What’s furry, cute, and may have ancestral ties to ancient wolves? Possibly, your dog.

Researchers at the New York-based American Museum of Natural History and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History have found that the majority of today’s dogs have wolf ancestry.

Calling the dogs’ ancestral ties to wolves “low but detectable,” the American Museum of Natural History said on its website that these ties may have impacted how dogs’ body size, sense of smell and personality traits.

The scientists analyzed over 2,600 wolf and dog DNA sets and found that 64.1% of modern breed dogs carry wolf ancestry due to genetic crossbreeding nearly 1,000 generations ago, on average. One type of dog in particular, free-roaming village dogs, showed a high amount of wolf ancestry.

Audrey Lin is the study’s lead author and a Gerstner Postdoctoral Scholar in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology at the American Museum of Natural History. Lin said on the museum’s website that wolves are often demonized.

“Prior to this study, the leading science seemed to suggest that in order for a dog to be a dog, there can’t be very much wolf DNA present, if any,” Lin said. “But we found if you look very closely in modern dog genomes, wolf is there. This suggests that dog genomes can ‘tolerate’ wolf DNA up to an unknown level and still remain the dogs we know and love.”

The study was published on Sunday, Nov. 23 in the peer-reviewed journal “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.”

How researchers studied the dog, wolf connection

According to the researchers, dogs as we know them today are the result of evolution among gray wolves who lived thousands of years ago. As people and gray wolves interacted more and more, dogs were domesticated and their gene pools separated, according to the American Museum of Natural History.

For their research, the scientists analyzed 2,693 published dog and wolf DNA sets, including wolves, breed dogs, village dogs, and other canids that lived from millions of years ago to today.

The ancestral connection between wolves and dogs is due to a process called introgression, the researchers said. Introgression occurs when a parent species repeatedly transfers genetic material into the gene pool of another species, according to Science Direct.

It is rare, but animals have done it in order to survive in areas with high altitude survival, the scientists said. They added that this transfer of genetic material from wolves to dogs may have been an adaptation that helped dogs survive “in more challenging environments” and “has likely been an important factor in shaping the evolution of modern dogs.”

Which dog breeds have the most wolf ancestry?

The researchers looked at dogs from multiple breeds who serve different functions, starting with the United Kennel Club’s categories, then categorized the animals into 12 final groups: sled dogs, pariahs, hunting dogs, fighting dogs, sighthounds, hounds, herding dogs, toy dogs, guardian dogs, scenthounds, gundogs and terriers.

Czechoslovakian and Saarloos wolfdogs, which have been intentionally bred with wolves, showed the highest levels of wolf ancestry, or between 23% and 40%, the American Museum of Natural History said.

There are also two Great Anglo-French Tricolor Hounds and one Shiloh Shepherd whose DNA showed more recent, consistent evidence of wolf ancestry.

Here's a breakdown of the three dogs' wolf ancestry and when crossbreeding likely occurred:

  • Great Anglo-French Tricolor Hound # 1 (5.7% wolf ancestry, crossbreeding occurred about 17 to 24 generations ago)
  • Great Anglo-French Tricolor Hound # 2 (4.7% wolf ancestry, crossbreeding occurred about 17 to 24 generations ago)
  • Shiloh Shepherd (2.7% wolf ancestry, crossbreeding occurred about 31 generations ago)

'Most dogs a little bit wolfy'

While the larger breeds seem more obvious to have wolf ancestry, the team also found post-domestication wolf ancestry in smaller dogs like chihuahuas, which have about 0.2% wolf ancestry.

“This completely makes sense to anyone who owns a chihuahua,” Lin said on the American Museum of Natural History’s website. “And what we’ve found is that this is the norm—most dogs are a little bit wolfy.”

The scientists noted multiple patterns in their analysis, including higher wolf ancestry in larger dogs and in those who are bred as Arctic sled dogs, pariah breeds, and hunting dogs, per the American Museum of Natural History.

Terriers, gundogs, and scent hounds have the least wolf ancestry, on average, the museum said.

Wolf ancestry has impacted how dogs function today

The study shows how wolves have helped dogs adapt to their surroundings, like the sense of smell village dogs rely on to find food waste, according to the American Museum of Natural History.

Logan Kistler, curator of archaeobotany and archaeogenomics at the National Museum of Natural History, said on the American Museum of Natural History’s website that wolves have played a large role in dogs and the way they function today.

“Dogs have had to solve all kinds of evolutionary problems that come with living with humans, whether it’s surviving at high altitude, searching for their next meal as they freely roam a village, or protecting the herd, and it seems like they use wolf genes as part of a toolkit to continue their evolutionary success story,” Kistler said.

This story has been updated for clarification.

Saleen Martin is a reporter on USA TODAY's NOW team. She is from Norfolk, Virginia – the 757. Email her at sdmartin@usatoday.com.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Does your dog seem a bit wolfy? A new study explains why.

Reporting by Saleen Martin, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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