How were wolves domesticated ... with belly rubs of course - Page 1

https://youtu.be/5OWOQF3dWi0

https://youtu.be/J0hlogedqaE

The point is that wolves operate according to the rules of their environment as they are very intelligent animals ... wolves separated from their pack or that form individual bonds with humans or other dogs can live with humans or dogs.  The book "A Wolf Named Romeo" was based on a wild wolf who self acclimated and became accustomed to humans in Alaska ... probably much as the wolf has done countless times during history for the last 20,000 years or more.  These wolves formed the basis for domesticated dogs and were not a single source point event but a multitude of like events replicated with different outcomes over generations of wolves, dogs, and humans.  The first dogs were wolves who chose to live with humans as individual wolves not with any concept of human by the wolf or wolf by the humans .. just close companions. 

https://youtu.be/tBaR5Q6-gDY

Wolves are not good pets or safe to keep as pets but the domestication of wolves was not a one way street ... some wolves chose to become social companions with humans and learned that some humans could be trusted while some humans chose not to kill every wolf that they saw and learned that some wolves could be trusted.  Just as in the famous Soviet era Artic Fox experiments the wolves after several generations of living close to humans then started changing physically and mentally to be better adapted to living with humans.  Romeo link below ..

https://youtu.be/LYuV_knacgg

And, what is YOUR explanation for wild dogs (not Dingos, who chose to be wild again, after being domesticated)? Why are they different from wolves?

Pigs will go feral and evolve very quickly back into looking and behaving like their wild ancestors if freed from domestication and forced to survive on their own. It is purely a matter of survival and adaptation just as was the case when wolves self domesticated themselves. Purebred swine will in a few generations revert to looking and acting like their wild ancestors as a matter of survival and adaptation. The genetic material was not bred out of domesticated pigs ... domestication changes genetic expression in as few as three generations in the Soviet Arctic Fox experiments and conversely lack of domestic food and environment the surviving offspring of feral dogs or pigs will revert to the wild type in as few as three to five generations. That animals change their genetic expression due to environment much faster than Darwin ever dreamed is no longer in question but a proven fact.  As far as I can tell the only choices that animals make are based on survival, food sources, and reproductive success.  Some wolves chose to self domesticate by living closer to humans because it gave them an advantage ( as a group ) in food source, survival, and reproductive success in comparison to their more human shy relatives who stayed far away from humans.  Similar to the reef fish that clean sharks of their parasites by swimming in their mouths and all around their body the self domesticating wolves got an additional food source and some protection from the other wolves and wolf predators such as bears through closer contact with humans ( it came with a cost of course ).

I just finished reading A Wolf Named Romeo. Not a happy ending for Romeo. He would have done better behaving more as a wolf and less domesticated.

Bubbabooboo, are you suggesting that the ancestors of each and every WILD landraces that roam the earth were actually domestic dogs, who later went feral, like Dingos did?

That would be more simplistic than even Mendelian genetics!!

Swarnendu .. is English your mother tongue .. there is nothing in what I wrote than remotely suggest that wolves did not predate both dogs and humans. What happened to Romeo would be the norm for self domesticating wolves ... most were killed for getting too close to humans but a few lived and became welcome around the edges of the human village or camp fire most likely as sentinels and deterrents to other animals that were unwelcome. Romeo was killed by idiot strangers who did not know him but in prehistoric times strange humans did not invade your village or hunting area without risks to their lives. People in a small geographic area could have easily lived along side wolves peacefully and outsiders would have had no knowledge or power to challenge the practice. The Arctic Fox experiments in Soviet Siberia proved that very limited selection and close proximity to humans was all that was necessary for the first steps in domestication. I would also suggest that some of the first human ancestors who climbed down from the trees and walked upright were killed and eaten but over time the event repeated itself until some survived and developed into bipeds ... the concept of some single ancestor or act of adaptation for wolves or humans is a scientific impossibility. The more likely concept is that adaptation occurs countless times and over time the final product is a few who made it through time to today. There are numerous people living with wolves and wolf dog hybrids today. It takes a different skill set to live in harmony with wolves or wolf dogs but I imagine that the early humans who chose to allow wolves to hang around their village and camp fires were not a day at the beach themselves. It was mutually beneficial for humans and wolves to team up in some situations and that is how wolves adapted and evolved into dogs.

Bubbabooboo, yes English isn't my first language. Probably that's why you are not being able to comprehend what I am trying to say.

Ok, I'll try one last time.

Bubbabooboo: Wolves were domesticated FIRST and due to domestication they changed their appearance and evolved into dogs, just like the Arctic fox experiment, where the domesticated foxes are also showing dog like postures & behavior.

Swarnendu: Possible, but this theory doesn't explain HOW/WHY all the wild dog landraces also changed their appearance and evolved from wolves to dogs.

Bubbabooboo: The ancestors of ALL wild dogs were actually domestic dogs already evolved from wolves, but they went feral like Dingos did.

Swarnendu: Bullshit !!

[This conversation didn't take place ad verbatim, but reflected what I've learned so far from the posts, probably due to my poor English??]

If any other theory is acceptable to you, how about:

Dog-like creatures evolved from wolves, or some wolf-like creatures, who are the ancestors of both wolves and dogs.

ONLY AFTER this evolution, they were domesticated, because they were more suitable for domestication than wolves.

These dog-like creatures evolved into modern dogs, mostly, but not exclusively, due to domestication.

And, wolves were NEVER domesticated, past or present. They were TAMED, if you use the correct English word.

The term landrace has nothing to do with modern animal biology .. it is a term once used to describe grandma's red tomatoes in Vermont versus Grandma's red tomatoes in California .. a meaningless term to biologist. The distribution of the seeds of plants was somewhat restricted in primitive societies thus the same plant could have different genetic properties based on local adaptations .. however animals like wolves, horses, and dogs were mobile and often traveled from Vermont to California in one or more lifespans. The Arctic fox experiment conducted in Soviet Siberia clearly indicated that the Arctic fox adapted to humans in as few as three fox generations going from an animal with a wild fox personality and instincts to a house pet with spotted coat, a curly tail, and lifelong puppy like personality. Clearly the fox was domesticated and the pet version of the fox was not derived from some fossilized ancestor other than the genes of both the wild and domesticated foxes were identical. Environmental adaptation by animals has made a fool out of Darwin's theories showing that genetic switching due to environmental factors is much faster than the environmental drift that Darwin proposed. Darwin underestimated how fast plants and animals can adapt to new environments or environmental challenges within the limits of their baseline biology.