Current Events > If modern dogs evolved from wolves, and evolution isn't instant, does that mean

(+) Yeah! (+)

Does that mean that there was a huge period of time where, say, humans were trying to breed these wolves to be sheep dogs and they were just really shit at it but the humans were like "this is totally worth it, I'm going to keep going"?

It just seems weird to me that there had to be thousands of years where they weren't really great at doing whatever task we wanted but it was better than going out and trying to club a moose.
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Evolution is not true. Its a theory

stevethewindow posted...

Evolution is not true. Its a theory

Jesus loves you.
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Basically, the dogs that exhibited the traits people wanted were bred. That's the easiest way to say it.
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Tupacrulez posted...

Basically, the dogs that exhibited the traits people wanted were bred. That's the easiest way to say it.

Sure, but how do you know if a dog is good at sheep dogging if you don't let it sheep dog? And then it eats your sheep. Or only one of your dogs is kind of ok at it so you have to find another guy who's dog doesn't eat all of his sheep and mate them. And then hundreds or thousands of years go by.
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You're being obtuse at this point.
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Ranting Nord posted...

humans were trying to breed these wolves to be sheep dogs and they were just really s*** at it but the humans were like "this is totally worth it, I'm going to keep going"?

no

more like humans kidnapped the puppies of (smaller, weaker) wolves, slaughtering the parents in the process.

we taught them to view us as their pack, and killed those that didn't, breeding those that did.

domestication of sheep and training of dogs as shepherds happened after domestication of dogs as hunting partners
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Ranting Nord posted...

Sure, but how do you know if a dog is good at sheep dogging if you don't let it sheep dog? And then it eats your sheep. Or only one of your dogs is kind of ok at it so you have to find another guy who's dog doesn't eat all of his sheep and mate them. And then hundreds or thousands of years go by.

I feel like general domestication happened before any kind of breed specialization (hounds, terriers, herding, etc.). Sled dogs would have been an early use for breeding.

It's also worth noting that wolves have also continued to evolve (via natural selection) during the same timespan so it's hard to say if ancient dogs were exactly like the wolves we see today or not.
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Ah, see I didn't think about it that way. I just assumed we saw a nail and tried to hit it with a rock.
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Darkman124 posted...

domestication of sheep and training of dogs as shepherds happened after domestication of dogs as hunting partners

Exactly. Dogs had to have been well domesticated by the time humans even began to herd sheep and keep other livestock.
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MrToothHasYou posted...

Darkman124 posted...

domestication of sheep and training of dogs as shepherds happened after domestication of dogs as hunting partners

Exactly. Dogs had to have been well domesticated by the time humans even began to herd sheep and keep other livestock.

Granted, the basic impulses we taught early dogs were likely closely related to protection and killing of small/medium sized herbivores, so they might have been pretty bad at, say, herding chickens.

We see some of this in the innate prey drive of dogs bred less far from wolves today, such as most arctic dog breeds. We even see some wolf pack behavior in them--a household with two same-gendered arctic breed dogs tends to be a chaotic one, as they tend to both want to dominate the other and may take it very far.
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