There is nothing inconsistent with the notion that, in the very beginning of human history, he befriended and lived with a primitive dog-like creature that resembled our modern dogs.
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| GENERAL HISTORY OF DOGS |
In exchange for the dog's assistance in defending him against more dangerous animals and watching over his sheep and goats, he gave it a portion of his food, a space in his home, and the ability to trust and care for it. Most likely, the creature was initially just a sickly wolf or an exceptionally kind jackal, driven by its comrades from the roving pack to take refuge in strange settings. It is conceivable that the relationship might have started when the early hunters brought some defenseless whelps' home for the ladies and kids to tend to and raise. Dogs brought into the house as toys for the kids would eventually come to see themselves as family members and be treated as such.
Traces of an indigenous dog family can be found almost everywhere in the world, with the exception of the West Indian Islands, Madagascar, the eastern islands of the Malayan Archipelago, New Zealand, and the Polynesian Islands, where there is no evidence of the existence of any kind of dog, wolf, or fox as a true aboriginal animal. The dog, like today's wolves prowling through the streets and beneath the walls of every Eastern city, remained vicious and neglected for generations in the old Oriental regions and mainly among the early Mongolians. It would prowl in packs. There was no attempt to entice it to be a human companion or to train it to be submissive. We do not find any unique variety of canine form until we come to study the records of the higher civilizations of Egypt and Assyria.
In Palestine, dogs were not highly valued, and they are frequently derided and mocked in both the Old and New Testaments as "unclean beasts." The apocryphal Book of Tobit (v. 16) contains the only biblical reference to the dog as a recognized companion of humans. This includes the well-known reference to the Sheepdog in the Book of Job, "But now they that are younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I would have disdained to set with the dogs of my flock." However, even this passage carries a suggestion of contempt.
Given the enormous diversity of dog breeds and the stark contrasts between them in terms of size, points, and overall appearance, it is hard to accept that they might have shared a common ancestor. The distinctions between the Mastiff and the Japanese Spaniel, the Deerhound and the stylish Pomeranian, the St. Bernard and the Miniature Black and Tan Terrier, and others come to mind, and it is difficult to believe that they might have shared a same ancestor. However, the difference is no bigger than that which exists between the Shetland pony and the Shire horse, the Shorthorn and the Kerry cow, or the Patagonian and the Pygmy; and all dog breeders are aware of how simple it is to generate a range of sizes and types via careful selection.
The identity of structure in the wolf and the dog must first be taken into consideration in order to fully comprehend this subject. The simplest way to study this identity of structure is to compare the two animals' osseous systems, or skeletons, which are so similar to one another that it would be difficult to identify a transposition.
Seven vertebrae are found in the neck, thirteen in the back, seven in the loins, three sacral vertebrae, and twenty to twenty-two in the tail make up the dog's spine. There are thirteen pairs of ribs—nine true and four false—in both the dog and the wolf. There are 42 teeth in each. Both of them have five front and four hind toes, but the common wolf resembles a huge, bare-boned dog so much that it can be described by the same popular terms as the other.
Their habits are also the same. The wolf will learn to bark when he is confined with dogs, but his native voice is a loud howl. Despite being a carnivore, he will occasionally eat veggies and munch grass when ill. A pack of wolves will split up into groups during a chase, with one party tracking the quarry's trail and the other attempting to stop it from retreating. This requires a great deal of strategy, a quality that many of our sporting dogs and terriers display when hunting in packs.
The sixty-three-day gestation period shared by the Canis lupus and Canis familiar is another significant similarity between the two species. A wolf gives birth to three to nine cubs, each of whom is blind for twenty-one days. After two months of nursing, they are allowed to consume partially digested meat that has been disgorged by their dam or even their sire.
The native wolves in each region are roughly similar to the native canines in terms of size, coloration, form, and habit. There are just too many examples of this crucial scenario for it to be dismissed as a random event. In 1829, Sir John Richardson said that "the only difference that appears to exist between the domestic dog of the Indians and the wolves of North America is their size and strength."
One irrefutable argument against the dog's lupine kinship has been proposed: all domestic dogs bark, whereas all wild Canidae exclusively use howls to communicate their emotions. However, the challenge here is not as large as it first appears, as we know that wolf pups raised by bitches, wild dogs, and jackals easily pick up the behavior. Conversely, house dogs let to run loose lose the ability to bark, and some do not know how to do so as a form of self-expression.
Therefore, it is not possible to use the existence or lack of a barking habit as evidence to resolve the dog's origins dispute. As a result, this roadblock vanishes, putting us in agreement with Darwin's final theory that "it is very likely that the domestic dogs of the world were derived from two good kinds of wolf (C. lupus and C. latrans), and from a few other doubtful species of wolves namely, the European, Indian, and North African forms; from a minimum of two South American dog species; from many different races or species of jackal; possibly from one or more extinct species" and that the blood of these, in some cases mingled together, flows in the veins of our domestic breeds.
