DOGS HISTORY

History of Dogs

Dogs may have been the first animal to be domesticated. Dogs perform many roles for people, such as hunting, herding, pulling loads, protection, assisting police and military, companionship, and more recently aiding handicapped individuals.

The present lineage of dogs was domesticated from gray wolves about 15,000 years ago. Though remains of domesticated dogs have been found in Siberia and Belgium from about 33,000 years ago, none of those lineages seem to have survived the Last Glacial Maximum.

Although DNA testing suggests an evolutionary split between dogs and wolves around 100,000 years ago, no specimens prior to 33,000 years ago are clearly morphologically domesticated dog.

This impact on human society has given them the nickname "Man's Best Friend" in the Western world. In 2001, there were estimated to be 400 million dogs in the world.

Most breeds of dogs are at most a few hundred years old, having been artificially selected for people for specific functional roles.

Through this selective breeding, the dog has developed into hundreds of varied breeds, and shows more behavioral and morphological variation than any other land mammal.

For example, height measurement ranges from 6 inches in the Chihuahua to about 2.5 feet in the Irish Wolfhound; color varies from white through grays (usually called "blue") to black, and browns from light (tan) to dark ("red" or "chocolate") in a wide variation of patterns; coats can be short or long, coarse-haired to wool-like, straight, curly, or smooth. It is common for most breeds to shed this coat.

Modern Breeds and Ancient Origins

A recent study of pieces of DNA which have been identified as markers for modern dog breeds published in 2012 comes to some surprising conclusions - that despite the clear evidence for marked size differentiation in very early dogs (e.g., small, medium and large dogs found at Svaerdborg), this has nothing to do with current dog breeds.

The oldest modern dog breeds are no more than 500 years old, and most date only from ~150 years ago. The American Kennel Club (AKC) has an extensive list of recognized breeds of dogs.

As Pets

The most widespread form of interspecies bonding occurs between humans and dogs and the keeping of dogs as companions, particularly by elites, has a long history. Pet dog populations grew significantly after World War II as suburbanization increased.

In the 1950s and 1960s, dogs were kept outside more often than they tend to be today (using the expression “in the doghouse” to describe exclusion from the group signifies the distance between the doghouse and the home) and were still primarily functional, acting as a guard, children’s playmate, or walking companion. 

From the 1980s, there have been changes in the role of the pet dog, such as the increased role of dogs in the emotional support of their owners. People and dogs have become increasingly integrated and implicated in each other’s lives, to the point where pet dogs actively shape the way a family and home are experienced.

Interesting Domestication Table

Animal	Where Domesticated	Date
Dog	undetermined	~14-30,000 BC?
Sheep	Western Asia	8500 BC
Cat	Fertile Crescent	8500 BC
Goats	Western Asia	8000 BC
Pigs	Western Asia	7000 BC
Cattle	Eastern Sahara	7000 BC
Chicken	Asia	6000 BC
Guinea pig	Andes Mountains	5000 BC
Llama and Alpaca	Andes Mountains	4500 BC
Donkey	Northeast Africa	4000 BC
Horse	Kazakhstan	3600 BC
Silkworm	China	3500 BC
Bactrian camel	Southern Russia	3000 BC
Dromedary camel	Saudi Arabia	3000 BC
Honey Bee	Egypt	3000 BC
Banteng	Thailand	3000 BC
Water buffalo	Pakistan	2500 BC
Duck	Western Asia	2500 BC
Yak	Tibet	2500 BC
Goose	Germany	1500 BC
Mongoose?	Egypt	1500 BC
Reindeer	Siberia	1000 BC
Turkey	Mexico	100 BC-AD 100

For an extensive list of Shelters and Animal Rescue Groups Click here

Pets can be adopted from the Humane Society, SPCA, The Animal Foundation, adopted from an Animal Rescue Group or rescued off the street, their contribution to the household they are in, is invaluable.