Study shown here: http://sloughi.tripod.com/preserving/SloughiAidiPortuguesedogsPires2.html

In recent genetic sequencing, the LGDs of Portugal (EMD, Alentejo mastiff, Castro Laboreiro dog and Transmontano Mastiff) and the Spanish Mastiff, were found to be very different, and the SM actually being closer related to the North African dogs as well as the Portuguese hunting and herding breeds.

This is very puzzling to say the least and has me scratching my head a lot. There goes the idea that rural workers/stockmen are only interested in looking for function in a working dog and aren't concerned about political boundaries... at least in this case.

I personally spoke to Carla Cruz about this as she is credited having involvement in the study by providing the DNA samples, including those of the SMs.... And the SMs that she sampled were working bred individuals (non show stock) found in the province of Leon in the northwest of Spain - an area which borders on Portugal in some areas to the south. Only one dog sequenced was a show-bred SM - the AEPME dogs - which is yet again a very different animal, but I'll get into that later...What she told me:

we followed FAO's criteria for breed - population of dogs ressembling each other and recognized by the local population as belonging to breed X. Then, for those animals, we also sampled those least related to each other, to maximize genetic variability

And apparently, someone in Spain on another forum, had sequenced all working line SMs from the provinces of León, Zamora, Palencia, Ávila, Salamanca y Cáceres and got the same results in regards to SM sequencing from the Pires study.

I'm interested, what are your opinions or theories that may explain this?