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Dogs: Our Friends Since Long Ago

By: Bob Evanston Early in human history, man domesticated an early ancestor of the modern day dog. For its part, this creature helped protect people from wild animals and guarded his domestic animals such as goats and sheep. In return, it received food and shelter. Over time, man and dog came to trust each other. These first "dogs" were mostly likely especially gentle jackals, or perhaps ailing wolves exiled from their packs.

There are a few places on earth where no traces of an indigenous dog family can be found --New the Polynesian Islands, New Zealand, the eastern islands of the Malayan Archipelago, Madagascar and the West Indian Islands. Almost everywhere else, an indigenous dog family can be identified.

In ancient Asian regions, as among the the Mongolians, dogs were wild creatures, prowling in packs like wolves. This is still the case in many Eastern cities. If we examine the records of the high civilizations of Assyria and Egypt, we begin to discover distinct varieties of the canine form.

The great multitude of different breeds of the dog and the vast differences in their size, points, and general appearance are facts which make it difficult to believe that they could have had a common ancestry. One thinks of the difference between the Mastiff and the Japanese Spaniel, the Deerhound and the fashionable Pomeranian, the St. Bernard and the Miniature Black and Tan Terrier, and is perplexed in contemplating the possibility of their having descended from a common progenitor. Yet the disparity is no greater than that between the Shire horse and the Shetland pony, the Shorthorn and the Kerry cattle, or the Patagonian and the Pygmy; and all dog breeders know how easy it is to produce a variety in type and size by studied selection.

In considering the question of dogs and wolves sharing a common origin, we should first look at their skeletal structures, or the osseous system. These are close enough in both species that their transposition from one to the other could hardly be noticed.

The spine of the dog consists of seven vertebrae in the neck, thirteen in the back, seven in the loins, three sacral vertebrae, and twenty to twenty-two in the tail. In both the dog and the wolf there are thirteen pairs of ribs, nine true and four false. Each has forty-two teeth. They both have five front and four hind toes, while outwardly the common wolf has so much the appearance of a large, bare-boned dog, that a popular description of the one would serve for the other.

The habits of dogs and wolves are more similar than you might realize. Wolves are famous for their howl, but when kept with dogs, they will adapt barking. The wolf is, of course, a carnivore, but he can also eat vegetables and will nibble grass when ill. During hunting, a pack of wolves will divide in sections, one directly following the trail of the quarry, the other cutting off its retreat. This strategy is also exhibited by teams of sporting dogs when hunting.

A further important point of resemblance between the canis lupus and the canis familiaris lies in the fact that the period of gestation in both species is sixty-three days. There are from three to nine cubs in a wolf's litter, and these are blind for twenty-one days. They are suckled for two months, but at the end of that time they are able to eat half-digested flesh disgorged for them by their dam or even their sire.

The dogs and wolves native to almost all regions closely resemble each other in size, coloration, form and habit, a fact too widespread to be simply coincidental. An observer in 1829, Sir John Richardson, commented that the only difference he could see between the wolves of North America and the domestic dog of the Indians was the greater size and strength of the wolf.

Some see the difference between the dog's bark and wolf's howl as a definitive one. However, we know that wolf pups, along with jackals and wild dogs will readily learn to bark when raised by bitches, while domestic dogs will forget the habit if they run wild long enough. This, then, cannot be used as proof of the dog's origin.

We might consider Darwin's belief that domestic dogs descended from several species of wolf from places as diverse as Europe, India and North Africa, as well as several species of jackal, and possibly from one or more species now extinct. This suggestion that our modern dogs had such a diverse ancestry could be the truest explanation we will find.

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Bob Evanston writes and researches on many topics pertaining to animals and pets. You can get more information on pet guides and some useful resources on guide to dog behavior problems
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