How the Dog Became the Dog: From Wolves to Our Best Friends

by Mark Derr

Overview

This “informative account” of canine evolution will “appeal to dog lovers with a curiosity about the origins of their favorite companion.” (Publishers Weekly)

Many have made the case that dogs have evolved from wolves but the evolutionary link between wolves and dogs remains a mystery. In How the Dog Became the Dog, Mark Derr posits that the dog’s evolution from wolf was inevitable due to the mutually beneficial nature of the relationship between wolves and hunter-gatherer humans. How the Dog Became the Dog presents the domestication of the dog as a biological and cultural process that began with a reciprocal cooperation between dogwolves and humans that evolved over time, from the first dogs that took refuge with humans against the cold at the end of the last Ice Age, to the 18th century, when humans began to exercise full control of dog reproduction, life, and death, through centuries of natural and artificial selection that led us to the many breeds of dogs we know and love today.

“A transporting slice of dog/wolf thinking that will pique the interest of anyone with a dog in their orbit.” —Kirkus Reviews

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781590209912
Publisher:	ABRAMS, Inc.
Publication date:	08/16/2022
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	287
Sales rank:	975,958
File size:	1 MB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Mark Derr is the author of five books, including How the Dog Became the Dog, published in 2011. His articles and commentary have appeared in The New York Times, Atlantic Monthly, Natural History, Smithsonian, and many other publications. He lives in Miami Beach.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"A transporting slice of dog/wolf thinking that will pique the interest of anyone with a dog in their orbit." —-Kirkus

Editorial Reviews

Reaching back into murky prehistory to determine just when, where, and how the wolf joined forces with early man to become the domesticated dog we know today has long proven difficult. With this informative account, Derr (Dog's Best Friend) takes on the challenge of untangling the limited, often contradictory findings available from archeological digs and genetic studies to seek the dog's origins. Rejecting the argument once prevalent among biologists, that dogs evolved from wolves that hung around prehistoric villages to scavenge, Derr delineates instead a past in which wolves and humans teamed up to bring down more game and to reap other advantages from each other's company, in a process made inevitable by the similarity of their social natures and pack hunting techniques. Sadly, Derr's envisioning of this ancient friendship falls prey to sentimentality: "I can almost see through the occluded lens of time three wolves lazing outside the cave mouth," begins one hazy scene. And the book's catalogue of prehistory and Neanderthal stomping grounds could do with a bit more focus: some chapters jump around desultorily or lose focus. Still, Derr's real affinity for canines comes through strongly, and the book should appeal to dog lovers with a curiosity about the origins of their favorite companion. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

"A transporting slice of dog/wolf thinking that will pique the interest of anyone with a dog in their orbit." ---Kirkus

From the Publisher

Derr (A Dog's History of America,2004, etc.) explores various scenarios on the road to the long, fruitful relationship between dogs and humans.

"Among the broader population of Pleistocene wolves and human were individuals who by virtue of extreme sociability and curiosity, or both, became best friends and compatriots after encountering each other on the trail," writes the author in this rangy, critically stimulating and warm book. Derr begins with an overview of behavioral and biological experiments and models and theories, which becomes a dirge-like march, perhaps because readers know that he is going to pick many of them apart. So much new information comes in daily regarding dog studies that the ground is always shaky. But there are a number of ideas, backed by research and evidence, which Derr unfolds in a quietly stirring manner. The first is that wolves and humans were drawn together by their mutual sociability and curiosity, and that they stayed together thanks to mutual utility. All evidence places the first dogs at the camps of hunters, so the old notion that humans and dogwolves first made acquaintance around the local dumpster can be laid to rest. "Rather it was an animal capable of forming an active friendship with a creature from another species," and, absent proof otherwise, likely consensual, in response to the needs and desires of both. Indeed, being able to manage anger and fear, control assertiveness and restraint and moderate one's appetite is more wolf than primate behavior. Derr also provides a striking geographical analysis of mixing grounds ("a biological and a cultural process involving two highly mobile species") and enjoyable illustrative scenarios as he imagines specific events taking place.

A transporting slice of dog/wolf thinking that will pique the interest of anyone with a dog in their orbit.

Kirkus Reviews