A husky is a sled dog used in the polar regions. One can differentiate huskies from other dog types by their fast pulling-style. They represent an ever-changing crossbreed of the fastest dogs (the Alaskan Malamute, by contrast, pulled heavier loads). Humans use huskies in sled-dog racing. In recent years,various companies have marketed tourist treks with dog sledges for adventure travelers in snow regions.
Genetic studies comparing dogs with modern wolves show reciprocal monophyly (separate groups), which implies that dogs are not genetically close to any living wolf and that their wild ancestor is extinct.An extinct Late Pleistocene wolf may have been the ancestor of the dog,with the dog's similarity to the extant grey wolf being the result of genetic admixture between the two.In 2020, a literature review of canid domestication stated that modern dogs were not descended from the same Canis lineage as modern wolves, and proposes that dogs may be descended from a Pleistocene wolf closer in size to a village dog.
The word husky originated from the word referring to aboriginal Arctic people, in general, Eskimo, "known as 'huskies', a contraction of 'Huskimos', the pronunciation given to the word 'Eskimos' by the English sailors of trading vessels." The use of husky is recorded from 1852 for dogs kept by Inuit people.
Nearly all dogs' genetic closeness to the gray wolf is due to admixture.[7] However, several Arctic breeds also show a genetic closeness with the now-extinct Taimyr wolf of North Asia due to admixture: the Siberian Husky and Greenland Dog (which are also historically associated with Arctic human populations) and to a lesser extent, the Shar Pei and Finnish Spitz. An admixture graph of the Greenland Dog indicates a best-fit of 3.5% shared material.however, an ancestry proportion ranging between 1.4% and 27.3% is consistent with the data and indicates admixture between the Taimyr wolf and the ancestors of these four high-latitude breeds.
This introgression could have provided early dogs living in high latitudes with phenotypic variation beneficial for adaption to a new and challenging environment, contributing significantly to the development of the husky. It also indicates that the ancestry of present-day dog breeds descends from more than one region.
Huskies are energetic and athletic. They usually have a thick double coat that can be gray, black, copper red, or white. The double coat generally protects huskies against harsh winters and, contrary to what most believe, they can survive in hotter climates. During the hotter climates, huskies tend to shed their undercoat regularly to cool their bodies. In addition to shedding, huskies control their eating habits based on the season; in cooler climates, they tend to eat generous amounts, causing their digestion to generate heat, whilst in warmer climates, they eat less. Their eyes are typically pale blue, although they may also be brown, green, blue, yellow, or heterochromic. Huskies are more prone to some degree of uveitis than most other breeds.
