Did we started a friendship with canines or did they initiated it?

[Shelly2002]

Obviously way before dogs were ever domesticated, humans and wolves worked together. I'm wondering about this friendship that runs back thousands of years, did we started that friendship or was it them starting it with us?

How do you think our friendship with canines began for the first time? It's origin.

[NamerOfStars]

Sounds like someone's reading about the Novsibirsk study! Obviously, everyone who knows the details has been dead for tens of thousands of years, but from what I've gathered, the most likely story is something like this:

-prosperous wandering tribes of humans begin passing through areas where families of clever, but less successful packs of wolves are living.

-said wolves, either through opportunity or desperation, come upon the refuse of the humans, some of which is edible.

-both the humans AND the wolves realize that there's profit for them in this situation: if the humans leave the wolves some excess food, the wolves will keep other predators and scavengers away, saving human lives.

-the humans discover that wolves are almost as well-adapted for long-distance travel as they themselves are, and so bring the wolves with them when they leave the area.

-as generations pass, the wolves that are more human-friendly get closer to the humans, who allow them more and better food in return, eventually welcoming them into their camps.

-repeat for forty thousand years, and we have two species intertwined in a symbiotic relationship that means nothing made of meat is safe.

-Bwahahahaha.

-As human prosperity increases, the need for food acquisition through hunting decreases (though it never stops entirely), so dogs begin to be bred for other functions, which pretty much brings us up to today.

So it was really BOTH wolves and humans, plus happenstance.

[Shelly2002]

yeah that's the most logical explanation ever. Both benefited from each other at the time.

[Skinhead-1979]

I'd expect that Canines were drawn to humans because of easy access to food; humans got used to the companionship of Canines and then sought ways to utilise the Canines for pest control and hunting.

[Shelly2002]

True. Both helped each other.

[dustybiker2]

Two carnivores who realized working together is a better survival strategy then working apart.

[Dongie]

How did special breeding turn a wolf into a weenie dog?

[Shelly2002]

It probably happened when a couple wild dogs started appearing. The first breeding was likely the mix between a dog and a wolf, a hybrid. Then the mix between the hybrid and the dog and so on. Many, many years later, we have our domesticated animals.

[Dongie]

I've read where there were no dogs created and all descend from wolves.

[NamerOfStars]

The need for a creature small, strong, and brave enough to descend into the burrows of badgers and fight them. Remember both of the Potters (Beatrix AND Harry) lied to you- badgers are not actually animals, but animal-shaped bundles of anger, hatred, and bloodlust.

[Dongie]

They're bad mama-jamas

[Alex_m25]

a very interesting curiosity 🤨