Mark Derr lays out the case that they aren’t as different as people try to make them.
There is a certain nuttiness that tends to pop up with both wolves and dogs.
We know that there are lots of crazy dog people.
But when we start talking about wolves, three quarters of the population falls into either pathological wolf-haters or wolfaboos.
It’s very likely that we were once very much into wolves. We probably encouraged them to live near us, and eventually, we included them in our hunts.
I agree very much with Mark Derr that the big dividing line between wolves and dogs and between people and wolves happened when we began to keep sheep and goats as livestock.
If a wolf, even one living in the camp, killed a sheep, it would be killed or driven off.
So dogs are largely descended from wolves that could learn to live with sheep and goats, and modern wolves are descended from those who could not or never were selected for tolerance toward those species in the first place.
Modern wolves are as much of a result of human selection as they are natural selection. Or maybe a better way to put it is human selection pressure is part of the natural selection process, since we have such a huge impact on any environment in which we live. Just because we haven’t deliberately chosen which wild wolves get to breed doesn’t mean we haven’t caused them to diverge from their ancestors which existed before we came along & invented civilization. Dogs are just the wolves we’ve had a direct hand in.
I don’t get the wolf hating/wolf worshiping paradigm. I very much love, admire, & respect wolves, but they aren’t sweet, fluffy, harmless animals. They should neither be eradicated nor put on some kind of pedestal.
I think the worship is just one extreme as a reaction to another extreme. There may be some thought that two extremes will = an averaging out of sorts? A 50 lb rock on one end of the scale becomes a total tip over. The only way to even things out is to find another 50 lbs rock for the other end.
The haters/ worshippers are the ends of the bell curve?
>>>>>>>> I very much love, admire, & respect wolves, but they aren’t sweet, fluffy, harmless animals.>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Just give me one wild animal that is like that. A fly, a rabbit, a seagull ? Sweet and harmless, eh? That’s only very antropocentric, my dear, not thought-thru at all.
Actually it’s odd why the wolf has gotten the number one status in the list of the most hated creatures in the Western Countries, since now only 1% of the population in the US are farmers and the population of wolves are at its lowest as ever in the history. So I believe this must be cause of something else.
Retrieverman should be careful in using his home-brew term “wolfaboo”, since it’s clear that the people loving wolves are mostly kids and youngsters who use the wolf as a SYMBOL for their hopes and dreams for their future in this collapsing world. So, I don’t think it’s wise to call these people idiots on that basis, as RM seems to do every other month in this blog.
The big Q is, are we too domesticated to get anything right anymore ?!
Um, I said they AREN’T sweet, fluffy, harmless animals.
And I said, NONE is.
If you say something is not fluffy, then there must be something that IS fluffy to you. Right?
So what are these fluffy, cute wild things?
If you think it’s a fluffy rabbit, well go and pet, and you’ll surely have your finger biten half, possibly a disease too.
Australia is famous for its dangerous snakes. Many of them are so fatal that you only have some minuits to take medicine and go to hospital.
No-one’s declaring a massacre against them, there’s no question about that kinda human right / political action. But in the North that’s very possible.
I believe western world people have just got too domesticated. The wild nature is either “fluffy and sweet” as Anna puts it, or unwanted and ugly.
Because of that radical simplification, certain hysterical, charismatic persons get thru and have loads of followers. Then they go to the authorities, who now are too week to resist. And here we go again, a good concervation politics has been totally smashed up. We’ll never get a serious big beast politics here.
The phenomenon that shows people’s domestication-out-of- nature-and-own-feelings especially well is they need experts like Cesar Milan to teach them how to teach and live with a canis.
Stunning regression, and look in what time.
Since the topic of the post is wolves, I was referring to wolves. So color me confused. Do you think that because I don’t think wolves are Disney characters, I somehow think other animals *are*? And if so, why did you come to that conclusion from so little information? Why, if I think people should neither demonize nor deify wolves, would you think I demonize or deify any other animal? I find people who needlessly fear the natural world & want to kill everything as well as people who think the natural world is a Disney film to be equally ridiculous in their views.
Animals are animals. They’re not bloodthirsty heartless killers they’re not little angels from heaven above. They’re amoral. All of them. Domesticated animals included. Neither of the prevailing extreme views of animals are correct. I just referred to wolves in my initial comments because this blog post is specifically about the wolf hating/wolf loving dichotomy.
I was just pointing out that the black-and-white dicothomy; the disney and the beast; the yes-or-no-idiot lives in our language, inside heads of every one’s and that I’m so against it.
What comes to your “cutting argument” animals being amoral… Gotta tell you that by my own experience and studies, humans are usually “double – amoral”, more a less, because they PRETEND to be moral, which they are not “on the next corner”, you know what I mean? That’s why I’d say humans are natural-born hunters, they keep on hunting the commodious (social) chances to get them to the upper branch of the status hierarchy. Of course, all the mammals do this, but the man has made this an art and culture.
Another great quote from Mr. Derr to take home: “…the only reason wolves do not belong in the company of people is because people will harm them.”
We’ve had discussions on this issue so many times before. Its a shame we can’t have some impact on those who belong to the two extreme camps mentioned (reminds one of the current US political climate doesn’t it?)
There are ways and means to alleviate the impact of wolf predation on human activities such as ranching, if those impacted are willing to consider them (& if those who would place wolves upon a pedestal would stop attacking–forcing their opposite numbers into a defensive posture.)
This is not a black and white issue. Apex predators such as wolves are indeed good for the environment, benefitting all species w/in same, including H. sap, and adding to overall species diversity–a very good thing it turns out. But, wolves do kill and maim livestock (as do dogs, tick-borne diseases, tornadoes, etc.)
We need to take both sides of the equation under consideration and come up with programs that provide the most benefit for the greatest number (including the wolves.) The right type of LGDs are part of a workable solution, as are in-situ human attendants (cowhands, shepherds), remuneration programs, relocation & targeted hunting to eliminate particularly problematic individuals (this last an activity which if handled correctly could foot the bill for both remuneration & education programs.) Neither wide-scale culls/extermination programs nor a strict hands-off policy will fill the bill.
Lets all try to reach those in a position to affect policy in this regard to end the Wolf Pogroms and institute smart management practices. (We could really, really use a Temple Grandin on behalf of wolves right now.)
Everything you said. Everything.
It’s like the differences between men and women: we all know there are differences, but nobody can define them to everyone else’s satisfaction. As for Mark Derr, he writes without the benefit of evidence. Sure, it’s all plausible, but we still don’t know what actually happened. That bothers me – I know it doesn’t bother everyone.
I’m always hearing the drums of ideology and with this wolf/dog question I hear some sort of attempt to dignify the humble dog. Kind of like searching the family tree for royal ancestors. All of these animals have to find a way to survive in spite of us. The dog gets up close and personal. The wolf stays far away, usually. They may be just alternative ways to cope with us.
Hi K; I may be misinterpreting the thrust of your comments here. If so, my apologies in advance. But I have to ask, how does ascribing the domestic dog’s descent to wolves somehow ‘dignify’ it? The simple truth is that there are very distinct behavioral, morphological & genetic concordances between the two. Based on that evidence logic indicates that the one is the ancestor of the other.
As for Mark Derr, he places his hypothesis out there, but in keeping w/ scientific method he can’t prove it, he can only present his evidence and train of logic based on same. Its up to others to refute or confirm his hypothesis, through the mechanisms of analysis & critical thinking. If you believe his theory is wrong then please provide the contrary (& overriding) evidence. Those of us who subscribe to Scottie’s Blog are by and large reasonable and open-minded people. We’re willing to listen to well thought out alternatives.
If you suggest that dog and wolf parted company before domestication, no one likes the idea. (Nevermind that there’s no physical evidence. There’s no evidence either way.) We like the scenario of dog from wolf. Also, I hear emphasis on the similarities of dog to wolf, never the differences. I believe that once upon a time, wolf was regarded as a low, untrustworthy savage. Then he became elevated to “noble savage”. Meanwhile, the simple, faithful dog fell from grace from noble and loyal to sort of a stupid creature. I believe we are now trying to identify the “poor, dumb dog” with the noble savage. If not, why are people trying to cross breed them? What set of beliefs informs that?
Then there’s Coppinger vs Derr. I don’t like Coppinger, either. We don’t like wolf the scavenger (I don’t either). We prefer wolf the co-operative hunter, however rarely that sort of thing happens. There is plenty of folklore to the effect that people once feared wolves. And bred dogs to kill them. Instances of man-wolf co-operation are rare and remarkable for that reason.
So, there are lots of possible scenarios. Some are plausible, some not so much. But we have very strong and unexplained preferences, IMO.
The reason why no one likes that idea is because it’s not true. If you could get the image of all wolves being 140 pound monsters from Alaska out of your head, and realize that modern dog lineages are most likely derived from small Middle Eastern wolves that look a lot like dingoes, it makes a whole lot more sense.
There is no Canis x. Even if it did exist, we’d still have to call it a wolf. It’s like saying that humans derived from apes, but then saying that ancestor wasn’t an ape.
And dogs and wolves are much, much closer to each other than humans are to the other apes. Wolves are to dogs what more like archaic versions of Homo sapiens are to us.
Thank you. That clarifies things a bit. See, the small Middle Eastern wolves don’t look like dingoes to me. They look like small gray wolves to me. I can’t begin to describe it; it’s about the shape of the skull. And maybe the big feet and the very narrow chest. And the fact that they are gray. That’s C. arabs I’m thinking of. European wolves, including Italian wolves, look more dog-like to me. (Dog and wolf are closely related, genetically; there’s no denying that.)
I do like the analogy to archaic humans, though: wolf as the robust, northern, Neanderthal of canids. Could it be that on one or another waxing of glaciers, wolf retreated south all the way into Africa and Arabia, then was left behind when the glacier waned and other wolves and other animals migrated north again? This might have happened several times, as for the simian wolf, the Arabian/Iranian wolf and that new one from N. Africa. There must be many such occurrences with many taxa having northern and southern variants. What if dog is one of these southern variants? What if the whole dog taxon was domesticated, so that there are no wild ones left? Like the dromedary – there are no wild dromedaries.
How wolf became dog is still a mystery. Even if we believe that the domestication process, whatever it entailed, was begun on wolf and that domestication was what turned wolf into dog, we have to explain how the skull became smaller, for instance. And why so many dogs are yellow, not gray. What about the domestication process brought about these changes? The similarities are all well and good, but we still have to explain the differences.
There are wolves that have pheomelanin. http://media.photobucket.com/image/recent/Jepa1/forumkuvat/LassiRautiainenFinnishyellowwolfjump.jpg
Humans are visual animals, and whenever this color popped up, they selected for it. You don’t need to make up a whole new species to fit this animal. Maybe there were lots of yellow colored wolves at the beginning of dog domestication, or it was just a mutation that we selected for. We just don’t know.
Again, you’re not listening. If we were to see the ancestor of the domestic dog, there is no way we’d call it anything other than a wolf. If we did, we’d have to reclassify the entire species of Canis lupus into about 25 different species, which we absolutely won’t do.
I actually don’t have to tell you why dogs are smaller than big northern wolves, because 1. dogs are not derived from them and 2. Middle Eastern wolves, which are the wolves most closely related to extant dog lineages, have a gene that is very similar to the small dog gene. Some Arabian wolves weigh only 25 pound. Indeed, golden retrievers, which were found to be very closely related to Middle Eastern wolves, are actually quite a bit larger than Arabian wolves, and the same goes with English mastiffs. Maybe the question ought to be, why are these dogs so much larger than their likely ancestors?
The genetic evidence is showing that many of our assumptions about dogs– that they are smaller than their wolf ancestors, that they always have smaller brains– is simply not true. The problem is the remaining wolves that Westerners know best are big wolves that have evolved to hunt large ungulates. These are actually quite derived animals, and although, these animals did experience some domestication (see the Goyet cave “dog”), the bulk of dogs we have today are derived from Middle Eastern wolves, which are not as a derived from the jackal-like ancestor of all wolves.
The red/yellow color exists in wolves and coyotes, too, but you still have the tipped outer coat and agouti pattern in wolf. (I think that’s the correct word.) Seems too far from dingo or pariah color to be simple selection by people who are just getting around to domesticating the animal. Seems more like a multiple step transformation, possibly as natural selection for a warm climate. You say it may have been possible that there were a lot of yellow wolves around. That’s what I mean: a wolf that isn’t quite like a modern wolf. Besides which, how could selection by people affect the whole dog/dingo taxon, world wide?
I agree that the common ancestor of dog and wolf is something I would call wolf; I just think that something happened to change the dog pretty radically and I wonder what that was and when it happened. I believe there were eons of time during which man and dog or wolf, whatever, wandered around the southern rim of Asia. Modern man and Neandertha/Denisova split about 500,000 years ago. Modern man and H. erectus 1-2 million years ago. That’s a lot of time for dog/wolf and man to get acquainted. Dog may have been domesticated numerous times.
The question always comes up why the other little critters that share our environment are not domesticated. May be that they are small and/or nocturnal and escaped man’s notice most of the time. They didn’t have to come to terms with us.
Glad you mentioned the part about brain size. We have smaller brains than Neanderthal on average. Maybe it has to do with climate and heat loss for both dog and man. Maybe brain size has nothing to do with domestication.
It would be interesting to try to replicate the domestication of the wolf, maybe from C. arabs.
I have no problem calling a dog a Southern wolf. That’s probably what they are– at least mostly.
But they do have Northern wolf in them too. Dogs in East Asia have East Asian wolf ancestry, and many Scandinavian spitzes, and even some terriers, have European wolf ancestry. It’s not recent in terriers, of course, but it is pretty recent in Scandinavian spitzes.
K said “If not, why are people trying to cross breed them? What set of beliefs informs that?”
Since I have no desire to do so, I can’t answer that definitively. But I suspect that the reason would vary from individual to individual. Some possibilities: broadening the gene pool of the local landraces; selecting for traits from local wolves that have proven to be advantageous in one’s particular climate or terrain (think Laikas here); or ignorant, insecure, testosterone-driven fools thinking that owning a wolf-dog (or Pittie, or Rottie, or Cane-Corso, or fill-in-the-blank) makes them tougher and meaner somehow. You could probably come up with some others.
“”North American wolves have been implicated in two deaths over the last century. The number worldwide is higher, but clearly dogs are far more dangerous to us than wolves, yet dogs have the run of our homes.””
If the criteria for assessing how much more dangerous an animal is over another consists purely of statistics, then by that logic, dogs are more dangerous than big cats. On a related note, the available accounts from Russia and India show that the wolves involved actually made human-killing A HABIT (i.e., they became fully fledged maneaters). I’ve never heard of dogs, whether feral or house-kept, becoming habitual man-killers (without human training anyway).
“”Hatred and fear of wolves might have atavistic roots but I doubt it. More likely they result from the demonization of wolves by people who would exterminate them to advance their own interests and from their consignment, even by their defenders, to “wildlands,” as if they could only live away from humans.””
I’m assuming that he means the Grimm fairy tales. Those fables had to stem from somewhere, and negative views of wolves come from areas and historical periods far removed from medieval Europe (Ancient Persia and Greece for example).
In the late 60’s, there was a pack of stray dogs that took to attacking people near where my grandparents lived. They were just regular pet dogs, but the leader was a bluetick coonhound, a breed that’s normally quite nice, and he was quite aggressive. There is no doubt that they would have killed children had my grandpa not shot the whole pack. They chased a woman into her car one evening. They were that aggressive. In parts of Eastern Europe, stray and feral dogs are quite the scourge. I don’t know if they kill many people, but they sure do bite a lot.
Also in Greenland and Labrador, when they would let their dogs roam during the summer months, the dogs would sometimes take to hunting people. That’s one reason why Greenland has such strict dog laws now.
>>>>>>>>>They chased a woman into her car one evening. They were that aggressive >>>>>>>>>>> lol – even a cat can chase you away, if you play that ! I mean, that’s just a basic predator behavior, not necessarily aggressive, as you want to point in your provocative piece of historia .
Somewhere online I read the notion that when Old World wolves first encountered man it was a primitive, defenseless sort of man. So wolves regarded man as possible prey and evolved accordingly. By contrast, wolves were isolated for a long time in N. America before the arrival of man. Then when man arrived, he was vastly superior, technologically, to the man first encountered by wolves in the old world. So wolves, being the smart critters that they are, learned to leave man alone in the new world. This article, as I remember, cites figures to the effect that in pre- and post-columbian times, wolf attacks on man are rare in the New World.
I have an alternative theory. Human population density was high in Europe and wolf’s prey was crowded out by man and his animals. Thus, wolves lived close to man but were desperately hungry. In N. America the Indians farmed on a small scale and left plenty of space and game for the wolves. So wolves were just not motivated to risk attacking man.
The actual human species to which we belong wasn’t primitive when it first encountered wolves.
Traditionally, the first hominin out of Africa was Homo erectus, and there is evidence that Homo erectus in China shared living space with wolves 400,000 year ago.
There is no evidence that the wolves were tamed, of course.
Your theory actually makes more sense if you take to the last glacial maximum. It’s around that time that populations of large prey species become less common, and you see a general gracilization of humans living in Europe due to poor nutrition. It’s also the time you start to see features associated with domestic dogs in wolves. And then there is a warming, then a massive extinction of megafauna, which means means less prey for both wolves and humans, then the rise of agriculture and the domestication of other species.
Mark Derr, How the Dog Became the Dog, read it. It makes more sense.
I don’t understand. I was trying to explain our fear of wolves, which apparently came from Europe, but still exists here in spite of the rarity of wolf attacks in N. America. I’ll yield on the defenseless early man theory. Just mentioned it because someone might be interested. My notion of land use referred more to medieval times, closer in time to modern fears, but it leaves unexplained the fear of wolves in Eastern Europe. Maybe in E. Europe, the game was depleted by man, making wolves bolder.
Oh, I think I get it. You think land use changed just after the LGM? I don’t think so. That was 20,000ya. It was another 10,000 years before we got agriculture. You may be right about wolves becoming more gracile after the LGM, but I was trying to explain our modern fear of them.
Shah said “…the available accounts from Russia and India show that the wolves involved actually made human-killing A HABIT (i.e., they became fully fledged maneaters).” So then, does that mean that we kill all wolves, or just those causing the problem? And if we do kill them all, what effect is their extermination likely to have on the ecosystems from which they’re removed?
The real issue here, is what is the sanest, most balanced approach to dealing w/ wolves in this day and age? I would argue that its going to vary w/ the situation and that we should seek common-sense solutions that serve the greatest good. How many species must we annihilate before we feel safe? And if our goal is to annihilate any/all megafauna which can/do cause us harm, then we’re caught in a conundrum, since we ourselves are the megaspecies that causes humanity the most harm and the most overall casualties.
We kill the wolves responsible. That should be obvious.
Good answer! ;^)
Americans eat till they burst, because we once lived in caves.
Men rape women, because they are actually cavemen.
Dogs are abandoned and mistreated because we basically are just cavemen.
We should only eat fruits because we have the sack-type of stomach a la apes.
You’ve gone THAT far!
The south of England is a relatively crowded place and you can never go on a country walk without meeting a variety of dogs in joyous mood walking or running off the lead often ahead of their owners – and yet no one is scared of these encounters as it can be taken for granted that the dog coming towards one in this environment is friendly. Those dogs which don’t want to be greeted will always run straight past the oncoming stranger, but the majority are used to meeting people and love to be greeted by anyone they meet, and you can always tell by the way they approach. It’s often a nice way of having a friendly word with other fellow walkers, I find. In the city people won’t even make eye contact, but out in the countryside, especially between dog walkers, it is very different as many of you will have experienced – at least in this country.
However, bring a flock of sheep, say, into the dog walking scenario and one gets a quick reality check as the free running dog upon seeing his ancient prey animal reverts in an instant to the wolf he always was and Dr Jeckyll becomes Mr Hyde.There are quite lot of sheep in the English countryside and many get attacked and often killed every year by dogs who have just for a moment forgotten they are domesticated pets. The point is that the tameness veneer is thin and tragedies too often result from dog owners forgetting their pets are still basically wolves with wild instincts that can be triggered.
As we know, certain breeds and types of dog can revert to dangerous behavour more easily than most, which is why I agree with the dangerous dogs act in Britain which forbids the ownership of certain breeds , notably the “pitbull type” as it is described. If it were up to me I would ban more than those already banned since human safety must come first and there are too many dog attacks involving specific identifiable – easily triggered – types of dog.
Oh, oh! BSL alert!
In my neighborhood we have pitt bulls. The one in my building is a silly bitch who greets total strangers by rolling on her back to beg for a tummy rub. Her owner told me he was careful to seek out each and every tenant in the building to introduce her. That’s socialization for dog and also for man.
The weirdest dog I’ve seen around here was wandering in a road when I drove by. He was large and black, not a PB (too tall), short-haired and flop-eared. He left the road as I approached, trotted into the woods and disappeared downwards! WT…? I stopped the car and looked at the spot where he disappeared, then scanned to my right until I saw him directly opposite my passenger side door. Only the top of his head and his eyes were visible. He was motionless, staring at me. (I kept the windows rolled up. Any idea how fast a dog can come through a car window?) Glad I was not riding a bike.
But dogs can stalk. The other stalker I noticed was a shar-pei. He got behind me. I left the scene. And I’ve heard that it’s not wise to let an ACD get behind you. (It is a “heeler”, after all.) Does anyone know whether dogs always attack from the front or side? Do they ever attack from directly behind?
This is a reason to have one’s own dog, BTW. No dog will threaten you as long as your own dog is alive!!
I’m sure there are some highly intractable breeds, especially among the Eastern LGDs. But, socialization is key, regardless of breed (though it is more important w/ some breeds than others.) In our neighborhood we’ve had Akitas, Goldens, Saints, Labs, etc. that were friendly to people, pets and livestock, and still hell-on-wheels with prey animals such as Groundhogs. At the same time we’ve had Spaniels, Pyrs, and Chessies that were aggressive toward one of or more of these groups, as well as wild animals.
I’ve also been acquainted w/ Pitties, Sibs and Samoyeds that absolutely adored cats and I personally have yet to meet a Pittie (or Rottie–another “dangerous breed”) that wasn’t all-over wiggly and kissy when meeting people. Granted, some breeds are more biddable (and thus easier to train) than others, and some breeds (and individual dogs) have a greater prey drive than others. But if these dogs are well-socialized when puppies (that requires intentional exposure, resulting in conditioned reflexes), most will behave well w/in the strictures and parameters considered acceptable in various situations. A friend of mine in FL regularly exercises his American Bulldog (another of those Bully breeds often targeted in BSL) on public trails. This dog always gets along w/ everybody he meets and their dogs.
On the other hand, breeding/raising a dog or breed to specifically attack people, pets, or livestock is unethical. Its fair neither to the dog in question or the eventual subjects of its prey/attack drives.
So, to put it succinctly, BSL is BS! Its the owner, training and history of a given dog that is ultimately responsible for unacceptable behavior, not its breed.
Mary and I were touring by camper van in a remote part part of New South Wales one year as we came came across a large sign along a red dirt track track through eucalyptus forest which warned – “Do not stop or my dogs will get yer” Our laughing dried up as two mean looking cattle dogs threw themselves at the campervan making blood curdling sounds in a determined effort to get at us. We didn’t stop for another twenty miles! Lucky they attacked on the side where the window was closed.
Here’s how I see it.
Dogs started as wolves. They hung aorund people maybe to scavange for the 1st generation then the pups were social to humans and particapted in the hunt. This led to a wolf culture of cooperative hunting with humans.
This may ahve last 100s/1000s of years. They stayed as wolfs because that was the best type to do this.
Then lifestyle changed, maybe big prey ran out and the wolves needed to be smaller because there was less food and no longer needed huge size to take down mammoths ect. So they turned into dogs.
This let humans know that wolfs could change so when the need arose they started selective breeding, and now we have 100s of breeds.
Re bsl, I think its pointless, aside from ethical issues it doesn’t work. Since the DDA bites and fatal attacks have gone up in the UK. If you ban certain breeds people just get other breeds instead. So you ban them, now this may not matter to you (until your breed gets banned) as you think eventually just the ”nice” breeds will be left.
Now my experience is some nice breeds, lab and retrievers (sorry!!!) ect, can be inadvertently (or deliberatly) trained to be highyl aggressive, plus with selective breeding you can change temperment very rapidly.
I often work with Retrievers that have been brought for good temps that have bite history due to food possesion issues! Now no one is breeding dogs for food issues but inadvertently it happens! Now it is possibel to retrain them with effective methods (though some of what I do is very controversial in the UK) but
if you only had retrievers left it shows you could easily create a line of attack retrievers!
Btw sorry about using retrievers as an example!
Adam
[…] How different are dogs from wolves? […]
The above discussion resonates with much of what has been said here before. I think it can be summarized as follows: We’ll probably never know the exact sequence of the dogs’ domestication for sure, or what the original wolf race was that gave rise to dogs. But from exhaustive research, analysis and comparison, we do know certain things that can be applied to the descent of wolves and dogs:
1) The fossil record shows, that like all megafauna, the canids started out as small animals that radiated into niches selecting for larger size as those niches became available. (In the case of the Northern races of wolves, the availability of large game animals in company with a relative scarcity of hypo-predators such as lions, apparently selected for particularly large wolves.)
2) Overall mass, ratio of mass to skin area, and size of extremities in a given species generally change w/ latitude and/or altitude– ‘Bergmann’s rule’ (apparently a natural application of the Square-Cube Law, but also see: http://www.science20.com/news_articles/why_do_animals_grow_bigger_cold)
3) Cryptic coloration provides survival advantage. Thus desert animals tend to be tawny, jungle animals striped or spotted, arctic animals white, etc.–not a hard and fast rule but one that applies often enough to signify.
4) In order to coexist w/ people, domestic animals (including humans) tend to develop a common suite of traits, to include reduction in skull, jaw and tooth size, from those of their ancestors. (That is not to say that this is true of the domestic dog in comparison to its primary progenitors, but its something to consider.)
5) Domestic dogs have continued to outcross to local races of wolves (and closely related species such as coyotes) over the course of human history, thus introducing variations in size, coat length and texture, color variations, temperament, skull conformation, etc.
6) Humans are attracted to baby animals because they’re “cute”, i.e., their features resemble human infants. As a result, we like those specimens that most closely resemble same and tend to select for those features. (In the case of dogs, we’ve also selected for dark brown eyes which are considered softer and less threatening than the light colored, light-enhancing, eyes of most predators.)
7) As relatively weak generalists, the humanoid species were afraid of (and actively defensive toward) large predators–wolves belonging in this category. (One can find people today who though never attacked by a canid still have a pathological phobia of domestic dogs–a genetic atavism perhaps?) But as humanity, through arming itself w/ superior weaponry, became a mega-predator in its own right, this fear was largely leavened by practicality. As a result the equation between canids and humans changed from predator-prey to competing, and then almost certainly to symbiotic.
8) Modern humanity as a whole is losing touch w/ nature, as it does, more and more”Magical Thinking” comes to the fore, as evidenced by such films as Bambi, and the current crop of Werewolf-themed books and movies, as well as various Urban Myths portraying animals (and particularly wild canids) as blood-thirsty beasts intent on rending the average urbanite limb from limb, and thus deserving of a “preemptive counterattack.’ Add to this that many human hunters and ranchers still view wild canids as competitors and you have much of the basis for humanity’s dichotomous attitude toward nature in general and wolves in particular.
massugu,
Best post ever. Very well written.
Thanks Suhail, but on re-read I still detect a brain-fart in it, “hypo-predators” should read hyper-carnivores.
No worries. It conveyed the message alright :-D
???
… and that the mouse is closer to the human that to the canis…
“How the dog became the dog” I have it on loan from our local library – even without Retrieverman’s prompting.