How did the dog originate? Is the dog a direct descendant of the wolf? Can you compare the behavior of the wolf with your dog?...

The gray wolf has 99.6% DNA in common with the dog. This is a big similarity, but at the same time 0.4% is a big difference if you know that we as humans have 50% DNA in common with a banana. To give you a better idea, we share 98.7% with the chimpanzee.

We don't know for sure when domestication started. We estimate that this occurred about 30,000 years ago.

In 2007, the megafaunal wolf was found. This one had both wolf and dog DNA. Presumably, descendants of the megafaunal wolf evolved with other wolf species into a kind of intermediate dog. This led to the conclusion that the dog is a cousin of the gray wolf and not a direct descendant.

Today, several theories of domestication are possible:

· People took puppies from the intermediate dog. They used each other for common interests; cleaning up the garbage of humans, hunting together, playing with children, keeping each other warm,…

· This intermediate wolf would have drawn to human waste in search of food. The least fearful and least aggressive dare to come closest to people and thus obtain food. These also had the best chance of survival and so naturally the most tame intermediate dogs were selected.

· Intermediate dogs are said to have followed people while hunting to be able to eat hunting waste afterwards. Again, only the least fearful and least aggressive would get the most food. Due to evolution, the intermediate dog became smaller because it needed less energy than the larger one. This dog would start hunting along with humans. They had something in common and that's how domestication came about.

The last two theories seem to me the most plausible.

Domestication has led to interesting differences:

· The appearance changed. The dog got hanging ears, curly tails, shorter noses  and sometimes curly fur. Brain volume decreased by 10%. The color of the coat changed because the animal was less stressed. Lower stress levels decrease the adrenaline and the pigment too.

· Did you know that both a dog and a wolf can grin? However, dogs only do this in contact with people.

· A dog barks for various reasons (chasing away, enthusiasm,...). A wolf will mainly bark to alert its group members. The barking of wolves sounds different from a barking dog. Wolves howl more.

· A real wolf can only be domesticated if you raise it before the age of ten days. Dogs also remain playful as wolves mature.

· The hormones and neurotransmitters have also been adjusted; the dogs with more serotonin and less stress hormones had more access to food and were able to reproduce.

· The digestive system of the dog is similar to that of the wolf. It is true that a dog can digest starch better due to domestication, but this is by no means the case for all dogs. Unfortunately, starch still causes many health problems for many dogs.

Source: dog behavior expert L. Bangels