UNTRUSTWORTHY PARTNERS?
How dogs held up their end of the co-evolution partnership. Us, not as much.
Gray Wolf photo from USFWS Digital Library. Lucy, Cherished Tails Alumni.
You might not guess it from looking at them, but little Lucy here is more vigilant when she’s resting than is her distant relative, the Gray Wolf. Yes, wild animals are more alert to changes in their waking environment than the domesticated, but that detail about resting vigilance in dogs is enormously telling. It tells a story about how humans and dogs have been socially entwined for thousands of years.
Why would dogs develop that particular trait? One theory is that the high resting alertness of dogs is powered by the considerable attention they pay to human behavior. They’re keeping an eye on us.
It’s widely accepted that humans and dogs have co-evolved for up to 30,000 years, with unambiguous archaeological evidence of domestication from 14,000 years ago. We two-leggeds often tend to consider this to be a matter of canine good fortune, crediting their evolutionary success to association with us.
What if it was the other way around, though? Would humankind realistically have survived this long all on our own?
Photo of a Natufian woman buried 14,000 years ago with her hand resting on a puppy, found in Eynan, Israel. First unambiguous evidence of domestication.
There are different theories about how it started, this close relationship we have with the descendants of wolves we now call “fur babies”. One of the most dogged of these is a testosterone-laden legend that imagines early hunter-gatherers abducting wolf pups, perhaps after killing the parents, and training them to help humans hunt. Forced into domestication and bred over generations for docility, the wolves surrender their wildness and transform into the canines we know today.
Upon a closer look, however, this story tends to disintegrate. One reason is that modern studies of wolf puppies in captivity show they don’t respond well at all to training. No matter how much love and attention they’re given, they remain in a continual contest with their trainers for dominance.
A different idea is that the interdependent relationship between humans and dogs began unintentionally with wolves scavenging the remains of human kills. In this version, wolves initiate the encounters, then become accustomed to humans. In all probability, humans then began to explore possibilities for constructive uses of the animals in society over time, as well as their inclusion as cherished members.
“It may have been women who consolidated this millennia-long friendship,” theorizes Discover Magazine. “Whatever the reasons for the initial attraction, dog domestication was not a singular event, but rather, a multitude of events spaced across geography and time.”
Fast forward twenty millennia or so, and you find dogs living in our homes as beloved family members. Dr. Emily Bray, assistant professor of human-animal interaction at the University of Arizona College of Veterinary Medicine, attributes that to how well modern-day dogs can read us.
“The dog is the animal that’s most entrenched with humans,” Dr. Bray points out. Referring to the relationship as an “unparalleled, unique interspecies partnership”, she maintains the dog’s ability to understand human communication is the key to the success of the alliance.
“A superpower of dogs is their ability to make sense of us,” she says.
However, as every dog lover knows it’s not only a matter of us communicating with them.
Wolves, it should be noted, do not furrow their brows in an expression humans find endearing. Dogs, on the other hand, went to the trouble of developing a muscle during domestication that allows them to raise the inner eyebrows, resulting in highly communicative puppy-dog eyes.
Obviously, long before there were fur babies there were working dogs, and before that were dogs of war. The Cane Corso and the Neapolitan Mastiff served in the Roman legions, and the Dogue de Bordeaux is a French breed from before France was France. The history of these and other ancient breeds might be considered a syllabus of sorts about the evolutionary path of human society.
Herders, guardians and rescuers; dogs have been working on behalf of humans for millennia in a multitude of capacities. It seems doubtful we would have clawed our way out of the Stone Age without their help, and they’re still at it. For instance, even after all these thousands of years people are still fighting, and dogs are still going to war alongside us. That’s something that hasn’t changed.
Other things have, though. The 2025 AKC list of working breeds includes the first ever therapy dog. That may not seem like a big deal at first glance, but it’s recognition of the changing roles of dogs in modern culture. Society may have become less agrarian, but dogs have never for a minute stopped working for us. They remain fully committed to filling in wherever we need them, unwaveringly loyal.
Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for humans. It turns out those dogs living in homes as beloved family members are only a small percentage of canines. 80% of all dogs worldwide are estimated to be free-ranging, a staggering 200 million homeless. And it just keeps getting worse. Shelters in the U. S. are overflowing with nearly a million more animals than a mere three years ago. In 2023 over 359,000 dogs were euthanized.
Good fortune appears to have pointed decidedly more toward human than canine in our interspecies partnership. Cherished Tails foster Joseph Stone has a suggestion about that.
“There needs to be a 10-year moratorium on dog breeding to bring the population down so it can be controlled,” he offers. “If we continue to allow people to breed dogs whenever they want, we’re never going to get on top of this.
“It’s going to take legislative action,” Stone continues. “If you do allow breeding, there’s a fee of $1000 per litter and $500 for each pup. There has to be some sort of tax.
“There are people who are aware of the need for fosters and the need to slow down breeding, but they say anyway No, I don’t want a used dog. I shudder at that.
“Legislative action. If enough people get behind it, it will pass,” he insists.
It might also occur to you to wonder why spaying/neutering is so often neglected, when if it was done on a widespread basis, it would make huge strides toward ending this overpopulation crisis?
“I think when people are struggling with basic needs for themselves and their kids, it often takes a back seat,” speculates Pauline Haas-Vaughn, CTSS Executive Director. “A small percentage of people have beliefs like all females need to have at least one litter, or that you are taking something from the male dog when you neuter (i. e. it’s ‘unnatural’), but I think that’s actually a fairly small percent.”
Canine overpopulation is currently a catastrophic situation beyond what a person might imagine, unless that person is an animal rescuer, but it’s still possible to turn this around. The issues are complicated and solutions will be, too, but we know there are ways to do it.
We owe it to the dogs who have honored us with their loyalty for so long to try.
Sources:
Thank you Judy for a very well researched and written history of our best friends.
Thank you for this and for all that you strive to do for them.
It's heartbreaking that so many are put down because we failed them as partners. We take what we need from them, but give so little back in return.
We should be protecting and cherishing these wonderful creatures. Hawaiians call it kahu - when you're entrusted with something precious.
That's how I thought of all my furballs. Every one of them gave me more than I could ever repay or even express - so much joy and laughter and love.
PS: Never knew that puppy eyes were an evolved trait. Just looked it up and found out the muscle is called the orbicularis oculi (OOc).
So fascinating. Seems they have another facial muscle that lets them change their expressions - the orbicularis oris (OOr), so they can give us those glorious grins.
My furkids certainly made full use of both to get anything they wanted from us.