Tuesday 6 May 2014

Dogs

    An introduction to the domestic dog:
    More than 30,000 years ago, Canis Lupus, or the Gray Wolf, came into evolution. About 15,000 years ago wolves got hungry and came into the homes of our distant relatives. This was the domestication of the modern dog.
    Dogs were the first, as cats were domesticated about 7,000 years ago. There are now more than a hundred kinds of dogs bred for hunting, scenting, guarding, working, herding, aiding blind people, and other things.
    The domestic dog is a subspecies of Canis Lupus. The scientific name is Canis Lupus Familiaris.

    It is a mystery how dogs changed from violent, aggressive wolves to the friendly companions we have bred some of those wolves into. One time some scientists got about a hundred wolf pups and tried to breed them into non-aggressive wolf pups. But the few wolves that were tame enough to be allowed to breed had aggressive pups, so the scientists were not able to succeed. Could it be a mutation?
   
This is a picture of two dogs. The one on the left is Cobi, a mix-breed, and the one on the right is Lyra, a flat-coated retriever. Lyra is only one example out of the many breeds of dogs.

   Overall, there seems to be only one thing that dogs are bred for: helping people. Dogs have helped people in many ways from guarding their house to just being a companion. Take Lyra, in the picture, for example. Flat-coated Retrievers are bred as gun dogs but they look and behave like puppies their whole lives(which makes them very energetic and playful). They are usually black but very few are brown or yellow, and they have a characteristic feathery tail and shiny coat.
    Have you seen a dog chasing an animal? Chasing things is a natural behaviour that most dogs have from their wolf ancestors. Other behaviours like this include licking someones face(which came from wolf pups licking their mother's muzzle to make her regurgitate food), howling(which came from wolves howling to defend their territory), and digging(which came from wolves digging into an animal's burrow to catch it).
    There are dogs in mythology, too. In Greek mythology, Cerberus is a three-headed dog that is the pet of Hades, the Greek god of the underworld. Cerberus guards the underworld and stops dead spirits from getting out.
    Here is something to remember if you want to get a dog: Don't buy your dog online. Many puppies sold online come from puppy mills. If you haven't been introduced to puppy mills, they are places where dogs are bred. But they are sad breeding conditions. In 2005, a survey was taken out on the puppy mills in California. Out of all the dogs, 1 out of 4 did not have a healthy amount of food or water, and 32% were bred in cramped or overcrowded conditions. Puppies in most puppy mills are taken away from their mothers too young. Dogs in puppy mills lead unhealthy(in both body and mind) and short lives, being put down at the age of 4. If you are going to buy a dog, get it from a good and healthy breeder, and don't buy it online.
    But getting a dog(from a good breeder) is not a bad idea. I've heard people who own dogs are happier, and having a dog around decreases the chance of dying during a heart attack.

Big or small, retriever or spaniel, we all enjoy man's best friend.

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