The Dog Through the Ages

Cave man's sloppy housekeeping also helped draw wild dog and man together. Attracted by the scraps he threw outside, the scavengers rid him of unsanitary waste. The cautious creatures accepted man's waste long before they accepted him; and he may have looked on dogs more as a convenient source of meat than of companionship. Man doubtless found dog dens and carried puppies home - just as Australian aborigines do with the dingo. The puppies grew up unafraid of man, and their playful, friendly ways won tolerance for their kind in the household. Succeeding generations grew tamer still, ultimately so accustomed to serving their new master and sharing the comfort and protection of his fire that life in the wild did not attract them. Who was this four-legged creature that gradually became companion to man? Was he a jackal or was he a coyote, since both are noted for scavenger ways? Or was he a tractable wolf?

The dog's story begins in the lush forests of some 50 million years ago with a small, tree-climbing creature, Miacis. This undoglike patriarch was also the progenitor of both bear and raccoon. From him evolved a carnivore we call Hesperocyon. Though Hesperocyon's long body and short legs little resembled the dog's, he had developed many doglike characteristics.

Some 25 to 30 million years ago two larger, shorter-tailed, distinctly doglike forms named Temnocyon and Cynodesmus made their appearance on the open plains. Both evolved from Hesperocyon. Temnocyon is considered the ancestor of today's wild dogs of India, Africa, and Brazil. Cynodesmus through an intermediate wolf-like form called Tomarctus, became the ancestor of our modern wolves, coyotes, jackals, foxes, and domestic dogs.

Though wolves and dogs sprang from a common ancestor, the former maintained their wildness and ferocity; the latter became tractable and domestic. One of these close relatives has been hated ever since the howl of ravening wolves and the moonlit gleam of eyes struck terror in the heart of early man. The other - the dog - is held higher in our affection than any other animal.

Man unconsciously shaped the dog he wanted. At first he kept only those most useful in the hunt. When he domesticated sheep and cattle, to guard them he chose the dog which could fight off predators. Everywhere man went, dog went too, thus-becoming the most widely distributed of four-footed animals. The dog adapted to every clime and every use. The great variety we see in our dogs today once served a practical purpose. The Dachshund's body was bred sausage-shaped so he could wriggle into the badger's den; the tuft of hair on the brow of the vermin-killing Scottie served to keep dirt out of his eyes when he, too, went to earth. The sled dog's fur coat and plumed tail functioned as sleeping bag and muffler. Hunting dogs became specialist: long-legged Deerhounds, keen-nosed Bloodhound, burly Mastiff.