9781422274897

CHAPTER 1

HUMANS AND THEIR DOGS

MAN’S BEST FRIEND The nickname “man’s best friend” is more than appropriate considering the long history humans and dogs share. Dogs were the first animals to be domesticated. In other words, they underwent the process where a population of animals or plants is changed through years of breeding in order to emphasize traits that benefit humans. Other examples of domesticated animals include sheep, cattle, pigs, and chickens. Dogs, a domesticated species of the gray wolf, are the most widely kept working, hunting, and pet animal in human history. The dogs we know and love today are a part of our lives because the gray wolf was domesticated nearly 33,000 years ago! Why and howdomestication came about is widely debated, butmost people agree that the relationship between dogs and humans, especially in the early

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