Wolf becomes Dog - Page 1

PBS has a special on TV right now--"Dogs that Changed the World", about the evolution of dogs. It seems the old view that early man took wolf cubs home and domesticated them is no longer the popular theory. New insight favors early man forming large communal societies that included the necessity to create the first garbage dumps. Hungry wolves discovered the dumps to be an easy food source to scavange. A term, 'flight distance', has become popular. You see, a man would come down to the dump and drop garbage. The wolves would flee, and the measurement or flight distance becomes important. The large skull, holding bigger brains, therefore considered more intelligent wolf would flee the farthest distance, realizing man was not someone to trust. But the wolves with a smaller skull, holding smaller brains, therefore considered less intelligent would flee a shorter distance, not being as sharp or concerned about the danger. When the man disappeared, the closest wolf got the food and survived. With this logic, the stupid wolves became the first dogs.---What can I say?

That sounds just plain silly to me. Maybe the smarter wolves were the first to figure out the humans dumping garbage were not a threat. By the same logic, the coyotes that have invaded urban areas would be dumber than their country cousins. IMO, bold doesn't necessarily mean stupid. Just my opinion, of course. The town I lived in for 10 years had its very own coyote pack. As the town grew, and invaded the coyote's turf, they adapted and began to prey off people's pets and garbage. Does that mean they're stupid? Not by a long shot, just resourceful.

How is a man without a gun a threat to a wolf .It wasn't that long ago wolves in Europe (amongst other places) eating humans was not that uncommon.Moose have 900+ lbs., sharp large antlers and hooves and they still get eaten by wolves.Smart wolf scavengers would probably claim a caveman trash pile as territory and alert if any other threat approached. Very useful if you're a caveman roasting your latest kill in your cave and the scent travels into the forest.It would attract every hungry carnivore for miles.Ancient alarm system.

Fireman makes a good point but I suspect that men 30,000 years ago (with our current brain capacity and level of aggression -- and a greater need to use the latter) men could scare off wolves. The wolves would be used to men who had formerly thrown rocks, sticks, clubs, burning sticks, etc., and would remember the smelly biped was dangerous. But I also agree that the boldest wolves were not the dumb ones. Not if staying close meant more access to valuable calories.

MVF and if not smarter, maybe just more confident. The more confident ones would surely be the ones who hung a little closer and were not so shy to run the farthest, but I agree I would think the smarter ones were the ones who hung in tight in order to be sure they reached the calories before the ones in the timberline did. That just makes sense in canid behavorism to me. But I am no rocket scientist eighther. LOL

I seem to recall that there are no recorded incidents of wolves attacking and or eating people in Europe. They may have eaten folks who had died and thereby become carrion, there are however no records of this either. I do not have the data regarding the USA and Canada, but as the species is the same I would think there would be little incidence of attacks in that region either. C.

http://www.aws.vcn.com/wolf_attacks_on_humans.html