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."

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