I don’t really see how this reading supports your theory on cats. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t necessarily think there’s something wrong with your theory, I just don’t see how this reading supports it. A cat may share some traits with a wolfdog, but not enough to the point that you can draw a strong correlation between wolfdog behavior and cats. For one thing cats are not protective (at least none that I’ve ever heard of), yet if someone attacked the author I bet Inyo would’ve ripped their arms off.

It’s odd, because for almost any other evolutionary changes (such as the genus homo), the fact that it’s a common ancestor and not an evolution from a modern day animal is drilled into our heads as biology students from day one. Yet with dogs most people just shrug that thinking off and assume they came directly from wolves. I think the best reason for that is because the split between the two animals occurred fairly recently in evolutionary terms. The modern dog would be vastly different due to the incredible pressures of artificial selection placed upon it, while the modern wolf might not have changed that much as natural selection usually acts at much slower pace. Still, the modern wolf must certainly be different from the common ancestor in some respects, as the article you linked to pointed out.

What intrigues me most about this post is your reminder that the debate about dog domestication just recently shifted in light of new findings about the dog-wolf common ancestor. The study is cited in this article. http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2014/0117/Did-dogs-really-evolve-from-wolves-New-evidence-suggests-otherwise
This confounds the long held understanding about “friendly wolves” you allude to in your post. Although it’s clear that dogs and wolves interbred quite a bit after the split, this new research could signal a major shift in how we think about the origins of the dog. Very cool.

Yes!!!! Thanks so much.

Oh I understand, I added an edited version at the top. Is that more what you meant?

Terrific image for this post! But I’m sorry you weren’t in class last week when we committed ourselves to taking the readings on their own terms rather than jumping in and venting about all the things the author didn’t do or what you don’t like about what they did. Terril’s book is autobiographical but also an informed, well-researched and serious interrogation of what domestication means in real life for real people, real dogs, real wolf-dogs and real wolves. Her experiences with Inyo suggest just how liminal and fundamental the lines between wild and domestic are. Maybe coming at this text with a fresh perspective will help?

I liked what you picked up on in reference to “unintentional management.” It occurs to me that this point of view makes animal domestication by humans seem very much part of a natural evolutionary process. In my opinion, people begin thinking of human actions as artificial when the human brain comes into play. As if our brain function is some higher power that belongs above the other organisms on the planet. I’m still unsure about this idea, but your points definitely add some fuel to the fire.

I think the research you did about giving birth provides an answer that seems much more logical to me than Dunn’s explanation. I understood that nighttime would be a time when all the animals were together, however because our bodies are completely unfit to function in the dark, that still seemed a little illogical to me. Doing it in the late afternoon when nocturnal predators are not quite active yet, but everyone is still settling into an overnight location makes much more sense. I also liked your final thought about the process of human domestication. It kind of seems to me like the first wave of evolution you discussed, being faster and cleverer, sounds like natural selection. The ones who weren’t quick enough or who weren’t effective hunters did not survive. Then, as we settled down into communities, it began to enter a stage that was referred to on the radiolab as human domestication. This is an interesting difference to me. Is the first phase natural and the second artificial? Or is it all natural selection because humans, as a part of the natural world, act within “nature” and not artificially?

Are you saying that’s how Dunn viewed it? I was simply stating what I see as Dunn’s key struggle with the theory, my personal views on it aside.

It’s not so much that one species is causing another’s vision to change. It’s that a monkey may be more likely to survive if it can see a snake and avoid it. Monkeys that don’t see the snakes are more likely to die.