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Q: How did dogs get to be "man's best friend"?
A: Our relationship with wolves goes back to about
20,000 B.C., when herds of large prey roamed the last Ice
Age landscape, hunted by both wolves and men, says Deidre
Barrett in "Supernormal Stimuli." Wolf packs chased and
trapped game faster than humans but had no chance against
the largest mammoths, which is where humans came in with
their spears and arrows. "Evidence is that humans and wolf
packs hunted together from 20,000 B.C. to 15,000 B.C., with
humans who liked wolves being more likely to live to
reproduce, just as were wolves who liked humans."
By 10,000 B.C., humans were beginning to turn wolves
into domestic dogs and to use them to control other animals
rather than kill them. The assignment of different tasks
led to breeds taking on different traits--retrievers,
shepherders, guards and personal pets. Diverse dog breeds
accented cuteness, with larger eyes, floppy ears and
behaviors such as whining, barking and submissiveness--
neotonous characteristics that wolves generally show as pups
but then outgrow. Dogs were given their own species
designation of "canis familiarus," though they can still
interbreed easily with wolves. "That's from wolf to dog
over a span of 12,000 years."
Send questions to StrangeTrue@ameritech.net.
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