Eighteenth-century explorers in the Pacific Northwest, around the Salish Sea, observed that native people kept a certain breed of domestic dog and harvested its fur to spin and weave into cloth. The Salish woolly dog was a small and beloved pet, which produced a fibrous fur that proved to be much warmer than sheep's wool. The woolly dogs were an emblem of the Skokomish Nation and represented wealth.
As Europeans settled in the PNW, the woolly dog went extinct in the late 1800s. We have blankets and fabric made from their fur, but only one example of the breed itself, in a pelt saved from a dog named Mutton, which was sent to a Smithsonian representative in 1859. In 2021, evolutionary molecular biologist Audrey Lin began a DNA study of Mutton's pelt. The DNA analysis revealed the woolly dog's genetic lineage, the Skokomish breeding traditions, and the fact that it had 28 genes controlling the production of its unique fur. Lin even found evidence of Mutton's diet, and how it varied from dogs raised by natives. You'll find the full science paper here. -via Metafilter
(Image credit: Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History)