"Dogs that Changed the World"
Bring a dog home to live with you, and eventually you'll probably say, "What did we ever do without her?!" It can be a huge and sometimes challenging lifestyle change, but, if you're lucky like us, it's rewarding in ways you couldn't have imagined.
The history of dogs with humans is similar. It's hard to imagine people without domestic dogs; they've become a deeply rooted part of many cultures. Surprisingly, that this deep connection between dogs and humans may have happened only recently on the evolutionary scale. "Dogs That Changed the World" pulls the pieces of that story together.
Part 1, "The Rise of the Dog", presented current thinking about the earliest dogs. The story most of us heard was that humans captured wild wolf puppies and tamed them. Prof. Ray Coppinger explained that there's a big flaw in that story. Hint: do you think Mesolithic man spent a lot of time bottle feeding baby wolves?
Evidence shows that dog domestication began about the same time as humans began living in settlements. Settlements mean garbage dumps, and garbage dumps mean opportunity for an easy meal to scavenge. The scavenging wolves who had a shorter "flight distance" -- the distance a human could approach without causing them to flee -- held an evolutionary advantage: more food with less energy expenditure.
The show had fascinating footage of an evolutionary experiment that I first read about in Animals in Translation. In the experiments started in the 1950's, Dmitry K. Belyaev began breeding foxes by selecting them solely on the basis of tameness. He made startling discoveries about other genetic traits that these foxes developed over just a few generations.
My understanding of genetics was challenged by the show. It described how scientists have found that modern dogs are probably all descended from one group of dogs in Asia, because the genetic record shows more diversity in this region. I didn't understand why more genetic diversity would point to an origin. I think it may have to do with successful traits being reproduced, and unsuccessful ones dropping out, but I'm not sure. I was also curious why only wolves domesticated themselves via the garbage dump. Shouldn't sea gulls and raccoons also be domesticated by now?!
Part 2, "Dogs By Design", was an interesting look at modern breeding, and some of the more unusual relationships we're developing with dogs today. It's amazing how so many dog breeds have developed in such a remarkably short time. It's also a little disturbing how unintended consequences are often the result. (The comment that Shar- pei's are a genetic mess, even though they're wonderful dogs, hit home; our dog Laika is probably part Shar-pei, and she's had some of the immune system problems that are common to the breed.)
Beyond the science, the show had lots of interesting animations of anatomical differences in dogs, and footage of unusual dogs, including the New Guinea Singing Dog and the Mexican Hairless Dog (or Xoloitzcuintli). Laika really perked up for the footage of wolves howling. Alas, even though we joined in ourselves, we still weren't able to get her to howl. It's a long way from rummaging around the Mesolithic garbage dumps to being snuggled on our recliner!
What did we ever do without them?!