GENERAL HISTORY OF DOGS
There is no contradiction in the notion that in the very early period of man's habitation of this world, he made a friend and companion of some sort of aboriginal representative of our modern dog, and that in exchange for its assistance in protecting him from wilder animals and guarding his sheep and goats, he gave it a share of his food, a corner in his dwelling, and grew to trust and care for it. Initially, the animal was most likely nothing more than an unusually gentle jackal or an ailing wolf driven to seek shelter in strange surroundings by its companions from the wild marauding pack. One can easily imagine the partnership beginning with some helpless whelps being brought home by the early hunters to be tended and reared by the women and children. Dogs introduced into the home as toys for the children would grow to regard themselves as members of the family and be treated as such.
There are traces of an indigenous dog family in nearly every part of the world, with the exceptions of the West Indian Islands, Madagascar, the eastern islands of the Malayan Archipelago, New Zealand, and the Polynesian Islands, where there is no evidence that any dog, wolf, or fox existed as a true aboriginal animal. The dog remained savage and neglected in the ancient Oriental lands, and generally among the early Mongolians, for centuries, prowling in packs, gaunt and wolf-like, as it does today through the streets and under the walls of every Eastern city. There was no attempt to entice it into human companionship or to train it to be docile. We do not discover any distinct varieties of canine form until we examine the records of the higher civilizations of Assyria and Egypt.
The dog was not well-liked in Palestine, and it is frequently referred to as an "unclean beast" in both the Old and New Testaments. Even the well-known reference to the Sheepdog in the Book of Job ("But now they that are younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I would have disdained to set with the dogs of my flock") carries a hint of contempt, and it is significant that the only biblical allusion to the dog as a recognized companion of man occurs in the apocryphal Book of Tobit (v. 16), "So they went forth both, and the young man's dog
The large number of different dog breeds, as well as the vast differences in their size, points, and overall appearance, make it difficult to believe that they could have shared a common ancestor. Consider the differences between the Mastiff and the Japanese Spaniel, the Deer hound and the fashionable Pomeranian, the St. Bernard and the Miniature Black and Tan Terrier, and the possibility that they descended from a common ancestor. However, the difference is no greater than that between a Shire horse and a Shetland pony, a Shorthorn and a Kerry cattle, or a Patagonian and a Pygmy; and all dog breeders are aware of how simple it is to produce a variety of type and size by breeding.
To properly understand this question, it is necessary to first consider the structural identity of the wolf and the dog. This structural identity can best be studied by comparing the osseous systems, or skeletons, of the two animals, which are so similar that their transposition would be difficult to detect.
The dog's spine is made up of seven vertebrae in the neck, thirteen vertebrae in the back, seven vertebrae in the loins, three sacral vertebrae, and twenty to twenty-two vertebrae in the tail. There are thirteen pairs of ribs in both the dog and the wolf, nine true and four false. Each one has 42 teeth. They both have five front and four hind toes, and the common wolf looks so much like a large, bare-boned dog that a popular description of one would suffice for the other.
Their habits are also not dissimilar. When confined with dogs, the wolf's natural voice is a loud howl, but he will learn to bark. Although he is a carnivore, he will eat vegetables and grass when he is sick. During a chase, a pack of wolves will split into two groups, one following the quarry's trail and the other attempting to intercept its retreat, employing considerable strategy, a trait shared by many of our sporting dogs and terriers when hunting in groups.
Another significant resemblance is that both species have a gestation period of sixty-three days. A wolf litter contains three to nine cubs, who are blind for twenty-one days. They are suckled for two months before being able to eat half-digested flesh disgorged for them by their dam or even their sire.
The native dogs of all regions resemble the native wolves of those regions in size, coloration, form, and habit. There are far too many instances of this most important circumstance to dismiss it as a mere coincidence. Sir John Richardson, writing in 1829, observed that "the resemblance between the North American wolves and the domestic dog of the Indians is so great that the size and strength of the wolf seems to be the only difference.
The fact that all domestic dogs bark, while all wild express their feelings only through howls, has been suggested as the one irrefutable argument against the dog's lupine relationship. However, the difficulty is not as great as it appears, because we know that jackals, wild dogs, and wolf pups raised by bitches easily acquire the habit. Domestic dogs that are allowed to run free, on the other hand, forget how to bark, and some have yet to learn how to express themselves in this manner.
The presence or absence of the habit of barking cannot, therefore, be used to decide the question of the dog's origin. As a result, we can agree with Darwin, who concluded that "it is highly probable that the domestic dogs of the world have descended from two good species of wolf, and from two or three other doubtful species of wolves, namely, the European, Indian, and North African forms; from at least one or two South American canine species; from several races or species of jackal; and perchance from several races or species of jackal."
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