For clarification purposes I do not believe in 'common ancestors' either.

And you are right. Old-fashioned evolution has undergone revision over
the years, but the basic school-text versions presented are often the
older material, unfortunately.

In my dog example, let's say there was just one species of dog
originally, there are many breeds today but there would still only
be one species.

As I understand it, the idea of common ancestors is that
different species come from the same source(s).

The way I see it, the species on Earth today are exactly the same
as the species on Earth originally. The only difference is variations
within a species.

I do not believe that a common ancestor can branch off several
new species.

Although there are variations within the species, that species is
essentially the same no matter how far back you trace it.
That is my position.

(Instead of few ancestors, the variety and number of species back then
was as varied as it is today...excluding now extinct species)

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