So, I'm writing a story about a man that ends up in an alternate timeline in modern times where American natives live here without Europeans. I initially thought that Europeans had brought domesticated dogs here, but recently discovered that the pre-Columbian natives did have dogs. Some elements of my story depend on them having never seen a domesticated dog before. Should I change all those parts or can anyone think of a reason (in an alternate timeline) that they wouldn't have?
Possibly the tribe your story is built around don't have dogs? But I guess they'd still have seen them in their dealings with other tribes. You could just have it set in a universe where they never domesticated dogs. Maybe wolves never lived on the American continents. Of course then you'd probably be completely fabricating a major story element, which would feel false.
If you can't just switch the dog to a horse or pony, you could try and just say they'd never seen an orange/brown dog or something like that. I don't think readers will care to look up if a particular breed existed in the Americas in pre-Columbian times. Or maybe they never saw hounds used for hunting and it's like a game changer for them (probably won't work for your plot).
Right. They didn't even have to domesticate the wolves or coyotes that were here. The original Inuits that migrated over the Bering Land Bridge brought domesticated dogs with them.
I thought about that. This one is an Australian Cattle Dog (Blue Heeler). Most of their dogs were bred/used for pulling sleds or travois and wouldn't be as good at tracking scents. -- I know Blue Heeler's aren't exactly bred for hunting, but I'm sure they do need to find stray sheep sometimes. *shrugs*
German Shepherds also weren't exactly bred for hunting, but I have watched demonstrations of German Shepherd police dogs tracking a "fugitive" by scent. The one I watched was able to follow the scent at basically a full run (probably not flat out, but definitely faster than a leisurely trot). Did ALL pre-Columbian tribes have dogs? I'm an American senior citizen, and I have never thought about this. There were literally hundreds of tribes in just the area now encompassed by the continental United States, and I have no idea how many more if you include Central and South America. Even if most had dogs, I don't think it would be much of a stretch to suggest that some tribe, somewhere, did NOT get around to domesticating wolves. https://www.powwows.com/what-does-it-mean-to-be-a-federally-recognized-native-american-tribe/ That 574 only includes those tribes that have federal recognition. I know there are others; some years ago I worked with a young woman who was a member of a small tribe that was seeking federal recognition. I'm sure there are many such tribes.
The problem is that there have been dogs here as long as there have been people. They have existed in the Americas for 9-10k years, just like people have and they came across the land bridge, just like people did. The earliest breeds, the originals that came across with the first humans, have been in their current form, more or less, for 3500 years. I guess the question has to be, how "alternate" do you want your timeline to be? How many changes do you want to make? Because you'd have to figure out some way for the Eurasian gray wolves, from which American dogs (all dogs really) are descended, never came across to the Americas.
There are so many breeds of dogs it would seem easy enough to find a breed that meets your story's needs. It looks like dogs were in the Americas for a much shorter time than they were in Europe so the amount of diversity (aka different breeds) would be markedly greater in Eurasia than in the Americas. Did you investigate when the Australian Cattle Dog first appeared? Australia was populated by Europeans pretty late in history wasn't it? Pick another breed that still works in the story. You kn0w the saying, be prepared to kill your darlings. Maybe this is one of those times.
