Though these little-known dogs may have been useful for hunting small animals and were said to gather around their owners to keep them warm, they were also described by some South American explorers as displaying a lack of loyalty to their masters. This domesticated form of the culpeo, known as the Fuegian dog, was found only in parts of South America and is now extinct. But I have included it on this list because it is believed to have given rise to the only domesticated dog breed that isn’t descended from the grey wolf. The culpeo doesn’t look very much like a weird wild dog. Its Latin name, Lycalopex, means ‘wolf-fox’. The culpeo is intermediate in size between a red fox and a coyote.

It lives in the west of the continent and is most common on the slopes of the Andes Mountains. Despite that name, though, it isn’t closely related to the true foxes. The second-largest canid in South America (the biggest is Number 4 on this list), the culpeo is also known as the Andean fox. We start with a wild dog that you probably haven’t heard of. To continue our celebration of Dog Day, read on to find out about five really weird wild dogs that we share our planet with. By and large, wild members of the dog family – also called canids – are not quite so varied, but there are still a few oddballs in the group. They are easily the most popular pet in the world and they come in a huge variety of shapes and sizes.

Almost a quarter of all UK households own at least one dog.

Big wild dogs