The History of Dogs as Pets

The History of Dogs as Pets

In honor of National Dog Day, ABC News considered how our furry four-legged friends from wild wolves have become our best friends.

It was originally thought that the first domesticated wolves appeared in the Middle East about 15,000 years ago. However, new evidence suggests that it was much earlier. Swedish geneticist Pontus Skoglund published a study in Current Biology last year, in which he described his discoveries of a 35,000-year-old Siberian wolf bone. He concluded that domestication of dogs may have occurred for the first time between 27,000 and 40,000 years ago.

According to genetic studies, modern domestic dogs come from China, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe. According to Greger Larson, archaeologist and geneticist, gray wolves have been domesticated by humans somewhere in western Eurasia. He assumes that the people in the east also domesticated wolves.

Scientists believe that wolves were first lured into human camps for food scraps. Over time, some wolves began to travel with nomadic people and some sort of natural selection for domestication occurred, said Dr. Stephen L. Zawistowski, emeritus scientific advisor to the American Society, to ABC News. Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA). Women may have been the first to pet these wolves, according to Katherine M. Rogers, emeritus professor of English at Brooklyn College, in her book First Friend. According to a 40-year experiment that Russian researcher Dmitri K. Belyaev started in the late 1950s, it takes six to eight generations to domesticate a dog.

There is even scientific evidence of the link between humans and dogs. When people look at each other, we connect emotionally and release a hormone called oxytocin. A Nagasawa study found that when dogs and humans look at each other in the eye, the same hormone is released in humans and dogs.

Dog breeds are popular in different ways. St. Bernards were number 1 in the 1890s, but Labrador Retrievers have been favorites since the 1990s.

Special thanks to Alison Jimenez and Dr. Stephen L. Zawistowski of ASPCA and Brandi Hunter of the American Kennel Club for their support in researching this story.