Dog Domestication a Natural Event

© 2011 Ovodov et al.

A study published at the end of last year (reported in a Vancouver newspaper here or original journal article here) discusses, with reference to earlier findings, the significance of a canine skull from around 33,000 years ago found in southern Siberia that is somewhere between a wolf and a domestic dog.

The conclusions from the study can be neatly summarized with the following quote from the journal article:

“…dog domestication almost certainly occurred multiple times without direct human selection…”

Something about the nature of wolves and the character of our early settlement phase almost seem to have made the “dog” an inevitable result, for which we should not really try to take credit. Our direct selection did later produce breeds but not the original dog.

The significance of these conclusions for “stray” dogs is that dogs living on the edge of human society are quite natural and exactly what they evolved to do.

And neither should we see this as simply some point in the distant past. The “village” dogs still running around parts of the world today are a piece of living history that can probably teach us a lot about domestication, so let’s recognize them as such and stop trying to “deal” with them all as strays.

(As always, please note that I am not talking about abandoned pets)