But to stay in keeping with your "'dog' would be considered a class of it's own' it could no longer remain a member of the class mammalia.
At this point, mammals would no longer have a rank, or they'd probably get a different rank. But dogs would still be mammals. Just like mammals today are still therapsids.
A taxonomist living in the time of early basal mammals wouldn't rank mammals as a class either. Perhaps instead, mammalia would be a small genus in the class of therapsids.
I'll leave you with the last word here if you want it. I'm done.
Yes. Mammalia, the clade, currently has a rank. In such a scenario with the dog diversification, the mammalian clade would lose it's rank(which is currently "class").
Where do I say that clades are ranks? I don't. But some clades
have ranks. Some don't. What's so hard to understand about that?
You're taking what I say way out of context.
