What is a “Dog”?
African Wild Dog
So what exactly is what we now call today a “dog”? The dog’s scientific name is Canis lupus familiaris, simply meaning ‘dog that is a wolf that is domestic’. The dog is classed as a subspecies of the Gray Wolf, making it quite literally classifiable as a wolf. So in scientific terms the domestic wolf would be more correct. The word “dog” in relation to the species can be linked both to its genus Canis and its family – Canidae. Canis refers to several species including Jackals, Wolves and Coyotes. Canidae however refers to many species, ranging from the African Wild Dog to the many variations of the Fox. So it would be correct to state that indeed Foxes, Jackals, Wolves and all the other species in the Canidae family are dogs, and the term “dog” to refer simply to the domesticated version of the wolf no longer becomes scientifically entirely correct, more like a nickname.
We humans domesticated wild wolves to create what we now know today as the domestic dog. Although exactly when is not known, it is estimated that it may have occurred between 10-15,000 years ago, when humans were hunter-gatherers. Certain wolves decided to scavenge from human kills when possible. Inevitably some of these wolves tested approaching the humans, the ones that succeeded then lived on and the tamest survived. This eventually led to the humans’ realisation that these wolves’ skills could be honed, to hunt, to protect and to assist. So wolves were gradually accustomed to human contact, human communication and human control. Subsequently the process of selective breeding began. Selective breeding started out as simply killing off the most aggressive and least useful, but has slowly evolved to the careful process that is breeding today, resulting in a wide variety of breeds, most certainly not just for hunting purposes. Without dogs, we would not have become the civilisation we are today, and without us, dogs would not exist, we are interdependent among each other. Although I have summarized this process, it was of course actually a very gradual process that took thousands of years and is a very important process to know.
Staffordshire Bull Terrier
One of the main factors that show dogs are domestic wolves is that the domestic dog shares a genetic structure with the wolf that is over 99.8% similar. This is astounding, in-fact there are not many other species that share such similarities. This means that scientifically speaking, would it be correct to assume that some physical and psychological traits have been passed down from the wolf to the domestic dog? In most ways yes, but in some ways no. For example, Dogs have lost the innate fear of humans that wild wolves have, so they can project submission, dominance or even aggression towards humans. Wolves are not like this at all; innately they are highly fearful of humans (for reasons including prolonged hunting). Dogs have also learnt our communication, how to interpret and respond to our body language and voice. As during the domestication process those animals that could do this efficiently were treasured, kept and bred. Dogs have also learnt to live in a human environment, to feel comfortable indoors. Although dogs have all these new traits and many more since domestication, they have maintained some traits from wolves. I translate these traits into needs and summarise them into three categories; migration, hierarchy and socialisation. These I will go into more detail on in future articles and they will be the basis of explaining all behavior problems. A quick summary: migration is the need to travel/migrate every day; hierarchy is the need to know where they stand in the pack; socialisation is the need to socialise with members of their pack and other packs.
The original trait that formed the basis of these three needs is pack orientation. Pack orientation is a trait most definitely passed down from wolves, the need to be in a pack.
-George Manning-