How We Humans Molded Dogs From Wolves
Evolution of dogs
Who doesn’t like dogs? I mean, come on they are just adorable. But, do you know the reason behind why we love dogs so much and why dogs are so loyal to us? Well, the story is quite interesting.
Dogs were the first animal domesticated by humans. Dogs are descended from the gray wolf, domesticated about 130,000 years ago
Do you know we are the ones that made the dogs or we can say helped to evolve the dogs that we pet today?
How dogs domesticated themselves
Our ancestors were wanderers living in small bands. Humans living together in a group used to hunt animals. After finishing their meals, there still were food scraps and other waste. Which was a pretty valuable source for animals who eat meat.
So, it was valuable for the wolves too. But the wolves never considered it a good idea to get close to humans. By natural selection, some wolves were friendlier and less suspicious than others. They were friendly enough to stay close to humans and smart enough to take advantage of eating the scrapes. As they were creating no harm and were only eating the waste, humans didn’t have that much problem with them sticking around.
The boldest and friendliest ones got the most and survived the best. The bolder wolves survived better, reproduced with each other, and had more offspring who were even bolder.
Evolution by natural selection
As we already know one group of wolves split from the forest hunters and went down to a different evolutionary path.
These new groups of wolves evolved into dogs that we pet today.
This new group didn’t need to be as fast and as violent as their ancestors. They even didn’t need to be big. In fact the smaller the better because the smaller animal requires less food.
The more friendly and adorable they were, the more chances they had to be the pet of humans and survive.
How humans influenced the domestication of dogs.
The wolves that humans used to pet, over the times their behavior changed from their ancestors. They got smaller. The smaller they were the more chances of humans to pet them. They got less violent. As they didn’t need to hunt the animals all by themselves. The human did that job, they sure worked as their helpers. They traded their freedom with steady meals. They got the food that they need. With time their loyalty towards humans just kept increasing
There is no such thing as a disloyal dog.
If I roughly explain it, the wolves that were friendly and loyal enough only get to be the pet of humans. They used to kill the dogs that were disloyal to them and they bred the dogs that pleased them. They selected puppies that were loyal and they liked the best. Over time only the loyal ones survived and became dogs that we pet today. So, a dog just can not be disloyal.
Humans even stole wolf pups and raise them on their own and with their dogs. Of course, they still had wolf-like behavior. Still, over time staying close to humans and even reproducing with puppy-like wolf they also changed the path of their ancestors. They also headed to a new evolutionary path. The path that made the dogs.
Survival for the friendliest
The more puppy-like behavior they had, the friendlier they were the more chances they had of survival. So we can even say survival of the friendliest instead of survival of the fittest.
Dogs are known to be the first pet of humans. A 12,0000 year old tomb found in northern Israel. It contains the skeleton of a woman next to a puppy. Her left hand is resting on the dog in a way that might indicate an emotional connection.
Different breeds of dogs
Since Dogs had evolved from grey wolves. You all must be thinking how come now there are so many different breeds of dogs.
Well, let me tell you.
Darwin realized Man can force selection by picking particular individuals for breeding who show a particular characteristic that we want to see in our pets.
Suppose, a pup was born. It had different fur than the others. Humans liked it and they kept it as their pet. The more different it was according to human taste, the more chances it had to survive. So, this different dog reproduced with other dogs and soon enough there were more pups who were different than the others. The variation kept increasing as the different dogs reproduced with the normal dog and gave birth to a new-looking dog.
The dogs that we see now are all sculptured by the humans, themselves.
Humans were smart. They used the dogs in different locations. Some dogs were good at hunting, some were good at guarding, some were good at smelling, some dogs were merely for playing. So the humans gave a particular dog a particular job that he can do best. As time went their working fields got established. With generations, different sectors of dogs evolved into different bone structures, different sizes. That’s how different breeds of dogs were created. Like the hunter dogs are Bloodhound, Greyhound, Pointer. The toy dogs are Royal Poodle, Pomeranian, Shih Tzu. This is called artificial selection.
In 15,000–20,000 years we turned wolves into all the kinds of dogs that we love today. Just think of it, every dog we pet today is sculptured by human hands. Doesn’t matter if it’s a poodle or Husky, their ancestors are wolves. Even your dog’s ancestors are grey wolves.
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