There are many thoughts and hypotheses, but in reality, we do not have a precise time frame regarding the exact origins of the dog or its history of domestication.
We do know that its closest ancestor is the wolf, taxonomically it is part of the group of animals called Canidae, these include wolves, jackals, coyotes, dingoes and foxes. It is now widely accepted that Canis lupus familiaris (originally classified as Canis familiaris) reclassified in 1993 by the Smithsonian Institution to reflect its wolf ancestry, has wolf traits and is almost certainly derived from the wolf lineage.
Today’s domesticated dog is probably a mutated form of the smallest wolf in the Middle East. Archaeological evidence points to a time period around 12,000 to 15,000 years ago when we began to create permanent settlements. This was towards the end of the Mesolithic period and the beginning of the Neolithic. The first of these settlements are in the fertile area that is now known as northern Israel. These Natufian peoples are the oldest recorded settlements, it is now widely believed that it is here that the modern dog may have been domesticated. However, heated debates and contrary theories continue.
Archaeologists have discovered remains of a cemetery at a Natufian site called Ain Mallaha, in which an old man and a cub are buried together, the man’s left hand cradling the dog. The cub was probably killed to keep the man company on his journey to the afterlife. What is so important about this find is that it is the oldest chronological evidence pointing to domestication. And it suggests that humans had begun to accept dogs not just as outcasts and vermin, but as trusted companions and pets, so it hints that dogs were probably one of the first domesticated animals.
The image of the noble savage crossing the landscape with the stone ax and spear at the ready, his faithful wolfdog walking alongside him is a compelling sight, we could assume that he had killed the adult wolf and located the den where the wolf cubs lay. Taking pity on them, he led them back to their camp. Then, through their ministrations and love, they were domesticated, hence they were the forerunners of today’s modern canines. This fantastic idea is somewhat out of place in what is at stake in reality.
In essence, you cannot tame a wolf, to a certain extent you can tame it to such an extent that it accepts human contact, but you will never tame it. To tame a wolf, you must breed it by hand. You should start this before the puppy is 8 days old, before his eyes open, remember that he was born deaf and blind and these senses take a while to develop.
This would build an olfactory and tactile map of their environment and of us as we handle them, then they come to accept our smell and touch. He would have to stay with that wolf 24 hours a day until he was 16 weeks old, so if he has done everything right, he may just accept some human contact.
However, if that wolf is later bred with another domesticated or wild wolf, the cubs / cubs would be born wild, in other words, manual breeding would have to continue again. So that raises the question of where did dogs come from and how did they become domesticated, if we can’t tame today’s wolf with all of our supposed scientific dominance.
Many, including me, are of the opinion that they were indeed domesticated. They took advantage of an ecological niche and mutated from their wolf cousins to fill that niche. The trigger was our nomadic hunter / gatherer shift from the early stone age between the Mesolithic and Neolithic periods, when we began to inhabit permanent settlements and become hunter / farmers, I think it was that shift that spurred the rapid mutation.
Would it seem like a great coincidence, that when we began to cultivate and domesticate animals, which in turn required permanent or semi-permanent settlements, these animals suddenly appeared? Animal drawings in the Chauvet-Pont-d’Arc cave in France do not show images of dogs, these paintings were made approximately 31,000 years ago; other rock drawings less than 31,000 years old also do not represent dog-like creatures
Wolves have an almost pathological fear of man. You can’t blame them; We have hunted these noble animals since time immemorial. We have hunted them for their skins and their meat and we have a kind of love-hate relationship with them. Just look at the werewolf werewolf stories that have been passed down over the centuries.
We fear these creatures and rightly so, they can be extremely dangerous, wolves and wolf hybrids make poor pets, they are unpredictable and immensely powerful. It is illegal in the UK to own or have a wolf or wolf hybrid without a wild animal license, which are difficult to obtain. The closest we can get to a wolf is called Yewton-Argan pronounced in Utonagan, two words that started out as a cross between German Shepherds, Huskies, and Malamutes, plus some other odds and ends. They are incredibly beautiful and they look, but luckily they don’t act like wolves.
Given the pathological fear that wolves have towards humans, it is highly probable that the incidence and appearance of dogs at the time of our settlements may have been caused by a hybrid-type mutation of the local wolf population. Aside from sex / reproduction, food ranks very high on the list of vital resources and we are a constant source of that. These Stone Age dog / wolf mutants must have thought that Christmas had come at once, a steady, steady stream of sustenance without ever looking for it. Just lying for everyone to take it. This may have been the key to some of these wolves losing their fear of man.
Dogs like feces, especially humans; it is apparently a probiotic and a valuable source of protein. In part, if in the Indian subcontinent you can see village dogs following naked children and waiting for them to defecate in order to claim their prize, in some parts of Africa, when a baby is born, it is presented with a puppy as a shoeshine boy. To prehistoric dogs, our village garbage cans, latrines, and dumps must have seemed like manna from heaven.
Dogs have an incredible ability to cajole with humans, they are born with the Ahhhhhhhhh factor, the large heads and saucer-sized eyes make them almost irresistible to the primate in all of us. As part of the primate family, we are programmed to want to embrace something with the head and eye attributes of a puppy. That is what makes them so successful on the evolutionary chain.
In what was a very short period of time, some 15,000 years, they have gone from zero to 400 million. Paradoxically, the wolf population has dropped to a mere 200,000. At one time, the wolf (Canis lupus) had the most extensive range of any land mammal (excluding man), which included the entire northern hemisphere north of 13-20 north latitude.
Its range has now been greatly reduced mainly by the action of man. Many countries that once had wolf populations, including Britain, Mexico, and Japan, now have none, and in other countries, like the United States, wolves occupy only a fraction of their former territory.
So how has this dog success story happened? For all intents and purposes, dogs are highly successful biological parasites on par with the ubiquitous cuckoo. They cheat us with their winning ways, cost us a fortune in food, time, and vet bills, and what do they do in return with the exception of a few working dogs like helper, tracker, and hunting dogs? Basically nothing.
Look at it this way if the entire human race died tomorrow due to some nasty pandemic virus, what would happen to the dogs? They cannot hunt on their own, they have lost that ability through domestication, therefore in a few generations they would probably all die. Given the same scenario, if a pandemic virus killed all the dogs, how many of us would die as a result? The answer is none! it would upset a lot of people, but it certainly wouldn’t have the effect that our disappearance would have on the dog population.
Having said all that I am a mad dog, I am passionate about them despite their parasitic ways. Although his passing may not have the same disastrous effect, the world would certainly be a sadder and lonelier place without our best friend, the dog.