Barbara Holman, age 11, of Cleveland, Ohio, or her question:

Are huskies and malamutes really members of the dog family?

Yes indeed they are. The Siberian husky and the Alaskan malamute are qualified members of the dog family, Canidae. The charming samoyed and the sturdy Eskimo dog also are genuine canine animals. Though members of the same family, they are four different breeds of dog. All of them are specially suited to befriend the human family in polar regions.

Ages ago, an assortment of wild dogs made themselves at home in most parts of the world. Some adjusted to life in the tropics, some to life in the temperate zones, and several wild wolfish types to life in polar cli¬mates. This happened millions of years before the human family arrived on the earth.

For a long time, our early ancestors regarded the dogs as wild enemies, to be fought or avoided. Nobody knows when this policy changed, though most likely it occurred gradually as people decided that some wild dogs were less menacing than others. In any case, there is evidence that the Stone Age people of Europe had friends in the dog family at least 20,000 years ago.

This arrangement started as a sort of trade agreement. They agreed to use their superior sniffers to help man the hunter track down his game animals. Man agreed to reward his half wild helpers with hunks of delicious cooked meat. In time, the dogs were permitted to warm themselves by the campfire and even to take shelter in the family cave.

In those faroff days, our hemisphere was recovering from the last Ice Age. The year round climate was damp and chilly, and man's first friends of the dog family were adjusted to severe weather conditions.. Most likely they wore thick weather proof coats and had large tufted feet for running over the icy slush..

As the glaciers receded, the climate grew milder. But the fossil records of man's first animal friend during this period are sketchy. Some of the shaggy dogs may have gone north with the glaciers. Perhaps other wild dogs, adjusted to southern regions ,moved north and became friendly with the New Stone Age people of Europe.

In any case, several species of wolfish wild dogs were at home in the frozen north when the Eskimos arrived. And some were tamed to become stouthearted work dogs and family pets. In time, four separate breeds of these cold country dogs were developed in and near the Arctic Circle.

The Siberian husky originated in the cold northern regions of the Old World. The Alaskan malamute is a New World breed, domesticated in the Arctic regions of Worth America. They samoyed, who looks like Lassie dressed up for a polar expedition, originated with the northern Lapp peoples.

Some people refer to these three breeds as Eskimo dogs, though actually the true Eskimo dog is a fourth breed. All of these cold climate members of the dog family wear lined, weather proof jackets, with a shaggy top¬coat and a warm woolly undercoat next to the skin. All have extra large feet with tufts of hair between the toes. And all of them are friendly, dependable characters, strong and willing to work.