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The Descent of Dogs

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Dogs have long been man's best friend, but no one has really been sure how long man and canine have been in association with each other.Scientists now think dogs are from Asia, and have been with us shorter than some people thought. Three teams, working separately on the problem of the origin of dogs, studied Old World dogs, New World dogs and doggy social cognition.
Originally, dogs were thought to have come from the Middle East, like goats, sheep and other livestock. Another theory said dogs were 'regionally' domesticated and came from several local canids around the world, causing the different looks to various types of dogs.

The genetic evidence brought together by two team studying Old and New World dogs points to only 3 founding females having come from Asia about 15,000 years ago and being responsible for 95% of modern dog stock. Intensive breeding by humans over the last 500 years, not different genetic origins, is responsible for the different looking modern dog breeds dogs.

Also studied was the dog's ability to judge human social cues, like facial expression and pointing. This was found to be better in all dogs, even young puppies, than in either wolves or chimpanzees, showing the human 'fingerprint' on dogs is more indelible than you might suppose.

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Hmm.

Well not a whole lot of new things there, except for the area they came from and thier ability to find food(can you say they smelled it?). But it only makes sense that they came from east asia, since domestic dogs did exist in America before Europeans came here(for example the Aztecs used to sacrifice small dogs).

I was watching a show on dogs and wolves the other day. Well dogs and wolves can mate successfully and have fertile puppies. It is thought that domestic dogs are a man made sub-species of wolves, and not a seperate species as was once thought. Humans bread them to be superior in certain areas, so of course they will be masters at finding food and other things that smell.

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The ability of humans & dogs to understand one another is unique among species...just as dogs can easily interperet human cues, such as significant glances, pointed fingers, body stance, and facial expressions, humans innately know when a dog's happy, bored, depressed, playful, angry, possessive, or trying to show us something it's found. And if you think that dog body language is a series of simple animal cues, just put a dog and a cat together. Cats just don't GET dogs. But humans understand 'dog rules', and they understand ours.

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I always found this fascinating myself. A theory, one that may or may not survive this current info, was that humans and wolves, when hunting the same food, often 'tag teamed', watching the cues of each other to help be better, more efficient pack hunters and taking down animals more frequently.

Melissa "MelSkunk" Drake

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That's a pretty good theory! It makes sense too, as after hunting the same prey the more sociable wolves would go with the humans back to camp and eventually over time the wolf would gain attributes to fit in the human society and thus becoming domesticated.

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I think the theory still makes sense. If man spent time 'tag teaming' with wolves, he'd eventually figure out that the more sociable the wolf, the better he'd be at communicating with it...and the wolf, following the hunter back to take some of the food they hunted together, would eventually end up next to the fire with the humans. Eventually, they'd be domesticated.

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Well, *I* am a dog but I find it impossible to understand humans!!!
O_O They become obsessed with things that make them literally seem
like aliens on this planet. Incidentally, there are theories that
they *have* come from another planet... O_O

I newarly lost my furriness to one of them some months ago. It's
a long story, or more accurately, a long *sorry*! :O( To cut it
short : he *pretended* to be a furry, and at some point he got
furious because he misinterpreted my enthusiastic atttitude (<- quite
normal to a furry, especially a canine, isn't it!) as... fanboy
behaviour!!!! O_O All this, incidentally, happened online... O_O
I also see that, the longer I get to know my colleagues at work, the
more they remind me of him!!!!!!! O_O

Well, I certainly *won't* be a man's best friend from now on. They
don't deserve my attention, I don't want theirs either. I have also
learnt to watch out with furries, as some of them are apparently
hy00mans in disguise... O_O

---
A descendant of canines, and definitely proud to be a furry! ^_^
Be a furry too. You'll... sniff the difference!

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About the author

MelSkunk (Melissa Drake)read storiescontact (login required)

a student and Skunk from Toronto, ON, interested in writting, art, classic cars and animals