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A Research Paper: Domestication Of Dogs And Cats

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Research paper: Domestication of dogs and cats

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Ever wonder how cats and dogs have become our loyal companions? Today households in the U.S. carry 30% of cats and 40% of dogs on average. Despite cats and dogs loyalty to humans, their history is not so nice, cats and dogs have become domesticated but not by themselves. Here is some underlying historical information behind how first cats and dogs have become domesticated.

Cats have been in the homes of humans for thousands of years. "All 600 million housecats in the world can be traced back to five females of this species". (pets. the nest) Ancient Egyptians worshiped a cat goddess and they often had their beloved pets mummified and buried with them. All cats are a unique …show more content…

Dogs are believed to originate from wolves, but theories investigate and lead to the cross breed of a wolf and a coyote. "Scientists have used DNA evidence to show that, more than likely, the dog did indeed descend from the gray wolf". (HowStuffWorks) Other research such as the mitochondrial DNA of a dog suggests that dogs and wolves were a completely different species about 100,000 years ago. In DNA scientists have found more dogs have a higher percentage of wolf genes from wolves native to the middle east. With these studies scientists believe that the middle east was the original location where domestication occurred. Historians believe that dogs were first domesticated by humans before any other animal. Much scientific evidence was based on the behavior and appearance of dogs. Canines were specifically said to be just tamed wolves but in other cases researchers believe wolves were attracted by humans waist. (Beam) This means these wolves were attracted to human settlements. These canines first were socialized because they were brave enough to approach humans, yet not so aggressively because they were getting fed. After a period of time passed dogs features adapted to being fed and not having to hunt anymore so their features changed overtime. As more time passed and these dogs became more appreciate to humans, humans started to breed the dogs to help with hunting, herding, taking guard, and carrying heavy stuff. The earliest finding of dog bones that were discovered were in Belgium in 2008 and they are believed to be from 31,700 years

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