How the Dog Became the Dog

It is an accepted fact of evolution and history that the dog evolved from the wolf. But the question of how wolf became dog has remained a mystery, obscured by myth and legend. How the Dog Became the Dog argues that the dog was an evolutionary inevitability because humans and wolves were made for each other: both were social species who lived and hunted as family units, and cooperation was essential to their survival. The natural temperament of, and social structure surrounding, humans and wolves is so similar that as soon as they met, they recognised themselves in each other.How the Dog Became the Dog suggests that the domestication of the dog was a biological and cultural process that began with mutual cooperation and has taken a number of radical turns. At the end of the last Ice Age, the first dogs emerged, with their humans, from their refuges against the cold. In the 18th century, humans began to exercise control of dog reproduction, life, and death, completing the domestication of the wolf begun long ago.Combining the most recent scientific research with stunning and original insights, this book shows that dogs made us human, just as humans changed dogs.