Biologist Drake helps answer key question in canine history [Dog Domestication]

When did dogs first become domesticated? A sophisticated new 3D fossil analysis by biologists Abby Grace Drake, visiting assistant professor of biology at Skidmore, and Michael Coquerelle of the University Rey Juan Carlos contradicts the suggested domestication of dogs during the late Paleolithic era (about 30,000 years ago), and reestablishes the date of domestication to around 15,000 years ago...

Whether dogs were domesticated during the Paleolithic era, when humans were hunter-gatherers, or the Neolithic era, when humans began to form permanent settlements and take up farming, is a subject of ongoing scientific debate. Original fossil finds placed dog domestication in the Neolithic, during the time when humans began to form permanent settlements and started to farm. However, genetic analyses have often contradicted this date, claiming that dogs were domesticated much earlier. Recent fossils found in Russia and Belgium have been used as evidence for dogs being domesticated as early as the late Paleolithic, when humans were hunter-gatherers...

Drake and Coquerelle proposed a 3D method for measuring the canid skulls and re-assessed the Paleolithic fossils from Russia and Belgium. When they compared the form of these canids to that of modern and ancient wolves and dogs from North America and Europe, they were surprised to find that these fossils, once presumed to be dogs, were in fact wolves.

Rudyard Kipling

The Law of the Jungle
(From The Jungle Book)

Now this is the Law of the Jungle — as old and as true as the sky;
And the Wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the Wolf that shall break it must die.
As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk the Law runneth forward and back —
For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.

~~~~

Wash daily from nose-tip to tail-tip; drink deeply, but never too deep;
And remember the night is for hunting, and forget not the day is for sleep.
The Jackal may follow the Tiger, but, Cub, when thy whiskers are grown,
Remember the Wolf is a Hunter — go forth and get food of thine own.
Keep peace withe Lords of the Jungle — the Tiger, the Panther, and Bear.
And trouble not Hathi the Silent, and mock not the Boar in his lair.
When Pack meets with Pack in the Jungle, and neither will go from the trail,
Lie down till the leaders have spoken — it may be fair words shall prevail.
When ye fight with a Wolf of the Pack, ye must fight him alone and afar,
Lest others take part in the quarrel, and the Pack be diminished by war.
The Lair of the Wolf is his refuge, and where he has made him his home,
Not even the Head Wolf may enter, not even the Council may come.
The Lair of the Wolf is his refuge, but where he has digged it too plain,
The Council shall send him a message, and so he shall change it again.
If ye kill before midnight, be silent, and wake not the woods with your bay,
Lest ye frighten the deer from the crop, and your brothers go empty away.
Ye may kill for yourselves, and your mates, and your cubs as they need, and ye can;
But kill not for pleasure of killing, and seven times never kill Man!
If ye plunder his Kill from a weaker, devour not all in thy pride;
Pack-Right is the right of the meanest; so leave him the head and the hide.
The Kill of the Pack is the meat of the Pack. Ye must eat where it lies;
And no one may carry away of that meat to his lair, or he dies.
The Kill of the Wolf is the meat of the Wolf. He may do what he will;
But, till he has given permission, the Pack may not eat of that Kill.
Cub-Right is the right of the Yearling. From all of his Pack he may claim
Full-gorge when the killer has eaten; and none may refuse him the same.
Lair-Right is the right of the Mother. From all of her year she may claim
One haunch of each kill for her litter, and none may deny her the same.
Cave-Right is the right of the Father — to hunt by himself for his own:
He is freed of all calls to the Pack; he is judged by the Council alone.
Because of his age and his cunning, because of his gripe and his paw,
In all that the Law leaveth open, the word of your Head Wolf is Law.
Now these are the Laws of the Jungle, and many and mighty are they;
But the head and the hoof of the Law and the haunch and the hump is — Obey!

It is absolutely true. My husband had open heart surgery a few years ago, he had a Muslim home health nurse,. She always wore the scarf thing. We have four dogs and you could tell she was terrified of them. I always put them outside when she came. On her last visit I told her she had to pet one of them before she left, she did, reluctantly.

There are several African nurses (from Africa) at the convalescent home where I visit with my Therapy Dog group. They won’t have anything to do with the dogs either. They say “people good dogs bad”.

Recommend “Guns, Germs and Steel” for a treatment on the domestication of animals. The author makes a distinction between animals that are “tame” and those that are “domesticated”. Both can be approached/trained, but only the “domesticated” are reared by humans through selective breeding.

So his theory fits nicely with this article in that there was a long ‘association’ of “tame” wolf-dogs with humans before the animals were “domesticated”. The change in status probably occured when humans developed fixed farming communities and/or mobile herding communities.

I’m just wondering why, if that *is* the “legal definition” of domestication, it is *not* applied to snakes.

My boas and ball pythons would not last 10 minutes “in the wild”, yet all animal laws refer to them as “wild animals”.

Case in point, the infamous incident whereupon Alice, my pastel ball python, unlocked his enclosure and went missing for 3 weeks.

When I finally found him, he was trying to pound a house mouse to death *with his face*.

Having only eaten thawed mice, he had no idea what to do with a “real mouse”.

Hardly a “wild animal”, he.

People do not know the history of Poodles.

They were once bird dogs of great renown and have been used by the French as police dogs.

A Standard Poodle is not to be trifled with.

They are intelligent and can be quite ferocious.

Most only see the “silly haircut”, which was actually a very efficient means of both creating buoyancy in the water while insulating the dog’s joints from the cold.

My first dog was a Miniature Poodle and if you messed with me, she would bite you.

When I later got Dobes, she ran them like rented mules.

They backed down from her every single time.

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