The dog: a long time history

dog history

He’s part of our family. We live with him every single day and we share with him happiness and pain.

The dog is our best friend today. But exactly, when did this long time love story begin?

The modern term Dog is the common use term that refers to members of the subspecies Canis lupus familiaris (canis, “dog”; lupus, “wolf”; familiaris, “of a household” or “domestic”)

history dog

The first evidences of domesticated dogs date back to 35,000 years ago when man lived in caves and used dogs for protection, fur and as guardians for bred animals.

There are many theories on how we start sharing our life together, here are some of those:

  • Orphaned wolf-cubs: Studies has shown that some orphans wolf pups has been saved by humans. Many scientists believe that humans adopted orphaned wolf cubs and nursed them alongside human babies. Time by time a new generation of “wolf-like” domestic animals started to grow up alongside humans. 

  • Food-self domestication: Another theory is that wild wolves began living outside small villages eating human foods and getting closer and trustful day by day. This, originated a new race of wolves similar to dogs.
Dogs such as  Basenji have an high level of DNA diversity.
Dogs such as Basenji have a high level of DNA diversity.

“DNA studies have proved that the variability in molecular distance between dogs and wolves seems greater than the 10,000–20,000 years assigned to domestication. While evidence for fossil dogs lessens considerably beyond 14,000 years ago and ending 33,000 years ago, there are fossils of wolf bones in association with early humans from well beyond 100,000 years ago.”

So in every dog there’s a little bit of wolf!

Source: Wikipedia

Loading Facebook Comments ...

Be First to Comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.