Sorry but the wolf has more genetic viability than any dog breed out there. Surely you know that their DNA deviates less than 1% yet there are many many attributes in the dog’s DNA that have been turned-off and can not be reversed w/o much inter-breeding w/ the wolf. How about you take just 2 dachschunds and breed them back into wolves.
We do have mutations, all living things do, but the survivors obviously have not accumulated enough genetic drift to be driven to extinction. I’ll grant you that a few species have gone extinct due to negative changes in their selected environments but certainly not all.
The notion that dogs are “de-evolved” wolves makes no sense in light of the fact that I can find a breed of dog that can beat a wolf in just about any test of physical ability you care to name. If something can be “de-evolved” and yet have MORE genetic variability, and yet be faster, stronger, smarter, a better digger, etc - then the term “de-evolved” means what exactly?
If you are positing accumulation of mutation as the main cause of extinction, what mechanism protected the species that are extant upon the Earth that failed to protect those that went extinct supposedly due to mutation?
Why did, for example, the dire wolf go extinct through mutation, but not the wolf? Why did dinosaurs die of mutations but not present day mammalian species?
And why would a bacteria have a mechanism to increase its mutation rate during stress if mutation just caused “De-evolution”?
Maybe because, like a dog from a wolf, what you call “de-evolution” means increased genetic diversity and increased abilities?
If so, maybe we can just drop the “de-”. It is evolution. There is no loss of viability, or ability, and an INCREASE in genetic diversity going from the wolf to dogs.