Adult muscles derive from somitic (limb and trunk) and presomitic (craniofacial) muscle precursors . The extraocular and jaw-closer (temporalis and masseter) specialized muscles are known as "special" muscles since they originate from presomitic muscles. This study aims to: 1) isolate satellite cells, myogenic precursor cells (MPC) from canine somitic (vastus lateralis, rectus abdominus, gluteus superficialis, biceps femoris, psoas) and presomitic (lateral rectus, temporalis- M fiber, retractor bulbi and masseter) muscles ; 2) analyze MPC population doublings (pdl); 3) evaluate MPC differentiation and fusion; 4) characterize expression of MPC myogenic proteins; 5) evaluate telomerase activity; 6) evaluate the [Ca²⁺]i homeostasis. Growth curves and pdl data showed that SDM-MPC rapidly undergo senescence and stop to proliferate at average of 20 pdl. Consistently telomerase activity is higher in PSDM-MPC than SDM-MPC although restricted at early passages. Differences have been found among MPC samples for the expression of early (Pax7, MyoD) and late (MyHC) myogenic markers allowing SDM-MPC to better fuse and differentiate. Moreover, SDM-myotubes reveled a more efficient functionally differentiation with respect to PSDM-myotubes. Our results showed that presomitic MPCs elicit a stronger stem cell phenotype compared to somitic ones, since PSDM-MPCs proliferate longer and differentiate less efficiently than SDM-MPCs.