In this scenario wolf populations living near humans may have learned to poach at the edges of settlements, perhaps eating the bones or other refuse that humans discarded. This still does not preclude the exception of tamed wolves, but it did give rise to an alternate hypothesis – perhaps wolves domesticated humans rather than the other way around, meaning that it was the wolves who changed the nature of our relationship first. Wolves specifically have mostly been eradicated where humans flourish, often deliberately. Humans have always treated large predators as a threat. The history of human and wolf interaction is mainly one of competition and eradications. But experts now suspect this is not what actually happened. So it would not take long for these tamed wolves to become more docile, loyal, and obedient. We know from the silver fox experiments that some mammal species can be significantly domesticated in just a few generations. Tamed wolves are more aggressive than dogs, but they can bond with humans and function in the human world. The extreme usefulness, not to mention companionship, of dogs to humans lead to the early hypothesis that humans domesticated wolves, probably by first raising wolf pups. More developed and trained dogs can also do all sorts of jobs, from herding to hunting.

And in an emergency they will even fight for their masters. They are territorial and will keep critters small and large out of the area. My dog will let me know when racoons are poaching the bird feeder at 3am. They are excellent guardians, sending up an alarm when anything strays too close to camp. I have often considered (being a life-long dog owner myself) how useful dogs would have been to ancient people. This makes dogs the first domesticated animal. Their likely origin was in Europe sometime between 19 and 32 thousand years ago. What is clear is that dogs are essentially domesticated wolves. But let’s back up a bit and see where this new information fits into the story.Įxperts actually don’t agree on exactly when and where dogs first appeared, or even if it was one event or multiple independent origins. These different breeds partly tracked along with human populations, but not completely. A recent study adds some further information to this tale – as long as 11,000 years ago there were already at least five different distinct breeds of dog. The evolution of dogs from wolves is a long and complex one.

Thousands of years later dog