Many people have probably owned a dog at least once in their lifetime or had some sort of interaction with them. Many don’t consider the history of dogs and how they evolved from the wild to living in our homes as part of our families.
According to genetic studies, modern day domesticated dogs originated in China, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe around 15,000 years ago. It is believed that dogs come from the same family as domestic wolves. It is believed that the good relationship between dogs and humans started because the domestic wolves scavenged at human camps searching for leftover foods and that’s how they started interacting with people.
Women are said to be the first people to take these wolves as pets. Dogs worked as bodyguards and hunting machines. Certain wolves were trained and tasked to do a specific mission/task. Some of these are what we know as today as mastiffs, and they developed to protect homes and their owners. After living among humans and bonding for so long, the human and dog started creating the relationship you can see nowadays, which is loyalty, love and protectiveness.The wolves then started evolving into several different breeds of which we know as today’s dogs.
In ancient Egypt, dogs were thought to possess godlike characteristics. They were pampered by their own servants, outfitted with jeweled collars, and fed the choicest diet. Only royalty were permitted to own purebred dogs, and upon the death of a ruler his favorite dog was often interred with him to protect him from harm in the afterlife.
Knowing a little more about the background of dogs shows their interesting evolution from wolves into pets that have become part of our families.
