Image courtsey: tombraider4u.comDogs of all hues. Something About Man's Best Friend - A Foreword.
This article is only foreword for a series of postings to appear in this site; describing the various types (breeds) of dogs and their specialties, as dog is the undisputed best-friend of human being it would of immense use to be familiar with the characteristic features of each breed and the ways of rearing, and even dealing with them. The author is a research fellow in the veterinary research institute in Kerala, he will only be happy to share information regarding dog rearing with those who love his best-friend and wish to know more of these four-legged wonders.
Dogs are classified in the "canine" community (family canidae, species Canis familiaris) by the scientists. The word "canine" reminds the fangs of the legendary Dracula and the readers may develop an aversion to this group, but remember these canines are essential for them to lead an omnivorous (those which eat vegetarian as well as non-vegetarian foods) life style and there is nothing to be afraid of their dental pattern! Ancient remains of human beings have almost always found accompanied by skeletons of dogs, this is a standing testimony to prove that the canines they have are just teeth of devotion and nothing less than that!
The present species of dogs is supposed to be evolved about 30,000 years back, there are different schools of thought regarding their origin, the most popular one is that they evolved from wolves (there are instances reported of wolves mating with domestic dogs). Some people of the scientific community are of opinion that dogs evolved from the jackals and yet others claim dogs are the progenies of coyotes ugly! As the case belongs to 30,000 years back let us leave it to the "school teachers"! Altogether there are more than one hundred breeds available in the domestic dog species.
Man's ambition and greed have tempted him to domesticate anything and everything that came in to his way, almost all attempts to domesticate animals like hyenas, Gazelles, wild-cats, foxes etc have failed miserably. Even the domestication of the so called "domestic cats" is said to have progressed only half-way! The cat never lets anybody mess with its life, master or no master! So called domestication means only that much to this small animal.
But what about the dogs, in this case also there is nothing for the man to be proud of, it is believed that dogs just came to the man and asked with his jesters, asylum from predators and left-over food from man in a trade-off for the watch-man duty he offered voluntarily. If the dog is domesticated now, it is not by the merit of the man but by the grace of the dog! In a sense, it is the dog which domesticated the man! By offering security at night from snakes and predators dog made man stop wandering and lead a settled "domestic" life. All by the grace of the dog!
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3 comments:
that sounds intersting i hope you will come up with something intersting
Thanks for stopping by my blog Dr. Suraj.
cute puppy, is it yours, or did you just find pics? it's a Golden right? that's what my dog looked like as a pup
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