In our quest to understand the history of dogs, we’ve already established that dogs became domesticated from wolves approximately 40,000 years ago, and that the special bond between humans and dogs could be seen in prehistoric rock drawings depicting individualized dogs hunting alongside humans. However, how did we go from wolves to the variety of dog breeds today?
Scientists theorize that humans began breeding dogs at first by accident. As Dr. Brian Hare, director of the Duke University Canine Cognition Center explained, dogs began losing their distinct wolf traits through a form of self-domestication, in which the friendliest animals gain the advantage, and somehow drives physical changes which can appear in later generations. In fact some scientists claim that once submissive wolves started hanging out with humans, those that wouldn’t have survived earlier were now living longer, and able to pass down their genes.
Through this process, rather than grow up with adult wolf characteristics, dogs managed to retain the traits associated with wolf pups, including whining, barking, and submissiveness. However, humans recognized they could use those traits to begin training dogs to help with their workload. Yes, even that annoying puppy barking also quickly became an asset. Dogs could be bred to help with protection!
Let’s face it, humans aren’t designed as well as us when it comes to hunting. So they started purposely breeding dogs to be physically strong enough to chase prey with our agility and speed, and take them down with our powerful jaws and teeth. They also needed dogs to alert them that prey was in their area. Barking warned humans so they would have time to respond and wouldn’t be caught off guard.
As time went on and humans settled down, dogs’ role also evolved from protection and alerting, to herding and guarding. There was now valuable livestock that needed to be protected from prey, and dogs were right for the job! Humans started to focus less on breeding fierce hunters, and instead focused on dogs with tamer traits who could protect but not harm the animals. They also began selectively breeding certain characteristics in dogs for specialized tasks.
This relationship continued for hundreds of years, but as time went on some dogs got a bit soft. We no longer needed to be able to chase down prey, nor was all that barking really necessary. Thus dogs were becoming noticeably smaller and less muscular. In fact, with the sweeping advances in industry and changes in society during the Victorian period, dogs’ role became less functional and more leisure oriented. They found themselves used for sporting hobbies, and as family dogs that would be good companions around children.
Take for example Golden Retrievers. We were first bred in 1868 in Scotland to be used to retrieve waterfowl, such as ducks and upland game birds, during hunting and shooting parties, so the humans wouldn’t have to walk so far or get their feet wet. Whereas Pugs’ sole purpose were to be companion dogs to humans. Or how about Staffordshire Bull Terriers that began being bred as fierce fighters, but by the late 1800s became beloved “Nanny Dogs” to families. Then there were the dogs who evolved to continue working. For example Bloodhounds went from tracking deer and wild boar to sniffing out criminals for the police.
In fact, in 40,000 years dog breeding went from accidental in its prehistoric roots, to being bred for function, to a career in and of itself! The establishment of kennel clubs in the 19th century were so that humans could identify breeds, set breed standards, monitor bloodlines, and manage legitimate breeding practices for healthier dogs. Leading us to today where dogs comes in all shapes and sizes, and serve a variety of roles to humans.
This was a very simplified explanation of the evolution of dogs. To learn more about the scientific aspects, we recommend Jill U. Adams, “Genetics of Dog Breeding,” Nature Education (2008), and Greger Larson et al., “Rethinking Dog Domestication by Integrating Genetics, Archeology, and Biogeography,” PNAS (2012). We also highly recommend reading further about the variety of breeds at AKC.org.
