Dogs: from predator to fur baby in 20,000 years

How did ferocious, man-eating wolves evolve into Labrador Retrievers, St. Bernards, and even teacup poodles—not to mention become our best friends? It's an amazing story of genetics and mutual need. But it's also a story of love.  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Are you with me on this is your dog, your
fur baby? You worry about what they're eating or if
they're anxious, maybe even throw birthday parties for them, or
even buy clothing for them. Yikes, So how did your
pup evolve from a man eating wolf? I'm Patty Steele.
From predator to furbaby in twenty thousand years? Next on

(00:21):
the backstory. We're back with the backstory. Now for us
dog lovers, is there anything better than your best friend
looking at you with those liquid puppy eyes? Science back's
that feeling. Researchers say that when our dogs stare into
our eyes, we have the same hormonal response that bonds

(00:45):
us to our human babies. It's the release of that wonderful,
feel good hormone oxytocin, and dogs get their own blast
of oxytocin when they look at us. Well guess what.
It is the only known hormonal bonding effect between humans
and any other species. Now, experts say we didn't domesticate dogs.
They did it to themselves because it got them what

(01:07):
they needed. One dog expert at Duke University says dogs
have literally hijacked the human bonding system. Okay, so let's
go back maybe twenty thousand years ago. You're part of
a hunter gatherer society, which means yeah, hunt for me,
and then you find like wild veggies, fruits and nuts

(01:29):
to eat. But it's not a safe life. You're wandering
through woods, jungles, and fields searching for food. Predators like
wolves are watching you day and night. Some of the wolves, though,
noticed something more valuable about you other than you being
a quick meal. They watch your social interactions and the

(01:52):
ability to feed and protect one another, and most importantly,
they munch on your discarded leftovers. The friend when slowly
move physically closer to you and eventually find a way
to hit you up for food. Yeah, that's right. The
first incidents of begging at the table or by the fire,

(02:12):
and they notice as they get closer to you, you
protect them and take care of them when they're injured
or sick. We humans start to bond with them as well,
because we notice that having wolves nearby and feeding them
most of their friendly makes them like us, and they
in turn protect us from other aggressive animals. Plus they

(02:33):
give us companionship. Over the course of thousands of years,
these wolves change genetically. They develop facial muscles and characteristics
that attract us, the ability to make those puppy eyes,
which wolves can't do. In fact, the bonding we do
with our pooches through looking into each other's eyes is

(02:54):
actually interpreted by a wolf as hostility, and these evolving
wolf dogs begin to take social cues from us. Did
did you ever point at something and say go get it?
Bosco and your dog actually follows where you're pointing. Wolves
can't do that. Even our closest relative in the animal world, chimpanzees,

(03:16):
can't do that either. Why they just don't relate to
us like dogs do. You can literally spend twenty four
hours a day with a wolf puppy, raise them really
close to you, but they're just never attracted to people.
They don't really want to be with people. They mostly
want to be with wolves. Dogs are the exact opposite.

(03:37):
Most of them naturally love and trust people and even
other animals. Over time, the genes that promote friendliness, which
wolves don't really have, as well as those that give
dogs breed specific things like soft fur, fluffy ears, and tails.
The ability to help us hunt and to guard us
all evolve based on their need to please us and

(03:59):
get a reward on our end. It was based on
our very desires for the perfect companion. We've also spent
thousands of years sort of reinventing our dogs into everything
from Great Danes and Saint Bernard's to little bundles of
fluff like teacup poodles and Yorkis. Forget this, Some dog
breeds share a bigger percentage of wolf DNA than others.

(04:22):
Some are obvious, like huskies and melamutes. But there's one
more breed that has more wolf DNA than almost any
other breed, the tiny little fluffballs called chitsus. How funny
is that we love these beings? In fact, our language
shows how crazy about dogs we've gotten. The word puppy

(04:42):
comes from the French word prompey or doll, and archaeologists
say that human beings began burying themselves with their dogs
after their deaths as long as fourteen thousand years ago.
Now that's love. At the end of the day, it
is survival of the friendlies, say the experts, and that
may explain why there are about two hundred and fifty

(05:05):
thousand not very friendly wolves on earth, but close to
a billion lovable and loving dogs, eighty million of them
in the US alone. That desire to please is something
dogs and a lot of humans cultivate in themselves because
ultimately it's a path to getting what you want and
to survive. So now I think I'm going to go

(05:28):
grab some treats and stare into both my dog's big
brown puppy eyes. I'm Patty Steele. The Backstory is a
production of iHeartMedia and Steel Trap Productions. Our producer is
Doug Fraser. Our executive producer is Steve Goldstein of Amplify Media.

(05:52):
We're out with new episodes twice a week. Thanks for
listening to the Backstory. The pieces of history you didn't
know you need to know.