Everyone knows that dogs evolved from wolves, but do you know how?
Your furry best friend didn’t always have the social intuition to embrace human contact and love. One of the best ways to understand your current relationship with your pet is to understand the evolution of the dog species through domestication.
The start of the domestication process, taming a dog and keeping it as a pet or possession, is very blurry and hard to define, specifically because it is believed that many areas of the world started domesticating dogs at different times and in different ways. The process is thought to have commenced around ten-thousand years ago when wolves were first put into beneficial contact with humans (Yong). There are two theories that are most supported by historians, although still debated. The first is that humans started breeding canines to have specific traits through taming and breeding them to benefit the hunter-gatherers (Yong). The other is that canines, who were scavengers, started to follow human hunters in order to find food and other resources, slowly becoming tamer over the generations (Yong). Although the exact location of these theories is still unknown today, the theories have historical basis through ancient artifacts, illustrations, and through osteology methods.
In addition, the species of wolves that dogs come from is supposedly extinct, making location and evolution facts even harder for historians to agree upon and for general genetic analysis (Yong). Humans, naturally survivalists and exploitative, used canines for their benefits. These benefits consisted of retrieving food, protection, and health benefits. Because of the need to keep dogs as human companions, canines were already being trained at the start of the domestication process. As generations of dog and human relationships continued, canines became dependent on humans to some extent for their basic needs, which has strengthened the bond from the dog’s perspective (Stregowski).
,Both cognitive and motivational effects are still being analyzed today through new research and findings, however, it is generally agreed upon that the evolution of dogs separates the species from wolves as being more social, toleration, and attentive, and having a better basis for cooperation (Range, Viranyi). It is also a possibility, that dogs may just have a greater capability to accept humans as their social partners rather than having these characteristics. Many historians and canine researchers have analyzed new information through the Canine Cooperation Hypothesis. This hypothesis states that wolves actually do have the characteristics to be socially attentive, tolerant, and cooperative. What is known about the evolution of the dog-human relationship is that the two species have gone through convergent evolution (Range, Viranyi). This means that the evolution of each species has changed and affected in some way just as it has been affected by the other. Interestingly, this makes it true that dogs have a social behavior and cognitive effect on humans and have, therefore, affected human evolution.
This relationship is usually long-term symbiosis, meaning that they benefit from each other. In this situation, the the dog provides aid for humans in many ways and humans in return provides food and security. This co-dependence results in not only humans domesticating dogs, but dogs also domesticating humans. This is proven by the changes present in both of the species brains. Both of the brains decreased in size over the time the species have interacted, by twenty percent for dogs and by one-tenth for humans (Range, Viranyi). This does indicate that dogs are more reliant on humans than the opposite, but it does hold truth in the fact that humans do somewhat rely on dogs, an unknown truth for most.
The overall domestication process is based on the understanding that dogs have been chosen to be the human’s permanent species partner, specifically for cooperation and communication (Range, Viranyi). With both species being capable of recognizing, genetic tendencies within dogs is possible to obtain and develop skills that humans have already have. Due to this, dog domestication has caused canines to have the ability tp participate in cooperative problem solving through social tolerance and social attentiveness (Range, Viranyi). In addition, these qualities give dogs the ability to alter and adjust their behaviors for the benefit of matching their social partner (Range, Viranyi). The genetic explanations for social tolerance have prompted many questions in the modern-day sciences of psychology, biochemistry, and molecular biology, and new discoveries in each field are necessary for further understanding of the effects of the dog domestication process.
Works Cited
Range, Friederike, and Zsófia Virányi. “The Canine Cooperation Hypothesis.” Frontiers in Psychology, Frontiers Media S.A., 15 Jan. 2015,
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4295532/.
Stregowski, Jenna. “The Special Bond Between Humans and Dogs.” The Spruce, The Spruce, 19 Mar. 2018, www.thespruce.com/the-human-canine-bond-1117458.
Yong, Ed. “A New Origin Story for Dogs.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 2 June 2016, www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/06/the-origin-of-dogs/484976/.
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