MAN’S BEST FRIEND

Dogs accompanied us from primitive camp sites to agricultural settlements to the massive cities in which we live today. They made these transitions so successfully because they re highly effective at adapting to changing conditions. A dramatically wide range of shapes and size helped them through these transitions, but it it their varied natures that have made dogs the most popular pet in the world today.

With help from us, dogs have evolved different characteristics to survive the varying environment in which we place them.

Today, there are over 400 recognized breeds of dogs. These breeds exist at our like. We create new breeds and combine or else old ones completely according to our needs or the dictates of fashion. Because of this, it is sometimes argued that dogs are an unnatural and wraped product of human intervention.

All breeds of dogs are the product of artificial rather then natural selection. Even the asustralian Dingo and the Papua New Guninca singing dog, which mate without pressure of human selection, are the result of our intervention, because thousands of years humans introduced “domesticated” dogs to those locations. All of our canine companions today are the result of the practical, aesthestic, economic, or even vital needs of preceding Human generations. Some dogs are independent, while others have been breed to be more obedient.

We sometimes confuse what suits us in a dog’s behavior with what is naturally best for the dog itself, making the mistake of thinking that the more trainable a dog is, the more intelligent it is. In fact the interactable stray dog who survives by its own wits might be more intelligent that dog who jumps through hoops at its owner’s command. My retrievers, lying on the floor by side, are not their result of natural survival of the fittest. Although they are a large and strong, they would be too gentle to survive for long in the wild.

In spite of all our intervention, however, elements of the dog’s ancestry can still be seen in our pets. Even in those breeds that are the most dramatically different from their wolfs roots-tinny breed such as the pekinges or Chihuahua, or delicate looking dogs like the Italian Greyhound-the bedrock of their original wild behavior survives. They still like pack animals. They still have the sense of a hunter. They court, mate and rise their young in the same way as other independent canine species such as the wolf. These facts of our companion are often over-looked. Because we share so many needs, emotions, and pattern of behaviours with dogs and because we have been influencceing their characters for thousands of years, it is easier for us to think like than like any other domesticated species. But we must remember that, although we share our homes with dogs, they differ from us in many ways.

In order to know your dog completely, it is vital to understand that, just as we sometimes think our canine companions as human in stage disguise, they think of us as rather odd dogs. We might be bigger than them, we certainly can smell different, and we able to do, awesome things like use ovens, but they can still only of us as other dogs and treat us accordingy. Their relationships with us are all based on this fact. To the core of its being even the smallest and fullest dog will always remain true to its roots, a wolf in disguise.