From Wolf To Working Dog

[sandymere 8,263]

Some might find it interesting, don't think it's been posted here before.

 

Genetic evidence suggests that the dominant ancestor of dogs were wolves of Middle Eastern origin with a later addition of Asiatic and or Chinese wolves, this mirrors the fist flourishing of agriculture starting in these areas. The first interactions could have been having an effect on altering the evolutionary pressures of particular groups of wolves in these areas even before domestication began, perhaps from the first meeting in the middle east some 100.000 years ago. It could be argued that as man spread out of Africa he could well have picked up canine camp followers and this altered behavior would begin to alter particular groups of wolves.

 

These early camp followers may have joined the humans as they spread through their Middle Eastern territories and then have traveled in the wake of the hunter gatherers as the populations expanded outwards to Europe and Asia. This separation from other wolf populations could have prompted the evolutionary process that would one day result in the dog. Adaptations to the camp follower lifestyle would have helped to keep these packs separate from local populations as they spread so isolating the gene pool and helping to fix a type ready for the domestication with the birth of the agriculturalists lifestyle around 14,000 years ago. A skull found in Belgium dated from over 30.000 years ago could be an early transitional stage from wolf to dog although its relationship to man is unknown.

 

Later, around 12,000 years ago, in what is now Israel, they buried a person holding the body of a puppy in their arms. Why it was done and even if the puppy was wolf or dog is unknown but it shows early evidence of a strong link between human and canine that has survived to this day. So our modern dogs, whether they are hounds, terriers or huskies have their roots set in the Middle East and the type is set to the extent that when left to natural selection, as with the Dingo, they dont revert back to wolves but remain dogs. The next stage in this interspecies collaboration would be to start the process of breeding to improve positive traits such as guarding, herding or hunting and the emergence of the specialist.

 

Pre domestication selection along the lines of an aggressive camp follower being killed or driven off and the more friendly being tolerated, to post domestication picking individual traits that fitted a defined purpose would be a natural progression. The watchful to guard the livestock and home, which would lead onto herding and guard dog types, and the good hunters to join their human counterparts in dealing with predators and supplementing the diet with meat. With this ability to create new types with specialist skills combined with a more reliable food supply though agriculture it wouldnt have been long before hunting with dogs became a sport.

 

The earliest mention of specific breeds are in fact sporting dogs with the likes of the Egyptian pharaohs, Assyrians and ancient Greeks all leaving evidence, in pictorial form of lightly built hunting dogs that resemble modern sight hounds. As well as pictures sight hounds also get many early written endorsements, being the only breed mentioned in the bible and Ovid the Grecian historian, 63 BC to AD 17, wrote (translated by Dryden)

 

"As when the impatient greyhound,

slipped from far Bounds o'er the glade to course the fearful hare,

She in her speed does all her safety use,

And he with double speed pursues his prey,

O'erruns her at the sitting turns; but licks His chops in vain;

Yet blows upon the flix,

She seeks the shelter which the neighboring covert gives,

And, gaining it, she doubts it yet she lives."

 

Its likely the scent hounds would also have been early developments and once you have agriculture you have pests and the need of terriers, of course this is just conjecture. Just as the past cannot ever be truly known so the future lies open to question but we stand at a pivotal point and hold so much in our hands right now.

 

Country sports are for once getting positive publicity with game featuring on every TV cookery show and the conservationist views of wildlife management rather than the antis dont touch anything attitude gaining public acceptance. So now more than ever we need to actually promote ourselves in a positive and honest light however we work our dogs. The likes of sustainable food, local produce and habitat management are our evidential arguments and marching banners, these are augments that make sound economic, ecological and ethical sense and so when presented well can redress the balance of public opinion from anti hunting. The chance of a change in the law seems to have receded a little but if the prospect of a free vote in parliament does emerge then we need MPs to be getting the right message from their constituents and those banners along with cost effectiveness and the right of personal choice can be our wining message but it will only need a few fools to bring bad publicity to our cause and it may yet all fall down. I hope that we are a step in the centuries old story of working dogs and that it is a history that will go on for a few more generations yet but fear that if we get it wrong now future historians will record our time as the one that saw the last of the sporting dogs.

[cocker 2,655]

quote sandymere

 

Country sports are for once getting positive publicity with game featuring on every TV cookery show and the conservationist views of wildlife management rather than the antis dont touch anything attitude gaining public acceptance. So now more than ever we need to actually promote ourselves in a positive and honest light however we work our dogs. The likes of sustainable food, local produce and habitat management are our evidential arguments and marching banners, these are augments that make sound economic, ecological and ethical sense and so when presented well can redress the balance of public opinion from anti hunting. The chance of a change in the law seems to have receded a little but if the prospect of a free vote in parliament does emerge then we need MPs to be getting the right message from their constituents and those banners along with cost effectiveness and the right of personal choice can be our wining message but it will only need a few fools to bring bad publicity to our cause and it may yet all fall down. I hope that we are a step in the centuries old story of working dogs and that it is a history that will go on for a few more generations yet but fear that if we get it wrong now future historians will record our time as the one that saw the last of the sporting dogs.

Edited May 24, 2013 by cocker

[foresterj 1,096]

Interesting as ever, that being said and with the gap between wolf and dog being so pronounced does that hypothetically throw a question mark over training methods which espouse the Alpha role and Pack mentality, as dogs have now spent as much time evolving around humans as from wolves? Or mebbes not.

[sandymere 8,263]

Temperament wise I would imagine there would be a marked difference between wolves and dogs which would certainly need to be accounted for, after all we’ve been altering dogs to suit ourselves for a long time; hopefully this has led to some improvements in temperament

[BOLIO1 1,078]

Here's an interesting link, although not wolves....but foxes...perhaps genes through selection?

 

http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&ved=0CDYQtwIwAQ&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DmzTcmE-pMLU&ei=CWuiUfyVGoLa0QXB4IGYDg&usg=AFQjCNEhcs8I4SCJSNRAGPSa45ikbKl9nQ&sig2=bma-x1TE1QpRHw5Cnu0nYQ

[BOLIO1 1,078]

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2010/09/06/mans-new-best-friend-a-forgotten-russian-experiment-in-fox-domestication/

 

And the same researcher.....

[BOLIO1 1,078]

I'm not trying to suggest foxes as a dog ancestor by any means but the transition of wild arctic foxes to hand tame domestic animals in less than ten generations may imply that these big evolutionary jumps are more common and easier to explane than is commonly thought!

[Casso 1,264]

Interesting as ever, that being said and with the gap between wolf and dog being so pronounced does that hypothetically throw a question mark over training methods which espouse the Alpha role and Pack mentality, as dogs have now spent as much time evolving around humans as from wolves? Or mebbes not.

You make a very interesting point and one that is close to my heart, I don't do the pack mentality or see myself as the Alpha claiming spaces eating first going through doors first , or any of the widly used concepts of leadership in the dog world

 

The pack in the wild causes tensions in its members the only time they are free from pack tension is when they are a group , a group of canines with the same goal in mind , the Hunt is what brings the members together in harmony not pack life Hunting life organises the canine, when they are working together to bring a fleeing prey animal to ground,

the hunt is the crux in making a canine social and fall into line if we didn't have the hunt we wouldnt have a pack not the other way round

 

But instead of focusing on the hunting life of canines we see Pack life as instrumental to the way we interact with our dogs, pack life causes stress and tension , we can see it in captive wolves tension is a very real part of daily life, dogs are born social , they are programmed to fall into line and second guess their owner and live in harmony with him not because he can dominate them but because he is their access to the hunt in whatever form that maybe for pet dog owners it can be something as simple as throwing a ball for the dog it's interacting with its owner to ground the energy of a fleeing prey item

 

The canine mind organises its self around the hunt,put another way the dog wants to be in drive working to achieve a common goal , it's no accident that a dog learns quicker in drive than any other mindset, his senses are sharp, his body is alive and he feels great in himself so it's the group activity that makes pack life bare able , it's the group mentality the dog has which makes him the most social animal on earth.

[sandymere 8,263]

Indeed with the ease of the process it's likely that there may have been more than on domestication episode over our shared history and ours is just the latest episode. The original articles, part one and two, suggests this but it was cut to suit forums.

One thing I find interesting is some populations of humans, western Europeans like ourselves being one group, have evolved to be able to digest milk as adults and others have not which may suggest our ancestors were herders. If dogs were domesticated by arable farmer as the latest though suggests then they wouldn't have the evolutionary pressure to evolve to digest milk into adulthood. So we in the west likely took on dogs from our farming neighbours once we had left the herd following lifestyle and settled down as farmers

 

 

 

I'm not trying to suggest foxes as a dog ancestor by any means but the transition of wild arctic foxes to hand tame domestic animals in less than ten generations may imply that these big evolutionary jumps are more common and easier to explane than is commonly thought!

Indeed with the ease of the process it's likely that there may have been more than on domestication episode over our shared history and ours is just the latest episode. The original articles, part one and two, suggests this but it was cut to suit forums.

One thing I find interesting is some populations of humans, western Europeans like ourselves being one group, have evolved to be able to digest milk as adults and others have not which may suggest our ancestors were herders. If dogs were domesticated by arable farmer as the latest though suggests then they wouldn't have the evolutionary pressure to evolve to digest milk into adulthood. So we in the west likely took on dogs from our farming neighbours once we had left the herd following lifestyle and settled down as farmers

There was an article in nature recently that suggests dogs have evolved increased ability to do well on high carb diets which would also go with time spent with arable farmers.

[Casso 1,264]

Temperament wise I would imagine there would be a marked difference between wolves and dogs which would certainly need to be accounted for, after all weve been altering dogs to suit ourselves for a long time; hopefully this has led to some improvements in temperament

Temperament wise the dog has in effect left the wolf far behind ,

the dog is overly sexed massively social and hugely more aggressive that any wolf who ever lived

A bitch can come into heat twice a year no breeding season anymore ,

a dog can become social with both large and small prey animals ,

certain breeds of dog can fight to the very end far beyond the physical limits of their own body no wolf ever born goes near its reserve tank energy wise

So when we think of the wolf as the ultimate canine the truth of domestication is that the dog is really the wolf on steroids x 2 , the wolf fast tracked,

 

The wolf's temperament is all instinct (fear based) the dog is all heart or the good ones anyhow.