A brief history of dogs
Dogs are undoubtedly human's greatest and closest friends. From cuddling in the bed to pulling sledge or guarding there is a dog breed for everyone's needs in all shapes and sizes.
When you come back from work, tired and frustrated by the world and the infinite number of projects by your boss and colleagues, you see your dog welcoming you with a wagging tail. He/she gives you some sniffs, jumps all around you and gives you some not so gentle hugs. Dogs are not shy expressing their joy and excitement seeing you and when you see their eyes, filled with love and care that has no other intention but love and protect you with their lives, all of your tiredness, frustration vanishes in a second.
If you are a dog lover/owner, you should also know that that cute poodle you are holding shares 97% of its genes with a wild wolf. Yeah! One slight genetic mutation will change your dog into a ferocious predictor. All the current wolves and dogs are direct descendants of the Canis Lupus (also known as the grey wolf), a predator which is considered to be a rival of the human's in the age.
When our ancestors migrated to Eurasia, there were not many predictors to compete with them for the top of the food chain. Well except one, the grey wolf. Much like humans, they hunted in packs. With an extremely intelligent brain and a bone crushing bit of upto 300 lbs they were feared by all the animals in the area. They chased their prey till the point of exertion rather than hunting it right away. This Chas could last for miles, their stamina and endurance played a major role in this.
But it all changed after the arrival of humans. The grey wolves were now on a back foot as humans were more intelligent than them. This resulted in a serious threat to their territory as humans were snatching all their places with more prey. Naturally the conflict between these two became more common. The wolves wandered around human tribes for food. Although the aggressive ones were driven away, the tamer ones got a bit closer and eventually got accepted in the tribe.
This was the start of an unbreakable friendship, a friendship that was gonna last more than 30,000 years and is still going to this date. Our ancestors trained and used them for hunting wild animals, guarding and herding domestic candles. They even came handy alerting everyone in case of an incoming danger. In return humans gave them food, shelter and even started breeding them which would make more tamer wolves.
People breed fast and agile dogs to make even faster dogs for hunting, and breed big and powerful dogs which would result in bigger and stronger dogs for guarding and pulling sleds. Long story short we are always changing them as per our needs. Although the motive of experiments have been changed to make beautiful dogs for dog shows from guarding and hunting. These experiments caused modern breeds to carry some not so healthy genes with them. As a result most breeds today suffer so many diseases because of our experiments to change their genetics to intimately please us. Diseases like Hip dysplasia, Heartworm, Canine distemper etc are common among most breeds.
It's different to digest that every pug, puddle is descended from an apex predator. Dogs might look and behave like wolves today if we didn't mess with their genetics. It is fascinating to know that time can make even our most dangerous enemies our dearest friends.
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