Libby is an indigenous North American wild dog known as a “Carolina Dog” also called an “American Dingo” She is a rescue dog, but in an unusual way: she and her six litter mates were found in the forest by hikers who assumed they had stumbled onto a litter of abandoned domestic pups. They brought the litter to a rescue agency. Rescue volunteers took their best guess as to the pups’ breed but nobody really had a clue. As part of its call for foster families, the rescue group published the pups’ photo (as the "bathtub babies")…at which point, the Carolina Dog Association recognized them for what they were. So, as one wag put it, Libby could also be considered a “kidnapped dog”.
Because they are rescue dogs, the pups were all spayed or neutered; this was enough to bring the Carolina Dog Association to tears – and understandably so. The CDA is working to save this rare dog through a captive breeding program. To find a litter fresh from the wild was a stroke of luck and the pups might have contributed to the genetic variability necessary to the program’s long-term success. Libby is, in fact, the only one of the litter with a “soft coat” -- that is, a longer, thicker coat that is the least common and apparently impossible to select for in breeding.
Libby is sweet-tempered, gentle, non-aggressive, sociable, affectionate, highly intelligent and easily trainable. She gets along with cats, likes people and other dogs and loves kids. In addition, despite the long, thick coat, she sheds little and dirt seems to slide right off of her.
The preliminary DNA testing by University of South Carolina’s College of Science & Mathematics shows a likely strong genetic link between Carolina Dogs and other primitive breeds like the Australian Dingo, the New Guinea Singing Dog and the Korean Jindo. Brisbin stated, “We grabbed them out of the woods based on what they look like, and if they were just dogs their DNA patterns should be well distributed throughout the canine family tree. But they aren’t. They’re all at the base of the tree, where you would find very primitive dogs.” 