The Canadian Eskimo Dog or Canadian Inuit Dog is a breed of working dog from the Arctic. Other names include qimmiq or qimmit (Inuit language word for "dog"). The Greenland Dog is considered the same breed as the Canadian Eskimo Dog since they have not yet diverged enough genetically to be considered separate breeds, despite their geographic isolation. The breed is threatened with extinction, with a 2008 estimate of only 300 purebred dogs. Although once used as the preferred method of transportation by Inuit in the Canadian Arctic, by the 1960s traditional working dog teams became increasingly rare in the North. Contributing factors to the breed's decline include the increasing popularity of snowmobiles for transportation and the spread of infectious canine diseases. Controversy surrounds the intentional killings of a debated number of Inuit sled dogs between 1950 and 1970 by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, as well as recent efforts to increase the breed's population. Lineage The first dogs arrived in the Americas 12,000 years ago. However, people and their dogs did not settle in the Arctic until the arrival of two groups from Siberia, the Paleo-Eskimo people 4,500 years ago and the Thule people 1,000 years ago. The Inuit dogs from Canada (Canadian Eskimo Dog) and Greenland (Greenland Dog) descended from dogs associated with the Thule people, who relied on them for transportation from Siberia. In 2015, a study using a number of genetic markers indicated that these were both the same dog and should not be treated as separate breeds, that they maintain an indigenous heritage that predates colonization and the timing of which corresponds with the arrival of the Thule people, and that they were distinct from Siberian Huskies, Alaskan huskies and Alaskan Malamutes. The maternal mitochondrial DNA sequences of the Inuit dogs were classified as haplotype A31 that indicates a common female ancestor. This haplotype could not be found in other modern dogs; the nearest match was with the 1,000 year–old remains of a dog from Florida. A 2018 study found that all indigenous dogs originally brought by the first wave of human migration into the Americas, termed the "pre-contact dog" (PCD) clade, are now extinct. The group includes the dogs brought by Paleo-Eskimos 4,500 years ago. The Canadian Eskimo dogs, brought in a later wave by the Thule people, belong to the neighboring group of Arctic dogs. An 2019 study confirms that these later Arctic