Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 1
Behavioral Genetics and
Animal Science
Temple Grandin
*
and Mark J. Deesing
†
*Department of Animal Science, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado, USA;
†
Grandin Livestock Handling Systems, Inc., Fort Collins, Colorado, USA
INTRODUCTION
A bright orange sun is setting on a prehistoric horizon. A lone hunter is on
his way home from a bad day at hunting. As he crosses the last ridge before
home, a quick movement in the rocks, off to his right, catches his attention.
Investigating, he discovers some wolf pups hiding in a shallow den. He exclaims,
“Wow
in infant form.”
After a quick scan of the area for adult wolves, he cautiously approaches.
The pups are all clearly frightened and huddle close together as he kneels in front
of the den
cool! The predator
...
...
all except one. The darkest-colored pup shows no fear of the
man's approach. “Come here you little predator! Let me take a look at you,” he
says. After a mutual bout of petting by the man and licking by the wolf, the man
suddenly has an idea. “If I take you home with me tonight, maybe mom and
the kids will forgive me for not catching dinner
...
again.”
The opening paragraphs depict a hypothetical scenario of man first taming
the wolf. Although we have tried to make light of this event, the fact is no one
knows exactly how or why this first encounter took place. More than likely, the
“first” encounter between people and wolves occurred more than once. Previous
studies suggest that dogs were domesticated 14,000 years ago (
Boessneck,
1985
). However,
Ovodov et al. (2011)
reported finding dog fossils 33,000 years
old in Siberia. Domestication of dogs may have begun before 35,000 years ago
in what
Galibert et al. (2011)
described as a period of proto-domestication. Early
hunter-gatherers may have captured wolf pups which became tame and habitu-
ated to living with human groups. Some wolves may have become aggressive as
they matured and were killed or chased away. Others remained submissive and
bred with less fearful wolves scavenging around human settlements. Analysis of
mitochondrial DNA of 67 dog breeds and wolves from 27 localities indicates
that dogs may have diverged from wolves over 100,000 years ago (
Vita et al.,
1997
). Other researchers question this finding and suggest
...
that dogs were
