Companion of man
 Dogs have been part of the human situation for longer than any other domesticated creatures.
Moreover, dogs, as any owner will tell you, are not merely domesticated creatures but real companions
able to communicate with their owners in subtle fashion, using sophisticated social skills. In
a series of research reports published in Science for 22 November 2002 some aspects of
this relationship are explored in great detail.
It is acknowledged that theories regarding the origin of our dogs cover a wide range of opinions
and have given rise to much controversy among those who fancy that they are dog experts. There
is general agreement that dogs evolved from wolves long ago, and that within limits it is
still possible to develop a working human-wolf relationship. At the end of the Pleistocene era the
wolf was to be encountered in its wild state from Ireland to Spain, through Europe and Siberia as far
as Japan in the far east. Moreover, wolves were present in the Indian subcontinent and in North and
Central America.
A few students argue that dogs arose from a species of jackal or some hybrid canid. Some believe
that the domestication of dogs occurred more than once from more than one ancient canid species,
an argument used to explain the wide diversity seen today in breeds of dogs, from chihuahuas
to great danes. But most agree that domestication occurred from humans raising wolf pups or taming
older wolves and then selecting the more docile individuals for breeding purposes.
It is argued that wild wolves adopted the habit of scavenging food scraps from their human
neighbours, and so became bolder and less intimidated in the presence of man, eventually parting
company with the rest of the pack. How long ago this happened is not known. Skeletal remains
of dogs have been discovered in deposits 14,000 years old in central Europe. Some scientists
have claimed that Italy was the first home of the dog, on the strength of DNA studies which show
that some ancient wolf and dog bones there indicate a genetic pattern resembling that of modern
dogs. And in Israel, human remains 12,000 years old have been associated with bones of small
canids.
Scientists at the University of California in 1997 studied the mitochondrial genomes of 140
dogs of different breeds, together with 162 wolves, 12 jackals and five coyotes, and concluded
that the wolves approximated most nearly to the dogs. Another piece of research, in Stockholm,
studied DNA from 426 dogs from different countries, together with a group of 100 from China and
one of 38 wolves from Europe and Asia. Although several genetically related groups could be distinguished,
there was overall evidence that most breeds of dogs derived from East Asia, most probably China.
It is suggested that early humans crossed the Bering Strait some 10,000 to 15,000 years ago,
accompanied by their domesticated dogs. By so doing they introduced dogs into the New World.
Another aspect of the man-dog interaction is also presented in Science. Anthropologists
at Harvard have demonstrated a special cognitive skill that dogs have developed during their
domestication, which is quite different from that associated with other pets. Dogs have more
skill than great apes in reading communicative signals provided by their owners, particularly
related to the location of hidden food, and following human directions. Curiously enough, wolves
raised from cubs by humans do not show such skills, although domestic dog puppies only a few
weeks old do, even in situations where they have enjoyed little previous contact with humans.
Small wonder that, in comparison with other pets which may be enjoyed by their owners, dogs come
into quite a distinct category of their own, as friends and companions in life.
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