[Subjectivist]

http://youtu.be/FRmiIAbsJI8

Fascinating show about the breeding of Dogs from Wolves about 45,000 years ago beginning when Homo Sapiens arrived in the Middle East. The new dates for domestication push dog ancestry back to about the same time humans were meeting and marrying Neanderthals in the Middle East and Southern Europe. Russian attempts to domesticate Wolves and Foxes have proven that starting with as few as 50 breeding pairs and selecting for tameness can result in very dog like behavior in both species in as little as three generations.

[GHung]

Thanks for the link! Some of my most remarkable relationships have been with dogs. Indeed, one of my bitches has her head in my lap as I type this (a hunting Standard Poodle). The canine/human bond is one thing homo sapiens got very right (I actually give most of the credit to the dogs). Too bad many people abuse the relationship, same as they likely abuse their own children.

I was a part-time dog groomer when I lost my regular job in 2008, and went into full-time grooming. I specialized in dealing with big, nasty, sometimes 'difficult' dogs, and their owners treated me like a god-send; rewarding work and the pay wasn't bad either. Alas, arthritis in both hands has forced me to cut back. I still groom a few, including our own, even though it doesn't quite jive with my world view about peak everything. I see it as caring for family. As my former boss used to say; "I ain't got no use for people who don't like dogs". One of my bitches...



...another made the cover of "Bloodlines":



She can really fly. We also have a Mountain Feist mix we found in a ditch. Great ratter, and he loves to ride on the tractor. I'm looking for a guard dog for the goats we're working toward getting; a Central Asian Shepherd, perhaps.

Nobody sneaks up on our place. Get'em girls!

[Pops]

Cool Ghung!

My Mom was a groomer back in the '60s and she and my Uncle bred Poodles briefly. Standard poodles are one of my favorite breeds although I've not had one for years, our last dog was an Australian Shepherd. We've a sorta-rescued pug right now. Amazing how on the one hand you can breed such an intelligent animal as any of the working dogs (that are left) and on the other you can just breed a little farce like a pug. LOL

He is an avid follower of the AKC champions tho

[dinopello]

Lets hope blisteredwhippet doesn't get wind of this thread. I still remember his critique of the whole pet thing from the dog thread.

There are so many doodle dogs around now. Labradoodle, Goldendoodle, etc. People want the poodle intelligence and trainability without the stigma lol.

Thanks for the link in the OP - I'm going to check it out. A friend of mine had a wolf hybrid which was a very cool animal but not a pet I would want. It never did anything bad but somehow it seemed it was always sizing you up.

My Bullmastiff fits me to a T, except for the short lifespan . She's a great deterrent for when solicitors come to the door.

[rollin]

For all around survival ability (hunting, guarding, zany fun) my vote is for the Rhodesian Ridgeback. A combination of mastiff and African hound made a sight hound with a great sense of smell and a huge prey drive. Mine backs down from nothing. Great for tracking game and warns us of any movement within one hundred yards. Not for the wimpy dog owner though, needs a strong hand.

Dogs are man's early high tech tool. They are an advanced sensitive detection system that probably came in very handy for both hunting and protection. Keeps the rodent population in check too.

[Subjectivist]

Our youngest,

Our middle,

Our eldest,

[Tanada]

When I was a kid we raised several generations of Norwegian Elkhound/German Shepherd mixes. The hybrid vigor and combined breed characteristics were great. They would work, protect, hunt and in general made great companions. I have always been somewhat surprised how rare that cross is, and how few people have ever heard of it.

[sparky]

.
Australia developed two main breed
the kelpy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Kelpie
brilliant herder with great character , tough as nails and a great companion
not so good for aggression , way too friendly

the second is the blue heeler or Queensland cattle dog
http://www.dogbreedinfo.com/australiancattledog.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Cattle_Dog

tough doesn't even describe it , indestructible come closer with a weakness for rotten carrion
a bastard all around , with a rough attitude and a great hatred of sheep ( they kill them )
faithful to a fault ,they have no sense of self preservation
not really playful , they are very hard working cattle dogs , running all day in 100 degree F
it barely tolerate women and they nip bite kids who bother them ,
the tears are followed by the old man yelling ......leave the bastard be !

there was one in the second mad max movie

[PrestonSturges]

http://youtu.be/FRmiIAbsJI8

Fascinating show about the breeding of Dogs from Wolves about 45,000 years ago beginning when Homo Sapiens arrived in the Middle East. The new dates for domestication push dog ancestry back to about the same time humans were meeting and marrying Neanderthals in the Middle East and Southern Europe. Russian attempts to domesticate Wolves and Foxes have proven that starting with as few as 50 breeding pairs and selecting for tameness can result in very dog like behavior in both species in as little as three generations.

http://asianhistory.about.com/od/china/ ... se-Dog.htm

DNA studies reveal that Pekingese dogs are among the closest, genetically, to wolves. Although they do not physically resemble wolves, due to intense artificial selection by generations of human keepers, Pekingese are among the least changed breeds of dogs at the level of their DNA.

[Plantagenet]

I listen to audio books on my ipod when I do my daily jog and I'm currently listening to "The Wolf in the Parlor" by Jon Franklin. The book is about the evolutionary science, archeology, psychological evolution and behaviorial science of the dog-human connection over the last 40,000 years combined with some great dog stories.


Recommended.

[sparky]

.
I would think human didn't domesticate wolves.......wolves domesticated themselves
packs of not so brave not so proud wolves , were attracted by the hunters refuse ,
either at the hunting site or in the midden were some stuff was cast off
some co-dependency , for the humans the presence of wolves wasn't much of a problem ,
they couldn't really get rid of them ,
the wolves would keep smaller predators off
and they provided an excellent early warning system

down the years , habits developed , kids and infantile would chase each others
the females and the mothers understood each other ,don't hurt the kids or there will be trouble

adults would follows the hunters to get to the kill site first and get the juicy offal
probably despairing at how dumb the human were ,
helping them to track game was pure self interest ,
those guys would waste so much time finding prey , it was better to show them where to go

The hunters got the message no doubt and trusted the look of disgust on the Wolves
telling them they'd better follows their signals if they wanted to bring anything back at all

I can imagine a veteran hunter grabbing his bow and spears to escape the wife nagging
while an old male pricked up his ears , pretty fed up with the puppies chewing his tail

both going to "hunt" together for a bit of quiet quality time

[Ibon]

Especially in the case of dogs we identify with their mutant forms, the distance they have gone from the jackal or wolf, the dependence they have on our civilization. They are like us so we project all kinds of emotional garbage on to them being the same fellow invasive overpopulated species like ourselves.

Saw a lady french kiss her little designer dog the other day while waiting in line at the bank.

[sparky]

.
There are people who live with wolves , one wrote a book about having one
he was a lecturer , he took it to uni with him
the wolf reaction to being locked up waiting for him was to tear everything including water piping !
if the guy lecture was too boring the wolf would howl mournfully
the students were not so amused when the wolf went through their packs
looking for sandwitches and not taking no for an answers

the guy said that the wolf was pretty independent , no pet at all ,
the wolf needed a massive amount of exercice
the wolf didn't run he sort of lopped along moving only its paws
and could do it for hours
He treated dogs as mental retards , had a couple of hard fights with the bigger ones
the small ones he just ignored them
a trainer told him to beat him some when juvenile to establish dominance ,
never after fully grown ,
he respected the guy as his pack leader , not as its master , he had no master

[Keith_McClary]

.
I would think human didn't domesticate wolves.......wolves domesticated themselves
packs of not so brave not so proud wolves , were attracted by the hunters refuse ,
either at the hunting site or in the midden were some stuff was cast off
some co-dependency , for the humans the presence of wolves wasn't much of a problem ,
they couldn't really get rid of them ,
the wolves would keep smaller predators off
and they provided an excellent early warning system

down the years , habits developed , kids and infantile would chase each others
the females and the mothers understood each other ,don't hurt the kids or there will be trouble

adults would follows the hunters to get to the kill site first and get the juicy offal
probably despairing at how dumb the human were ,
helping them to track game was pure self interest ,
those guys would waste so much time finding prey , it was better to show them where to go

The hunters got the message no doubt and trusted the look of disgust on the Wolves
telling them they'd better follows their signals if they wanted to bring anything back at all

I can imagine a veteran hunter grabbing his bow and spears to escape the wife nagging
while an old male pricked up his ears , pretty fed up with the puppies chewing his tail

both going to "hunt" together for a bit of quiet quality time

+++
(although you might say wolves domesticated humans)

[Tanada]

A new study I just stumbled across shows that people of European descent have the same fat storage gene structures as our Neanderthal ancestors, primarily for dealing with ice age conditions. Aparently people of African and Asian descent lack these gene structures and though they can become obese the foods that trigger obesity in them tend to be different than those that trigger it in Europeans.

Fascinating idea, if you ask me. It would also support the insulin over production/type II diabetes over representation in people of European descent.

Neandertals and modern Europeans had something in common: They were fatheads of the same ilk. A new genetic analysis reveals that our brawny cousins had a number of distinct genes involved in the buildup of certain types of fat in their brains and other tissues—a trait shared by today’s Europeans, but not Asians. Because two-thirds of our brains are built of fatty acids, or lipids, the differences in fat composition between Europeans and Asians might have functional consequences, perhaps in helping them adapt to colder climates or causing metabolic diseases.

“This is the first time we have seen differences in lipid concentrations between populations,” says evolutionary biologist Philipp Khaitovich of the CAS-MPG Partner Institute for Computational Biology in Shanghai, China, and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, lead author of the new study. “How our brains are built differently of lipids might be due to Neandertal DNA.”

Much more at the link
http://news.sciencemag.org/archaeology/ ... eandertals

[KaiserJeep]

Yes, it is indeed a fascinating topic. But the more you study the actual differences between human populations that were separated for longer periods, the more you discover the real differences in behavior, Intelligence, disease resistance, etc. Just one of the benefits of the Human Genome project.

Unfortunately, many of the scientific and accurate conclusions about such differences are not PC. Not to mention that you soon conclude that these real differences in DNA are more significant than irrelevant differences in external appearance that were formerly used to distinguish one race from another.

One of these unpopular conclusions is that there are but minute differences between the various tribes of the Middle East. Jews and Arabs and Persians and Sufis and the Druze are more closely related than they are to other human populations, which truth is enough to get your head chopped off if you mention it in the wrong country.

Unfortunately, the laws and culture have not yet changed to match the new knowledge from the DNA. Even most Americans don't know of which we speak.

[sparky]

.
I've followed the human genome project with gret interest and hope
the diversity of human races is a source of joy and quite reassuring
maybe we are not the genocidial maniac an unity of genes ( and the archeological record ) would imply

there is always the hope that one day maybe we will find somewhere
a direct linear descendant of the Neanderthal alive , either a "y" or "x" doesn't matter
that would be the absolution of the sin of having whipped them out

[KaiserJeep]

.
I've followed the human genome project with gret interest and hope
the diversity of human races is a source of joy and quite reassuring
maybe we are not the genocidial maniac an unity of genes ( and the archeological record ) would imply

there is always the hope that one day maybe we will find somewhere
a direct linear descendant of the Neanderthal alive , either a "y" or "x" doesn't matter
that would be the absolution of the sin of having whipped them out

RE: Surviving Neanderthals.

I think there are lots of them in the Balkans region....

[dohboi]

Well, at least it seems to have been an important factor in their demise:

http://www.newhistorian.com/climate-cha ... hals/6485/

Did Climate Change Contribute to Demise of Neanderthals?

... a zooarchaeologist from the University of Colorado Denver says he’s found evidence that European Neanderthals may have weathered periods of extreme cold brought about by climate change, based on signs of nutritional stress left behind in their remains. Jamie Hodgkins, CU Denver assistant professor of anthropology, analyzed the remains left behind by animals hunted by Neanderthals, discovering that our extinct relatives worked particularly hard to glean every bit of sustenance from the meat and bones when the weather turned colder.

Focusing on caves in southwestern France that are proven to have been inhabited by Neanderthals, Hodgkins took a hard look at the bones of prey animals that had been unearthed in these caves and examined the telltale signs left behind on these remains from the butchering process. She discovered that, during colder periods punctuated by increased glacial activity, these bones had been processed more heavily, including a larger number of percussion marks. This indicates a need to expose the marrow from within these bones, implying a reduction in the availability of food overall...

...Neanderthals suffered high levels of stress in cold and harsh environments. With the climate becoming colder and harsher, Neanderthals had to devote more time and energy into pulling every last calorie they could from bones, the researcher added, stating that the evidence of this need was even apparent in bones that yielded relatively little marrow. Remains such as the small bones of the prey animals’ feet bore the marks of perhaps desperately hungry Neanderthals, as much as larger bones with more easily accessible marrow.

The findings of Hodgins’ team lends further support to theories surrounding the extinction of the Neanderthals in regards to climate change being a factor.

Climate change had very real effects, according to the research findings, and Hodgkins says that the study of Neanderthal behavior presents opportunities to understand how rapidly deteriorating climatic conditions had such a serious and negative effect on our now-extinct close evolutionary cousins...

[vtsnowedin]

That is a NO Sh*iit Sherlock paper there. Every carnivore that lives in a climate containing winter seasons suffers starvation during the winter. The snow reduces their ability to travel and hunt and many of the prey animals are hibernating. Any food brought into the cave in the winter would have been gnawed down to clean bone and the bones cracked and sucked clean. The Neanderthals lasted a couple of HUNDRED thousand years, all the way through an ice age. It was the end of the ice age and probably modern humans and their dogs moving in that ended their reign.
Check this out.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... gbooktalk/