Dogs are man’s best friend. Or, that’s what people say. I don’t know if dogs see us like that ’cause even though we feed and house and cuddle them, we also act like crackheads and do crazy stuff to them; and I can’t imagine what that does to an animal’s self-esteem. I mean, bro, I would hate to be this poor fellow right here:
Now, dogs haven’t been so close to us for longer than 30,000 years at most. The oldest concrete evidence of a doggo is a jawbone from Germany dated 18,000 years ago, but DNA studies suggest that the dog was first domesticated by Southeast Asians and then spread separately to the Near East, Siberia, and Europe. The purest, most ancient dog breeds are the New Guinea singing dogs and the wild dingo that are remarkably similar to what some of the first fully domesticated dogs would’ve looked like.
Now, humans have domesticated a lot of animals by force and out of human needs alone, but with dogs, it was a bit different. Most important here is that the dog was the first animal to ever be domesticated, and humans weren’t really familiar in how to bend other species towards one’s supreme will. In fact, dogs probably came to us before we came to them. As the last Glacial Maximum hit, prey began to become rarer and rarer, and humans became more and more widespread. As a smart and adaptable animal, the basal gray wolf found itself attracted to this strange new species, who built warm fires and tents and had efficient ways to gain food, food that the wolf could also benefit from. Of course, any lucrative businessman (or anyone with basic surviving skills and intelligence) would see this as a golden opportunity to further the species, and voila! We have… this:
Behold the mighty predator Canis lupus, known by all and feared by most… oh wait, that’s just a poodle. While you may not believe it (sometimes I don’t!) very little separates this poodle (who needs to get a better owner) and a gray wolf, so little, in fact, that they can and will sometimes interbreed.
While we may just keep dogs for entertainment, it is impossible to deny their usefulness; hunting was greatly improved by the addition of hounds, as was safety (we still have guard dogs today) and herding, also leading to more food. All in all, dogs truly are man’s best friend, especially (one last time) since they still stick with us even if this happens:
And with that grand finale, it’s time to tuck in and say goodbye.
Anay Ganesh 