Research on the Communicative Skills of Dogs

It can be argued that along with cats, dogs were one of the first animals to become domesticated. For approximately 10,000 years humans and dogs have more than co-existed, they have developed a special bond unlike any other animal has developed with us. Today hundreds, if not thousands of breeds of dog exist. Although this fact remains true, all dogs belong to the Canis Familiaris family within the animal kingdom. Despite any tamed, domesticated, or docile tendencies, all breeds of dogs have traits that are derived from their wild ancestors and to this day many of those traits still exist and in fact, are quite important to the dog’s survival and mating techniques. Some of the more prominent survival tactics include digging, burying, being

A similarity between humans and wolves that I saw was that both wolves and humans care for each other when one of either a human/wolf is hurt the pack leader/parent or family member cares for that wolf or helps that kid up when he's fallen down or been injured. Another similarity is that that both wolves and humans are aggressive when it comes to protecting their young.

Have you ever played outside with your dog for a while and lay back to consider about how your dog evolved into whom he is today and how he turned into "family?" Well, over the centuries, dogs have evolved a lot! In between that time, they turned into what we call pets. Because of this, the relationship between dogs and humans has changed over thousands of years, wolves evolved to dogs and the wolves soon became pets.

It was also common for the Wolves to be bred with dogs, in order to get a breed of dog with the strength of a wolf but the calmness and loyalty of a dog.

In a pack of wolves, there is always a hierarchical system. The alpha wolf leads to pack and sets the tone for their culture. According to the wolf girls native culture, “The main commandment of the wolf life is Know Your Place” (Russell 232). By the time the wolf girls were taken into the new human society, they immediately sought a leader. The new environment made them anxious for direction.

Nobody knows exactly when dogs were domesticated there is so many different showings of when dogs were domesticated but the latest would be where it says 32,000 years ago. The domestication of cats and dogs or  any animals come from humans and animals living so close to each other in close quarter communities. Genes during domestication overlaps with the genes from humans, the same kind of genes are for digestion, metabolism, neurological process and cancer according to population genetics. So humans and animals both was domesticated from the same genes. Human and animals are a lot alike. “Biologist Raymond Coppinger has another idea, the wolves domesticated themselves he suspects the process would have begun at the end of the last Ice Age approximately 15,000 years ago” (“What Caused The Domestication Of Wolves”). Coppinger believes in “flight distance” which is a behavioral characteristics that transformed the wild dogs to the modern dog

Did you know that back then wolves where the only dogs that existed? Until something that scientist though could be a reason why wolves where changing. In the text it states that one of the most common theory that scientist came up with was this, "That the relationship started when some bold wolves began venturing into

Humans and dogs have long shared a bond that was based on function. Early dogs that were the least valuable and useful did not make it into today’s time. On the other hand, the most valuable and helpful of dogs remained and created others like them. Ultimately, breed predecessors were produced by breeding the best hunters to the best hunters and the best guards to the best

A long time ago, dogs were once wolves, and they worked for humans. Over the millennia, wolves have evolved into dogs, and dogs have become friendlier. The way wolves have changed over time into dogs have been very noticeable. Although, the arctic grey wolf didn't turn into Cavalier King Yorkshire Terrier overnight. The reason the two, dogs and wolves, have changed are plentiful due to the changing relationship between humans and dogs. It cannot be denied.

The wolves' habit of hunting in packs has resulted in the development of complex patterns of social behavior. Wolves are gregarious: they not only hunt in packs or groups but live most of their lives with other wolves. Studies in Alaska, Minnesota, Michigan , and parts of Canada show that a family made up of male, female, and pups is the basic pack unit. Other adults are pups of previous years or, more rarely, adults from other packs. Adolescent

Why did dogs stay by our sides for thousands of years? Dogs were being used for hunting. Then time passes by and dogs are being used as pets. Human show dogs a lot of love and that make dogs change. If it was not for human's dogs wouldn't exist because they would still be wolves. Dogs will protect you from harmful animals in the forest. The relationship between dogs and humans has changed over time because wolves became dogs and dogs became pets.

There are a lot of discussions about whether wolves and dogs belong to the same species or not. Recently dogs were reclassified from “canis familiaris” to “canis lupus familiaris” what means they are considered as a sub-species of the wolf species “canis lupus”. However, they are extremely close relatives and genetic studies prove that both share a common ancestry. We can consider a dog like tamed or domesticated form of a wolf.

After years of selective breeding and taming, the hunters finally came across some wolves that were able to listen to commands and do what they were ordered to do. These wolves did not look like the first ones with which humans came into contact. Their size, coloring, senses and even the length of their coat or swimming ability reflected the environment in which they lived. These environments could have ranged from anything since hunters do not stay in one place for very long. These wolves probably did not reflect their gray ancestors much anymore. The color of their coat could have become brown, black, or even yellow depending on where they were taken. Their size could have been affected, too, depending on how the hunters had used them- they could have shrunken to the size

There are several theories on how the evolution from wolf to dog came about. One theory is that the human environment attracted wolves. Wolves started following people around to take advantage of food scraps that were left behind. Eventually, wolves lost fear of people, and people lost fear of wolves. The benefits of this new relationship were not just one way. Wolves also helped humans by sniffing out prey and helping them hunt. Success likely meant the humans would share their food with wolves. This is a very popular theory, but it has been disputed. Archeological digs show that the early dogs were not eating the same mammoth meat that the humans were eating. Instead, their main diet consisted mostly of less popular human meat such as reindeer. The prehistoric dogs also had many broken teeth and severe facial wounds. Although these injuries could be from fighting with other dogs, many scientists believe the dogs had been beaten with sticks, leading many to assume the relationship between man and prehistoric dog was not as companionable as the theory would suggest.

As stated previously, groups are formed based on the basic needs of survival. In wolves, this pack bondage has a hierarchy system with an alpha, the most dominant male at the time, and each wolf is placed below the other. These are not just traits that come about based on environment. It is more common for the dominant personality trait to be hereditary and passed down from one generation to the next (Ilska et al. 1103). Behaviorists are still trying to understand how traits in dogs are hereditary, but this research has been around far longer than that of understanding the genetics of human personality. To understand dog behavior, scientists look at genomic methodologies, such as the Genome Wide Association Study (GWAS) that looks at certain