The Domestication of the Dog
-Chrissie

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            Dogs were the first animal to be domesticated, even before humanity had settled into permanent agricultural communities. The earliest find of what can with certainty be called a dog, rather than a wolf, was found at Oberkassal, in Bonn, Germany in the early 20th century. It dates to about 14,000 years ago, but fossil evidence indicates that dogs began to stray away from their wolfish origins long before, somewhere between forty and twenty thousand years ago. This means that dogs were the only animal to be fully domesticated while humans were still in a hunter-gatherer stage.

            Dog domestication likely began with wolves staying around human settlements to feed on scraps.  Over time, and over the annual generations of wolves born into packs living near humans, each group became more accustomed to the other. At some point, human hunting was aided by a wolf, or a wolf brought a kill to a settlement during a food shortage, and the kinship truly began. Though there is dispute as to why humans began to domesticate wolves into dogs, there is no question that they were used as hunting companions from very early in the relationship. The dog’s ability to track prey, chase it to exhaustion, and hold it for the human hunter certainly weighed in its favor as a member of the community. It seems that this story played out in different places around the same time, as there is no one location from which we can say all dogs are derived. Agriculture developed similarly, with separate populations coming to the same ideas and methods at about the same time.

            Once the relationship was established, humanity could begin manipulating the species to their own ends. The wolves near the human settlements were likely outliers in their own packs, lacking the aggression to make themselves dominant and making them more likely to look for other pack-like relationships. The fact that they were feeding on scraps, rather than being first to a kill, played into the fact that lower-status wolves would have scavenged after their higher-status packmates. In this way, humans inadvertently established themselves as dominant.

For many reasons, not the least of which is the carnivorous nature of the wolf, the term “domestication” doesn’t quite fit with how the dog-human relationship developed. Domestication usually refers to the selective breeding to better produce food and/or goods for humans; this is not the case with dogs, whose ancestors were not bred for their furs, hides, or meat. It may be more accurate to use the term “socialized” when discussing the dog, as their relationship with humanity is unique, and is more akin to the relationships within each species. This does not mean, however, that humanity did not seek to reinforce desirable traits: strength, intelligence, the ability to understand and react appropriately to human behavior and human communication were all factors.

Dogs have been so closely related to human society for so long that there are genetic markers of changes that occurred at the same time for both species. Because dogs accompanied humans as they moved into different environments, similar reactions to changes in climate, food type and supply, and geography can be seen. Dogs are also unusual in that they suffer from some of the same pathologies as humans: cancers, heart disease, neurological disorders, and diabetes all occur in dogs much more commonly than in other non-primates.

In more recent centuries, as dogs moved away from the hunting and protective roles, selective breeding has produced hundreds of different types of dogs, ranging from miniature poodles to mastiffs. But, no matter their size or temperament, they all harken back to those wolves skirting the light of a campfire, hoping for some food and affection.