UuVareations

The wolf in your home

Wolves, the ancestors of our pet dogs, are social animals. Humans have taken this trait, bred selectively over many generations, and learned how to train a puppy so that the dogs we have in our homes are generally sociable and loyal. However, it must never be forgotten when training a puppy that dogs evolved as pack animals that had to compete with others and kill prey to survive, and these traits are still there beneath the surface of domesticity.

Where dogs came from

Dogs were in existence before the earliest human. According to fossil evolution, the origins of our dogs can be traced back about 40 million years to a small carnivorous mammal called Miacis. This tiny weasel-like creature gradually evolved to produce, some 10 million years ago, the forerunners of present-day canids, called Cynodesmus and Tomoritus. From them, the evolution of the canid line continued up to about 10,000-12,000 years ago when wolves - along with foxes, jackals and coyotes - appeared in the form they are today.

Today’s dog is derived from four types of wolf (Canis lupus): the northern grey wolf, the pale-footed Asian wolf, the small desert wolf of Arabia and the woolly-coated wolf of Tibet and northern India.

Modern dogs

Domestication occurred when humans as we know them came on the scene. However, ‘modern’ man’s predecessors had already been co-existing with dog-like creatures for thousands of years. Various archaeological finds around the world support the theory that domestication probably began around 10,000-12,000 years ago in different parts of the globe rather than in one place.