The history of animal breeding: science and application

1. Domestication of the dog:

• Estimates of when this happened vary greatly, but it was approximately 12,000 years ago.
• An appealing theory about how this happened is that when people settled down and became farmers, they also started to accumulate waste.
• The tamer-than-average wolves were brave enough to eat from that waste and thus had a secure source of food.
• This was an advantage, so natural selection pressure was on being not very afraid of humans.
• Eventually, a kind of symbiotic relationship developed, where these ancestors of the dog started to perform ‘tasks’ like warning the humans for approaching danger, helping in hunting, providing warmth, etc., and in return these animals would receive food security.
• There is evidence that genetically the village dogs are in between the wolves and the dogs.

2. Domestication of other species:

• Other types of animals may have been domesticated more forcefully.
• They were captured and put in an enclosure or tied up, at least during the night, and were only
• allowed out to graze or scavenge under the supervision of a herdsman.
• Only those animals that were not aggressive, but also not too shy, managed to adapt to these new circumstances.
• So (mainly natural) selective breeding also in these cases was on temperament.