Selectively breeding petsFollow

So I was out doing some light reading this afternoon, as sunday afternoons are idealfor light reading and not much more when I ran across a bit of conjecture that got me thinking.

Here's the gist of it: selective breeding is resulting in aberrant behavior traits in many animals. We all know about the "vicious breeds" of dogs. It's curious how behavior and appearance are linked, too. Which is not to say that every 160 lb Rottweiler is a mean dog. Statistically though, they look and are mean. It's a very safe statement to make that we've bred the trait enough that the breed is now more likely to attack than a breed such as a Collie, which are apparently bred these days to see exactly how needlelike their heads can be. Anybody remember Lassie? Lassie didn't look like the dogs I see in the park. Lassie had a fairly broad head; these dogs have a bump in their neck that ears and eyes protrude from. WTF?

It's common knowledge that dogs derive from wolves, but what I read today actually proposed that the wolf/dog split occurred much further back than previously accepted. The timeline suggested was between 100,000 and 135,000 years ago. The writer also pointed up some other interesting possibilities such as:

People adopted social behavior from wolves. We probably learned how to be territorial, how to have loyal friendships and monogamy from wolves. No primates share these characteristics with humans. I find this argument compelling because ithelps explain why modern man survived and some of his competition (evolutionarily speaking) such as Neandertal did not.

The shrinkage of the human brain was a direct result of the ongoing interaction between domesticated wolves and humans. The areas where shrink occurred are largely attributed to things that wolves would have taken over in the partnership, such as sensory information. At the same time domesticated wolves were losing some of their own brain mass; the portions devoted to planning and organizing. All of this relates to about 10,000 years ago, when people are known to have been doing things like giving their dogs formal burials.

The main advantage I see we could have picked up from the relationship is the learned social interactions. By imitating the social heiarchy of a wolf pack, a band of humans would learn to communicate and share ideas effectively enough to become very successful. That success would lead to greater chances to propogate and exchange ideas between individuals and groups. The road to agriculture, and eventually lawsuits over hot coffee.

It's also pretty common knowledge that dogs are emotionally all focked up. They're happy; they're sad. It all hinges upon their owner, provided of course that the owner is the typical owner who holds the alpha position in the relationship (God, I hope none of you are the ***** in your dog's mind). Basically, a dog is emotionally like a wolf pup at just a couple of months. Comparitively, they even look the part. Big eyes, floppy ears.

At the end of the day, when you think about what we've done to wolves in exchange for what they gave us, I think we probably owe some excuses to the emotional 3 year olds that poo on our carpets.

Where did you read this btw? Cause, it's complete crap and a half.



-Gorillas are territorial in that the alpha's claim controll over their family, fighting off challengers. Once the family settled down into agrarian society from hunt/gather stage, this would easily extend to the land itself.
-Wolves ain't monogamous
-Neandertal were both territorial and social. They often had high family loyalty.


-actually, what "shrinkage" happened was just an increasing percent of brain mass that began to be utilized by the frontal cortex. Also, our brains were getting bigger in general. The sensory cortex was Barely affected.
-you think dogs can't plan and organise? Lemme show you my mut Bell. She's arguably smarter than you are.

and as a final note
-what the heck are emotional dispositions suppost to prove?

Yeah, I guess I have a strong personnality bond with dogs, like I tend to hump things...

Y'all get used to it.

I often wonder about the myth of the werewolf and its origins.

Ask anyone who's ever worked emergency room duty and they'll tell you that full moons are definitely interesting times. People do get a little wacky at that time of the month.

As far as the desire for blood, I dunno. I know it exists, I get it. For me it's linked with any act of lust. When my blood gets up, I just want to take a bite into somebody. But as to its origins, I can't say. I get along just fine with dogs, but that's because I was raised in a household that never had fewer than five dogs. I've never seen a wolf in the wild; there were none in the area I grew up in. The dogs I grew up with were not bloodthirsty, nor did they seem to want to bite anything when there was a chance to use their pink thing.