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Is Dogs The Best Friend? Essay

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Dogs are so widespread and integrated into daily life that they are considered a given in any family, and not much thought is directed towards their progressive history as man’s best friend. Whether we have one-- or multiple-- dogs or do not, their presence is undeniable. As much as dogs have affected humans, so have we affected them in the same way, for better or for worse. Katharine Rogers supports the idea that dogs are looked upon favorably as human companions as they have easy compatibility with humans, have a range of positive characterizations in media and in life due to evolved characteristics, and have become specialized to serve different jobs, making the distinct classifications that are known today. It is a generally known fact that dogs descended from wolves but it does not exactly describe the process in which they were integrated into humans’ lives. It was a rather relatively straightforward process that involved wolves who showed no aggression and willingness to come close to human settlements while humans trusted them enough to come in close contact with them. “Humans unwittingly created a new environmental niche, and wolves evolved to fill it, incidentally becoming more and more like dogs as they did so” (Rogers 18), and that gave rise to different structural and physical characteristics as they became domesticated. A question that might be raised is: why dogs? Or, what if not dogs? Would there be such an animal that would be in the place of dogs? It seems

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