Disinterested Affection: Dogs, Humans and Evolution: Dogs are scavengers first

Friday, July 18, 2014

Dogs are scavengers first

Much of what has been written about dogs is undoubtedly nonsense. And, we will leave the critique of popular TV dog shows for the future. While dogs and wolves undoubtedly shared a common ancestor, it seems improbable that dogs were originally modified from wolves by artificial selection by humans. After all, abandoned dogs do not revert to being wolves, they become just feral dogs. Have humans selected dogs for various traits (color, body size, temperament, etc.) in recent times – undoubtedly they have. But, humans probably had little to do with getting a population of wolves to evolve into the dog. The animal that is generally considered the oldest domesticated species.

A free-ranging dog scavenging leatherback sea turtle nests

on Grande Riviere Beach on the north coast of Trinidad. Note

the large number of black vultures also present. JCM

In chapter 10 of the recently published book, Domestic Dog Cognition and Behavior, titled “A Dog’s-Eye View of Canine Cognition” by Udell, Lord, Feuerbacher and Wynne the authors suggest the following.

Most dogs are scavengers and live on the periphery of human society. These dogs are more likely to avoid human contact than seek it. While pet dogs have been a major focus of recent research is unlikely that the human-dog bond is a special adaptation that is the result of co-evolution, but rather the bond is the expression of basic processes such as conditioning, socialization and biological traits that are shared by domestic and wild canids. Individual dogs that have been socialized to humans and become dependent on them have high levels of sensitivity to human actions. Udell and colleagues argue that the fundamental differences between dog and wolf behavior lie at more basic levels: in the processes of socialization, foraging, and reproduction. Small but crucial intertwined changes in the ancestral dog population led dogs to (1) become more promiscuous than any other canid, (2) be able to reproduce more rapidly than wolves, (3) be a much less effective hunter but (4) dogs are more efficient scavenger than other canids. The authors view the indirect consequences of these changes as producing dogs, and suggest that while “…it may be a little less flattering to the human species, we believe this perspective on dogs is at least as fascinating and closer to the historical truth than the story that humans created dogs.”

Citation

Udell, M. A., Lord, K., Feuerbacher, E. N., & Wynne, C. D. (2014). A Dog’s-Eye View of Canine Cognition. In Domestic Dog Cognition and Behavior (pp. 221-240). Springer Berlin Heidelberg. A pdf of this chapter can be found on-line.

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This Blog

This blog is about dogs, dog-human relationships, and my thoughts on the origins and the domestication of dogs. When I say my thoughts, it needs qualification because much of the writing is not the result of my original thinking, but of reading research and anecdotes about dogs and humans, studies of fossils and archeological remains, anatomy, DNA, and behavior. The posts will be documented in standard fashion with author and date, and the literature cited and references are listed on a reference page or at the bottom of the post. The title comes from William Youatts’ 1846 [1857 edition] book, The Dog. On page 14 he wrote, "The dog is the only animal that is capable of disinterested affection. He is the only one that regards the human being as his companion, and follows him as his friend; the only one that seems to possess a natural desire to be useful to him, or from a spontaneous impulse attaches himself to man." Youatt’s book is remarkably insightful for the mid-19th century; he opens Chapter 1 with a comment about dogs being the most intelligent animal other than humans; notes the emotional attachments dogs and humans form, including the sense of loss when dogs loose the humans they have bonded with; and supports the idea that dogs were descended from wolves. This is an idea that was rejected and re-accepted numerous times in the 19th and 20th centuries, and one that will be discussed here.

John C. Murphy

John C. Murphy is a retired science teacher and science administrator. His most recent book Secrets of the Snake Charmer examines what we have learned about snakes in the first decade of the 21st century. Previous books include Tales of Giant Snakes, Amphibians and Reptiles of Trinidad and Tobago, and Homalopsid Snakes, Evolution in the Mud. Current interests and projects include, numerous squamate systematic projects that focus on the Neotropics and aquatic snakes. His interests also have expanded to dogs and their evolution. He is an avid photographer and a research associate in Science & Education at the Field Museum in Chicago.