![]() ![]() ![]() “Dogs would go extinct if we didn’t exist.” “We created the niche for dogs to inhabit,” Ray Coppinger puts it simply. Whether their providers are dump truck drivers or affectionate guardians, dogs have learned to exploit humans for food. ![]() Unlike wolves, dogs basically sit and wait for food to arrive. The Coppingers make a convincing case that dogs-their behavior and body type-were created by the niche they inhabit alongside human civilization.ĭogs are highly evolved scavengers with a specialized nutrition-acquisition style. When you travel, you may notice that feral dogs from Africa to Mexico have the same build of around 30 pounds. They direct their gaze at the three-quarters of the world’s dogs who are not pets, but rather are their own masters-the free-roaming, free-breeding dogs who inhabit the dumps and villages of the world. In What Is a Dog? biologists Raymond Coppinger ’64G, ’68PhD and Lorna Coppinger ’67G propose a dogcentric origin story based in behavioral ecology. But what if this humancentric view is keeping us from seeing that dogs actually domesticated us? Everyone assumes that humans domesticated dogs, perhaps at multiple points in prehistory. ![]()
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