General history of the dogs

There is no contradiction in the idea that in the earliest period of human habitation this world is a friend and companion of a nice original representative of our modern dog, and that in return for his help him of wild animals in shelter and his sheep and goats at the Guarding, he gave it a portion of his food, a corner in his home, and it grew to trust and care for it. Probably the animal was originally little other than an unusually gentle jackal or a sick wolf driven by his companions from the wild marauding pack to seek refuge in the foreign country. One can well imagine that the possibility of partnership in the circumstance of some helplessly whelps starting from the early hunters home brought brought up and reared by women and children. Dogs introduced into the house as toys for children would grow to look at themselves, and the members of the family should be considered,

In almost all parts of the world are traces of a local dog family, the only exception is the West Indies, Madagascar, the Eastern Isles in the Malay Archipelago, New Zealand, and the Polynesian Islands where there is no sign that every dog ​​is wolf or fox Has existed as a real original animal. In the ancient oriental countries, and as a rule among the early Mongols, the dog remained wild and neglected for centuries, in packs prowling, haggard, and wolf-like, as it passes through the streets and under the walls of every eastern city. There was no attempt to elicit it into human society or to improve it in docility. Only when we examine the records of the higher cultures of Assyria and Egypt that we discover all different varieties of dog shape.

The dog was not greatly valued in Palestine and both in the Old and New Testament it is often with derision and contempt as a "impure animals." The well-known reference to the Shepherd in the Book of Job, "But now they are younger, than I am in mocking, whose forefathers I had scorned to put with the dogs of my flock" is not without a touch of contempt, and it Is important that the only acknowledged companion of man to the dog biblical allusion in the apocryphal book is Tobit (v. 16), "so they went both, and the dog of the young man with them."

The great variety of different dog breeds and the great differences in their size, points and general appearance are facts that make it hard to believe that they might have had a common ancestor. One thinks of the difference between the mastiff and the Japanese Spaniel, the Deerhound, and the fashionable Pomeranians, St. Bernhard and the Miniature Black and Tan Terrier, and becomes perplexed by the possibility that they had descended from a common ancestor. But the difference is no greater than that between the Shire horse and Shetlandpony, the Shorthorn and the Kerry cattle or the Patagonian and the Pygmy; And all dog breeders know how easy it is to produce a variety in type and size from addiction choices.

To truly understand this question, it is necessary to first consider the identity of the structure in the wolf and the dog. This identity of the structure can best be examined in a comparison of the bone system, or skeletons, of the two animals so close together that would not easily recognize their implementation.
The spine of the dog consists of seven vertebrae in the neck, thirteen in the back, seven in the loins, three sacral vertebrae, and 20-22 in the tail. Both the dog and the wolf have thirteen pairs of ribs, nine true and four false. Everyone has forty-two teeth. Both five and four in front of the behind-toes, while outward the common wolf has so much to look at the appearance of a large, bare-bones dog that will be a popular description of one will serve another.

Also, their different habits. The natural voice of the wolf is a loud howl, but when she is confined with dogs he learns to bark. Although he is meat fress, he will also eat vegetables and sickly when he will nibble grass. In the hunt, a pack of wolves divide into parties, in the footsteps of the quarry, the other tries to intercept his retreat, exercise a considerable amount of strategy, a step that is exhibited by many of our sports dogs and terriers when hunting in teams .

Another important point of similarity between Canis lupus and Canis familiaris lies in the fact that the time of pregnancy in both species is 63 days. There are three to nine puppies in a litter of wolves, and these are blind for 21 days. They are suckled for two months, but at the end of this time they can eat for them by their mother or their father to eat half-digested meat.

The native dogs of all regions are approximately narrow in size, color, shape and habit to the native wolf of these regions. From this most important circumstance there are far too many instances to be allowed as a mere coincidence. Sir John Richardson, wrote in 1829, found that "equality between the North American wolves and the domestic dog of the Indians is so great that the size and strength of the wolf seems to be the only difference.

It was suggested that an indisputable argument against the lupine relationship of the dog is that all the dogs bark, while all the wild canids just howl express their feelings. But the difficulty here is not as great as it seems, for we know that Jackals, Wildhounds and Wolfspups raised by bitches easily acquire the habit. On the other hand, dogs free running forgotten how to bark, while there are some who have not yet learned to express themselves.

The presence or absence of the habit of barking can not be considered an argument in the question of the origin of the dog to decide. This stumbling block disappears so we are able to leave with Darwin to some whose final hypothesis was that "it is very likely that the dogs of the world have descended from two good species of wolf (C. lupus and C. latrans) From two or three other doubtful species of wolves, the European, Indian, and North African forms derived from at least one or two South American dog species from different breeds or species of jackals, and perhaps one or more extinct species "; And that the blood of them, in some cases intermixed, flows in the veins of our petrasses.