What were the earliest canines like?

Discussion in 'Biology & Genetics' started by Landau Roof, Dec 3, 2014.

  1. Landau Roof Registered Senior Member

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    I hear about showing a dog who is boss, and being tough, but surely they understand who is providing the food. You know how two dogs won't share food. The alpha has to eat first, and even then he may not let another dog eat. Then there is you giving him food. Surely he appreciates the magnanimity, and understands who is the alpha.
     
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  3. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    My first guess would be that it is byproduct of the perceptual bias of the domesticator - the Russian guys who domesticated the foxes were choosing the "friendliest" by appearance, apparently, and that might easily bias their selection toward floppy ears.

    There's a mediating possibility, also, in the Baldwin Effect - a selection bias for calm and submissive behavior might easily reward a genetic imitation of the physical signs of calm and submissive attitudes.
     
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  5. Landau Roof Registered Senior Member

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    That's a good point. The Russians meant to select for friendliness, but maybe it wasn't completely objective and they sometimes selected friendly- looking - confusing appearance and behavior as people often do. However, I fail to see why floppy ears and spots would strike anyone as signs of calmness or submissiveness, or even friendliness.
     
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  7. The. Ring. Banned Banned

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    Foxes were not used in the creation of the dog, as the combination produces a sterile offspring. The wolf is the direct ancestor of all except for one particular Italian breed. That said the direct ancestor of your dog, is a wolf. So your real question, is where does the wolf come from, and this like all questions of ancestry is in question, as there is no known way that genetics is known to change one creature into another. Thus the answer, is guess.
     
  8. Landau Roof Registered Senior Member

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    Did you even read the 22 posts between the original question and your response?
     
  9. The. Ring. Banned Banned

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    I responded to the first poster, if there are 3000 post, must someone read them all before responding?................. Is any of my information in error? Please correct me if this is the case. Thanks.
     
  10. Landau Roof Registered Senior Member

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    Yes, it's 22 posts, rather short of 3,000, and together we have pretty much answered the question. Your information is irrelevant, sorry to say, because you have misunderstood the initial question. I asked what came before the wolf, the cat, the bear, etc... when and how did animals become predatory carnivores. Short answer: most herbivores have always been omnivores. So Italian dog breeds, wolves, 'just a guess' are completely off topic. Thanks for responding though.
     
  11. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    30,994
    Hmmm. I think if you were facing a dog and it were facing you and you saw its ears go up, or worse yet pull back flat, you would suddenly become more alert to other signs of what it intended. With its ears floppy and relaxed, other signs of intention become a bit less critical - you might not care as much how vigorously or in which direction its tail is wagging. It makes the "seems friendly enough for this round" cut more easily.

    I also think that you, like most people, are more threatened by darker colored animals approaching you - in most common human environments well camouflaged animals are usually darker in appearance, and on average less trustworthy in intent, than more easily seen ones. Over evolutionary time that biases people toward lighter colored and otherwise more visible animals as safer to be around, and if you breed lighter with darker in mammals the potential for spots and patchy coloring is immediate - and the safest, most visible of all.

    Just a first guess. They seem to have had a more formal protocol than merely "seems friendly", but observer bias in something like this is really hard to screen entirely - and also accounts for the wide spread of the phenomenon.
     
    Last edited: Dec 30, 2014
  12. R1D2 many leagues under the sea. Valued Senior Member

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    Most recently-
    People been meeting the...
    'coywolf' a hybrid of a wolf and a coyote which is taking over the northeast of the U.S. A new species of predator which is a hybrid of a wolf and an Eastern coyote... but ancestry
    There is, The dire wolf (Canis dirus "fearsome dog") is an extinct carnivorous mammal of the ... years BP) ,
    then Armbruster's wolf , Canis falconeri (Falconer’s Wolf), is also considered to be closely related to Armbruster’s wolf.
     

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