I would just like to understand why my dog seems to see me as her person and not another animal she must fight or escape from.
In: Other
Domestication happened in stages.
Step 1: Wolves. Wolves have natural social instincts that let them work together as a pack. They don’t easily extend this to non-family members unless it’s to take a mate.
Step 2: Scavenging. Just as foxes and raccoons take human scraps today, early dogs scavenged from human leftovers. Dogs that were too aggressive got killed because they were too much of a danger and dogs that were too timid missed out on potential food. The calm and confident dogs ate and thrived, slowly becoming more and more friendly towards humans.
Step 3: Early domestication. Some dogs became friendly enough to be useful. Useful dogs were intentionally fed and given shelter. These beloved companions often guarded the home and helped with the hunt. Being intentionally fed and sheltered gave these dogs a big advantage over their scavenging neighbors, so these most friendly and useful traits thrived in the dog population even though they weren’t being intentionally bred.
Step 4: Selective breeding. People figured out that the puppies of a good dog would be more likely to be good dogs. People started intentionally selecting which dogs they wanted to breed together to propagate useful qualities—breed together 2 great hunting dogs and raise the pups to be the next generation of hunting dogs. Breed together 2 watchful guardians to get pups to guard the family. Intentionally cross a fierce little dog with a strong digger to get a dog to dig out fox and badger burrows. Each generation, the best dogs for various purposes were bred together and had their puppies distributed. This eventually created dog breeds.
Fun fact: many dogs today never got that final step of selective breeding. These dogs, sometimes called village dogs or landrace dogs, still thrive in many parts of the world. They live as pets or street dogs, allowed to go where they wish and breed randomly.
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