University of Maine researcher Samuel Belknap III found a bone fragment of what he says... (Associated Press) 
 
 Researcher Samuel Belknap III works at his microscope in his research lab, Friday, Jan. 14, 2011, at the University of Maine in Orono. University of Maine graduate student Samuel Belknap III came across the fragment while analyzing a dried-out sample of human waste unearthed in southwest Texas in the 1970s. A carbon-dating test put the age of the bone at 9,400 years, and a DNA analysis confirmed it came from a dog _ not a wolf, coyote or fox, Belknap said. The discovery was somewhat unintended, because Belknap wasn't trying to dig up old bones from dogs. Rather, he was looking into the diet and nutrition of the people who lived in the Lower Pecos region of Texas between 1,000 and 10,000 years ago.  The world's oldest known domesticated dog from the Americas weighed about 30 pounds, lived 9,400 years ago in Texas, and wound up as some person's dinner, according to a University of Maine press release. Belknap and other researchers from the University of Maine and the University of Oklahoma's molecular anthropology laboratories, where the DNA analysis was done, have written a paper on their findings. Belknap, a UMaine researcher in the Department of Anthropology and Climate Change Institute, plans to publish his findings in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology as well as other scientific journals. Small Dogs Originated in the Middle East 
 
 The researchers did some more investigating and determined the bone fragment closely matched that of a short-nosed Indian Dog from New Mexico. What's left of the dog -- a skull fragment and a possible foot bone -- strongly suggests that the canine was cared for by humans before being butchered, cooked and consumed. Other archaeological digs have put dogs in the U.S. dating back 8,000 years or more, but this is the first time it has been scientifically proved that dogs were here that far back, he said. For many years, researchers thought that dog bones from an archaeological site in Idaho were 11,000 years old, but additional testing put their age at between 1,000 and 3,000 years old, he said. The earliest dogs in North America are believed to have come with the early settlers across the Bering land bridge from Asia to the Americas 10,000 years ago or earlier, said Wayne, who has not seen Belknap's research. "It was definitely an accepted practice among many populations," he said.
– The first known domesticated dog in the Americas lived some 9,400 years ago and likely provided its owner with company, security, and, eventually, dinner, an ancient bone fragment suggests. A University of Maine researcher found the bone fragment in a prehistoric sample of human waste in Texas. DNA testing confirmed that it came from a dog and not a wolf, AP reports. Researchers believe American dog breeds, like the ancient pooch, are descended from Eurasian wolves that crossed the Bering land bridge along with human settlers. “I didn’t start out looking for the oldest dog in the New World,” the researcher tells Discovery. “I started out trying to understand human diet in southwest Texas. It so happens that this person, who lived 9,400 years ago, was eating dog."