Domestication of Dogs | Domestication represents a process of wild flora/fauna's genetic reorganization into farmed and domestic forms based on individual interests. To put it very precisely, domestication denotes the foremost stage of mankind's control over untamed fauna and flora. The chief difference between tamed fauna and flora and their wild ancestors who survive in their natural habitat is the former's cultivation, through human efforts, to fulfill particular requirements or fancies. Furthermore, domesticated wildlife adjusts to the constant care and attentiveness meted out to them by humans (Encyclopedia Britannica, 2016).

The domestication process has contributed greatly to human and material cultural growth, and has led to the emergence of farming as an exclusive means of plant cultivation and animal rearing. These domesticated flora and fauna then transformed into objects of agrarian activity and underwent extreme transformations, growing into something entirely different from their untamed ancestors (Encyclopedia Britannica, 2016).

According to Macdonald and Driscoll (2010), domestication constitutes a markedly human effort. It is an age-old idea that, through a study of manmade wildlife, humanity can understand itself. Thus, human civilizations have devoted substantial time and energy to this cause. While dogs are possibly the very first housetrained animals, the question of where they transformed from wild wolves and which individual or civilization first successfully attempted their domestication has no precise answer, as genetic proofs indicate a number of places, including Far Eastern lands, Europe, and the regions in between.

Domestication of Dogs

MacDonald, O'Brien, and Driscoll elucidate, in their 2009 work, that manmade selection has a unique nature since it is entirely unnatural. While this fact appears inconsequential, upon careful reflection, one will understand precisely how important and wonderful artificial choice (in the form of domestication) is to our species' success. Only about 12,000 years earlier did humanity commence a conscious harnessing of other life forms' four-billion-year-old evolutionary patrimony; taking advantage of wildlife's genetic diversity for its benefit accorded humanity a central part in the process of evolution. Animal rearing and agrarian food production enabled humanity to grow in size from roughly ten million Neolithic-age individuals to about 6.9 billion in the present day; the human population continues to grow exponentially each day. As of now, 4.93b hectares of land are allocated to agriculture; this occupation utilizes seventy percent of overall expended fresh water resources in the world. Wildlife species across the globe are under a great threat of extinction, 100 to 1,000 times quicker compared to the traditional "background" rate, chiefly due to a loss of natural habitat from its conversion into agricultural land. Human activities have had immense impact on the earth, on humanity, and on domesticated...

However, no domesticated animal species has, until now, suffered the threat of extinction.
Domestication of flora and fauna species increased humanity's nutrient and calorie supply, giving rise to a Neolithic Revolution. But this revolution not only entailed mere food production but also a development of an agrarian economy that encompassed employment of numerous animals and plants, enabling urban civilization growth and facilitating multiple innovations that may be characterized as culture. Much of what we see in the current age, indirectly resulted from artificial selection. While ploughs signify the Neolithic age, a look at history from an evolutionary perspective will reveal that intelligent alterations to the genetic makeup of specific habitats' flora and fauna actually made the tools. Neolithic-era farmers were, in a way, the world's foremost geneticists, using domestic agriculture as the lever with which they effectively moved the earth (Driscoll, Macdonald & O'Brien, 2009).

The earliest life form domesticated by mankind was dogs. Nevertheless, in spite of several decades of research, scholarly dissent continues with regard to the time and place of wolves' transformation into dogs. Naturalist Charles Darwin made the first scientific attempt at tracing dogs' evolutionary origins. In his 1868 work "The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication," he speculated whether the evolution of dogs was a result of a rare jackal-wolf mating or whether they came from one single species. After several decades of such guesswork, the latter part of the nineties witnessed genetic researchers' ultimate confirmation that the ancestors of dogs were actually gray wolves, as the two species have 99.9% identical DNA structure. However, the precise time and place of this genetic transition remained unknown. In the year 1977, excavators working in north Israel found a human skeleton, which could be traced back 12,000 years, with a puppy in its arms. This pointed to dog domestication within the Middle Eastern region just before mankind commenced agricultural activities. However, subsequent excavations of skulls from prehistoric German campsites and Russian caves pushed back the origins of dogs a further 4000 years, suggesting dogs accompanied Eurasians even in their hunting/gathering days (Grimm, 2015).

Present-day wolf-resembling Canids make up the genus Lycaon, genus Canis, and genus Cuon, and include dogs, red wolves (Canis rufus), gray wolves (Canis lupus), coyotes (Canis latrans), eastern wolves (Canis lycaon), Ethiopian wolves (Canis simensis), golden jackals (Canis aureus), dholes (Cuon alpinus), African wild dogs (Lycaon pictus), black-backed jackals (Canis mesomelas), and side-striped jackals (Canis adustus). In the year 1934, a renowned paleontologist suggested one extinct gray-wolf subspecies was probably the dog's ancestor (Frantz, Larson & Bradley, 2016).

Li and colleagues (2014) asserted that the dogs acquired distinctive socio-cognitive abilities missing in their ancestors. Selection focused on communication was believed to be the direct force driving these distinctive abilities' evolution. Another possibility is…