pbs

last night my roommate and i watched nature on pbs, as i do, usually, ideally. sunday started a two week series on the domestic dog. week one talked about origins and week two will talk about i dont know. prevailing, and past thought says the domesticated dog originated when man 15,000 years ago took grey wolf pups from the mother and raised them in close contact with humans, traits were developed through selective breeding, etc. essentially, wild pups were raised, then bred for traits. that thinking is being overturned though, based on the fact that no modern human, even under the best conditions, has successfully raised a pup starting a few days after its birth, ever.

the emerging theory then is this: as man formed its first large communities 15,000 years ago, we began to create centralized trash dumps. wolves scavenged these, but not just any wolves. the first thing to know about wolves is that they have a very far 'flight distance,' that is to say humans scare wolves off even from a far distance, something like over a half of a mile. in order to stick around the dumps long enough to scavenge, wolves would have to eliminate this fear. those animals with a shorter flight distance became the most successful members of packs, because they could feed and loiter longer at the dumps, so their beneficial traits became the most desirable, and they were passed down to the next generation because of the sex. this continued, and over time, an incredibly short period of time they believe, (contemporary studies were able to generate a very domesticated fox after just 2 generations removed from the wild) we started getting dogs that could help us out.
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seems that man didnt nurture the dog into existence, but rather they came about as a product of our waste. fascinating thought.






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