the Australian dingo.
  The dog is noted for its unique vocalization. Little is known about New Guinea singing dogs in the wild, and there are only two photographs of possible wild sightings. In 1989, the Australian mammalogist Tim Flannery took a photo of a black-and-tan dog in Telefomin District. He wrote that these dogs live with native people in the mountains, and that there were feral populations living in the alpine and sub-alpine grasslands of the Star Mountains and the Wharton Range. The photo was published in his book Mammals of New Guinea. In 2012, Australian wilderness adventure guide Tom Hewett took a photo of a tawny, thick-coated dog in the Puncak Mandala region of West Papua, Indonesia.
  In 2016, a literature review found that there is no definitive evidence that the founding members of captive populations of New Guinea singing dogs were wild-living animals; they were raised as members of village populations of domestic dogs.
context_section_description: The onset of European culture's domestic dogs spelled the beginning of the end for pure New Guinea singing dogs in the lowlands. "Singing Dogs are very gentle and friendly with people, though inclined to be a bit shy with strangers at first," wrote New York owner Phillip Persky. "They are not at all aggressive with people" Sharon McKenzie said. "They are notorious escape artists," Mr. Persky reported, "and can climb and jump with cat-like agility, so enclosures have to be secure." "They are great diggers and can climb fences as easily as a squirrel."
  According to reports from the late 1950s and mid-1970s, wild dogs believed to be New Guinea singing dogs were shy and avoided contact with humans. It was reported in the mid-1970s that the Kalam in the highlands of Papua caught young New Guinea singing dogs and raised them as hunting aids, but did not breed them. Some of these dogs probably stayed with the Kalam and reproduced. The Eipo tribe kept and bred wild dogs as playmates for their children. Although the majority of the highland tribes never used village dogs as a food source, it is known that even today they attempt to catch, kill and eat wild dogs. Dog-findings in archaeological sites of New Guinea are rare, mostly consisting of teeth (used as ornaments) and trophy-skulls. One grave has been discovered. The earliest New Guinea singing dog remains was a tooth found in the lowlands. It was estimated to be about 5,500 years old. Findings from the highlands were thought to be of similar age, on a stratigraphical basis, but as of 2001 had not been dated. Since the beginning of the 20th century, the inhabitants of the highlands started to keep chickens, and New Guinea singing dogs had a penchant for poultry. To add to the problem, natives kept other domestic dogs. The crossbred dogs were generally larger in size, as well as less of a challenge to train, so they tended to be of more value than New Guinea singing dogs. One might conclude that the relationship between the contemporary New Guineans and their dogs will give information about how they treated the New Guinea singing dogs, but modern "village dogs" are not genetically representative of pure New Guinea singing dogs.
caption: Singing dog being trained for rare breed show competition.
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