Human beings have been partners with dogs for a very long time—at least 25,000 years. More recent discoveries suggest that the partnership may be as much as 100,000 years old. And during all of that time humans have been intervening in the breeding of dogs—that’s what turned wolves into dogs in the first place.
For the last 40 years there’s been an ongoing experiment in Siberia in domestication that casts some highly suggestive light on just how wolves became dogs. Scientists there have been selectively breeding foxes for a single characteristic: tamability or friendliness to humans. And over the course of the experiment the foxes in the program have begun to express some of the other kinds of characteristics that differentiate dogs from wolves besides friendliness to humans: appearance of dwarf and giant varieties, piebald coat color, curly tails, floppy ears, etc.
Early human beings certainly must have noticed some of these characteristics and selectively bred their dogs companions to be better and more useful companions.
Today there are more than 150 breeds of dogs with physical and mental characteristics that pre-dispose them to excel at certain tasks. There are hunting dogs that excel at finding, trailing, flushing, or retrieving game. There are herding dogs that excel at herding or droving livestock. There are terriers bred to hunt vermin. There are working dogs that excel at pulling, or swimming, or guarding. And, of course, there are breeds of dogs that excel at being good and loving companions to people. These breeds have been shaped over thousands and thousands of dog generations.
Occasionally you’ll hear the complaint from some well-meaning souls that dogs are being forced to work. Not only is this not true but, as someone who has actually worked dogs (sledding, carting, packing, herding, and care-taking), I can tell you the actual case couldn’t be more opposite. You can’t force a dog to pull a sled or to herd. Either they’ll do it or they won’t. If the dog decides he doesn’t want to pull that sled, he’ll sit down and there’s nothing you can do to make him pull.
And, in fact, something miraculous happens when a dog is doing the work that he or she was bred for. Their entire demeanor changes and they express a kind of keenness and transcendent joy that’s wonderful to see. “So this is what I have the thick coat, and the feet shaped to run through snow, the strong legs, and shoulders and chest that yearn to pull for. Let’s go!”
We poor random-bred humans can barely appreciate that kind of joy, knowing why we were born and throwing ourselves into it with our whole hearts and our whole souls. With us only the greatest of saints have that experience. It’s every purebred dog’s birthright.
My wife and Jenny, our Lady-O, just took off a little while ago to go to the hospital to visit sick people there as part of Jenny’s therapy dog activities. That’s part of the work that our beloved Samoyed breed was bred for—to love and take care of people who need them. You should have seen the joy in her eyes as she walked out the door! She knew where she was going.
And yet people seem to be surprised by this sudden appearance of what’s been carried in the genome for dozens of generations. A family buys, say, a Shetland Sheepdog because it looks like a bonsai Collie, and then they’re perplexed when the Sheltie starts herding kids at a birthday party. (And they’re infinitely adjustable; David Letterman once had a couple of Border Collies herding sheep into New York City taxicabs.)
And that brings up one of my favorite stories about border collies. A man asks “Are BC’s good with children?” Answer: “If by good you mean within 15 minutes of being let out into the backyard with a group of children, the children will all be herded into a corner of the yard, then they’re very good with children.”
There are lots of reasons that people get dogs and, unfortunately, status is one of the most important. That’s why Labrador Retrievers are the most popular of all purebred dogs with registrations equal to all the others put together. Most people don’t have Labrador Retriever lifestyles but they aspire to them. Those dogs should be out hunting somewhere not lying on a couch.
“There are hunting dogs that excel at finding…terriers bred to hunt.. etc”
Or in the case of one of my dogs, excels at finding the thing you don’t want chewed most, and chewing it!
And this is not an overly active dog mind you. He’s a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, and they were bred to keep people’s laps warm in horse drawn carriages!
Chewing seems to be one of those idiosyncratic things. Of my four Samoyeds only one—the puppy—has any real interest in chewing. She’s destroyed dog toys we’ve had for years. My suggestion would be to try and substitute appropriate objects for your dog to chew on. There’s a great web site for ideas in this area: Lab Tested.
Thanks for that Dave, cool site. We may need to order online overseas, the stuff we have here in Oz is crap. Billy goes through the stuff in no time flat.
I had an encounter with a Border Collie when I was very young. My family was visiting another family. Another family next door had a Border Collie and ran a daycare. Apparently the dog decided I had strayed and took it upon itself to return me to where I belonged. That caused a fair bit of consternation.