Dogs: A Startling New Understanding of Canine Origin, Behaviour and Evolution.
By Raymond and Lorna Coppinger.
Scribner; 352 pages; $26
NEXT time you see a stray dog nosing around in a pile of rubbish, save your pity. According to Raymond and Lorna Coppinger, the grubby mongrel is doing what evolution designed it for.
The main theme of “Dogs” is that the species was not, as widely thought, domesticated by man, but domesticated itself. Dogs have evolved, according to the Coppingers, from a wolf-like ancestor by adapting to a new ecological niche: rubbish dumps of human villages, which provided food that did not have to be chased after. The shared characteristics of village dogs the world over—small brains and teeth compared with wolves of the same size, an adult weight of 10-15kg, two litters a year instead of a wolf's one—are fine-tuned to this environment by natural selection. And so-called mongrels are the very best form of an animal that is, in many ways, more distinct from wolves than wolves are from their wild relatives, coyotes and jackals.
This contrasts with the conventional view that dogs are descended from wolves that were tamed and used as hunting companions by people. Indeed, the Coppingers, who have studied dogs for three decades, believe that working dogs, such as hunting hounds, sheepdogs (particularly those that guard sheep rather than herding them) and even sled dogs have evolved from ancestral village dogs by a process that owes more to Darwin than to selective breeding of the sort that has created modern, registered breeds.
Cruft's aspirants will be depressed to learn that the Coppingers frown on selective breeding. Closed stud-books result in the exposure of harmful recessive genes. And that is before the selection of exaggerated—and to the animal, damaging—traits that are thought of as breed-specific. The authors are also critical of dog-training programmes—including those for guide-dogs for the blind and deaf—that ignore the right learning-stages in young pups.
This all may sound over-doctrinal. But “Dogs” avoids a nature-nurture conflict. The postulation of genetically determined key periods for learning suggests how genetic and environmental factors may work together to create patterns of behaviour. “Dogs” will be interesting to anyone who has ever wondered about the origin of their favourite mutt's species.