In my study, (n=2), I can attest, indeed, that both of my dogs will willingly give up roaming outside in the wild for snacks, scritches, and belly-rubs.
The model showed that over 15,000 years, natural selection could potentially drive dog self-domestication. But for this to happen, two conditions had to be met: Wolves had to choose to stay near humans to eat food scraps, and they had to select mates with a similar temperament.
Why would humans feed wolves scraps without them providing something of value in return?
Wolves have to provide something to humans in order for humans to keep feeding them right? In this case, humans would want some wolves around them. Therefore, it seems very unlikely to be self domestication because humans would have a heavy sway in how dogs evolved.
Just to expand on that, humans keep dogs not just as pets but as guard animals. It could be imagined that early humans feeding wolves to keep them around might also present a deterrent to aggressors.
Providing them less desirable—to humans—-scraps would have likely prevented competition with them in hunting game. Why hunt living game if you can wait around and get scraps for free? So original intention of humans likely not domestication, but still leads that way if the wolves get what they want.
So humans give them food so they don't compete with humans in hunting. The wolves would get full from humans, don't have to hunt, and spend all their time reproducing, which will create even more competition for humans.
> Why would humans feed wolves scraps without them providing something of value in return?
Human beings aren't all always that transactional. "Homo economicus" is joked about for good reasons.
You can easily imagine situations where a) food is in a temporary surplus due to a successful hunt, so there is little downside to wasting some and b) a sentimental child has access to it.
close, but of course far more complex, Wolves are
savy negotiators, highly social, and often (not always) fun loving, the variations in personality
amongst them is large.Wolves team up with Ravens, another species with complex behaviors, ravens work as airial spoters, and wolves take out the targeted prey, with both sharing the kill, in exceptionaly close quarters, it's easy to see that
those roles could change, with humans around, and
there is a limited window to prepare and consume, and drag off a large kill, before it atracts an apex preditor, or just a huge flock of hungry birds, that can decimate an untended carcas in miniuts.So teaming up, rather than dependency, is the most likely begining.
Archiological work on wolf dens, show that choice sites in the Canadian High Arctic, have been in continious use for 10000 years, by Canadian Wolves
showing that a core group, will maintain a teritory, indefinitly.....even with humans and other large dangerous animals around...
Peoples view of dogs, is often based on experience with what are breeds that are strictly house pets
and have been inbred to the point of bieng helpless morons or neurotic edgy wierdos, but that
one central behavior, of guarding what and where they are instructed to, remains.
Yes, the theories in that article don't make a lot of sense. For example this about cats:
> settling into a mutually-beneficial relationship in which they hunted and ate rodents in exchange for food.
Cats mostly hunt birds, because rondents are smarter, faster, stronger and have weapons (teeth).
Also humans and primates throw rocks and sticks at predators. Early dogs must have been caught as puppies, or their parents killed by humans and their flesh eaten.
The whole model has been domesticated to portray a cartoony interaction.
"Cats mostly hunt birds, because rondents are smarter, faster, stronger and have weapons (teeth)."
Where did you get that from? I'm pretty sure it's not accurate, both from reading and personal experience.
Cats don't tackle rats often, and they are at a low risk of being bitten by mice (the hunting technique for mice involves first stunning the mouse by whacking it as hard as possible, ideally using body weight). Mice are smaller than most birds.
Cats do have instincts for rodents, birds and fish. But in most areas rodents are more available, so the cats don't get very good at hunting the other two.
My cousins from the countryside have several cats, and there is plenty of mice and birds. Mostly every prey the cats bring home are birds. Birds are easier to track, nest in visible places, while mice hides better, they are good detectors by smell and sound. Maybe in the city birds are harder to reach.
The more I think about the article the less it makes sense. Humans would have eaten all their preys' meat, and thrown the bones they didn't use to build tools and accesories into pits, would have burned the rest to avoid bringing predators. Proto-dogs would have been like pigs to them, they are still like such in Asia. It's just that their decendants are good alarms and defenders, and can be trained to help in hunting and other tasks.
I, too, was domesticated because I like snacks. :)
Wheat may have domesticated us because we like bread.
In my study, (n=2), I can attest, indeed, that both of my dogs will willingly give up roaming outside in the wild for snacks, scritches, and belly-rubs.
Wolves have to provide something to humans in order for humans to keep feeding them right? In this case, humans would want some wolves around them. Therefore, it seems very unlikely to be self domestication because humans would have a heavy sway in how dogs evolved.
Ever visit any national park or even city park where people are feeding ducks, squirrels, birds etc???
What 'value' outside of entertainment does that provide to the humans?
> Why would humans feed wolves...
It's the same reasons they feed dogs.
Just to expand on that, humans keep dogs not just as pets but as guard animals. It could be imagined that early humans feeding wolves to keep them around might also present a deterrent to aggressors.
Providing them less desirable—to humans—-scraps would have likely prevented competition with them in hunting game. Why hunt living game if you can wait around and get scraps for free? So original intention of humans likely not domestication, but still leads that way if the wolves get what they want.
That doesn't make sense to me either.
So humans give them food so they don't compete with humans in hunting. The wolves would get full from humans, don't have to hunt, and spend all their time reproducing, which will create even more competition for humans.
That’s not how reproductive cycles work.
> Why would humans feed wolves scraps without them providing something of value in return?
Human beings aren't all always that transactional. "Homo economicus" is joked about for good reasons.
You can easily imagine situations where a) food is in a temporary surplus due to a successful hunt, so there is little downside to wasting some and b) a sentimental child has access to it.
close, but of course far more complex, Wolves are savy negotiators, highly social, and often (not always) fun loving, the variations in personality amongst them is large.Wolves team up with Ravens, another species with complex behaviors, ravens work as airial spoters, and wolves take out the targeted prey, with both sharing the kill, in exceptionaly close quarters, it's easy to see that those roles could change, with humans around, and there is a limited window to prepare and consume, and drag off a large kill, before it atracts an apex preditor, or just a huge flock of hungry birds, that can decimate an untended carcas in miniuts.So teaming up, rather than dependency, is the most likely begining. Archiological work on wolf dens, show that choice sites in the Canadian High Arctic, have been in continious use for 10000 years, by Canadian Wolves showing that a core group, will maintain a teritory, indefinitly.....even with humans and other large dangerous animals around... Peoples view of dogs, is often based on experience with what are breeds that are strictly house pets and have been inbred to the point of bieng helpless morons or neurotic edgy wierdos, but that one central behavior, of guarding what and where they are instructed to, remains.
> Wolves team up with Ravens
I had to search it. For example https://www.yellowstone.org/naturalist-notes-wolves-and-rave...
Yes, the theories in that article don't make a lot of sense. For example this about cats:
> settling into a mutually-beneficial relationship in which they hunted and ate rodents in exchange for food.
Cats mostly hunt birds, because rondents are smarter, faster, stronger and have weapons (teeth).
Also humans and primates throw rocks and sticks at predators. Early dogs must have been caught as puppies, or their parents killed by humans and their flesh eaten.
The whole model has been domesticated to portray a cartoony interaction.
"Cats mostly hunt birds, because rondents are smarter, faster, stronger and have weapons (teeth)."
Where did you get that from? I'm pretty sure it's not accurate, both from reading and personal experience.
Cats don't tackle rats often, and they are at a low risk of being bitten by mice (the hunting technique for mice involves first stunning the mouse by whacking it as hard as possible, ideally using body weight). Mice are smaller than most birds.
Cats do have instincts for rodents, birds and fish. But in most areas rodents are more available, so the cats don't get very good at hunting the other two.
My cousins from the countryside have several cats, and there is plenty of mice and birds. Mostly every prey the cats bring home are birds. Birds are easier to track, nest in visible places, while mice hides better, they are good detectors by smell and sound. Maybe in the city birds are harder to reach.
The more I think about the article the less it makes sense. Humans would have eaten all their preys' meat, and thrown the bones they didn't use to build tools and accesories into pits, would have burned the rest to avoid bringing predators. Proto-dogs would have been like pigs to them, they are still like such in Asia. It's just that their decendants are good alarms and defenders, and can be trained to help in hunting and other tasks.
The silver fox domestication experiment that ran for 60 years
https://evolution-outreach.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.118...