Cooperation between Species

This chapter reviews the study of cooperative behavior between species, with emphasis on examples of cooperative hunting found in a wide range of species. Seen in this context, the idea of cooperative hunting between humans and wolves that evolved into present relationships with dogs does not seem unusual or surprising. The chapter then critiques the proposal that competition between species is more important than cooperation in structuring ecological communities, discussing how this notion leads to a suite of ideas philosophically separating humans from the rest of the natural world. In many ways Western science is unintentionally complicit in such thinking. The chapter concludes by discussing complex cooperation, including long-term relationships between members of different species.

The Beginnings

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the relationship between humans and wolves. The relationship began as coevolutionary, with the species cooperating at times but also capable of functioning independently. This state of affairs dominated early stages of the relationship between the two species and may have persisted for 20,000 years or longer. In other parts of the world, for example, southern Asia, humans began to shape wolves into clearly domestic forms: animals phenotypically distinct from wolves, especially in body size. This latter process involves various aspects of the wolf gene pool being essentially divided, with many individuals staying true wolves while others changed in form, becoming what people now describe as “dogs” without losing their genetic links to their wolf ancestry or their ability to interbreed with wolves.

Conclusion

This concluding chapter assesses the great enigma of the first domestication: wolves and dogs are so affectionate and seem willing, if not driven, to create strong and persistent social bonds that it becomes easy for humans to anthropomorphize and idealize these four-leggeds that share their lives so easily. Yet they remain predators, highly evolved carnivores, and they know how to kill. Given the opportunity, sometimes they kill things that humans value, for example, other domestic animals. As long as humans considered themselves to be fellow predators, however, they lived comfortably with wolves. The chapter then examines one particular case of a wild wolf that showed repeated friendly relations with humans over a period of several years and discusses the implications of such experiences.

Living Well with Wolves and Dogs

This chapter discusses the bonds and relationships that exist between humans and different types of canids. A crucial point is that the social bond between humans and wolves that changed into domestic dogs is the source of both major pleasures and major conflicts between humans and their canid companions. Large domestic dogs have the anatomy of serious predators combined with a confidence in their interactions with humans that can lead to aggression and grave conflict. In contrast, wolves and high-percentage crosses between wolves and dogs tend to be timid, retreating when faced with unfamiliar humans. The chapter then addresses the “danger” presented by various breeds, including wolves and wolf-dogs, and challenges a number of points of received thinking, including the notion of the equivalency of “wild” and “dangerous.” A major aspect of the “danger” from a canid is associated with size above all else, which is to be expected in dealing with large predatory animals.

Living with Wolves and Dogs

This chapter examines how many types of “dog,” including AKC (American Kennel Club) registered breeds, can be mistaken for wolves by people who have stereotypical ideas of what a wolf is, including some wolf biologists. It deconstructs the concept of “experts” who attempt to make such distinctions, including those who advise state and federal legislators. Moreover, the chapter explores relationships between humans and wolves—both domestic and nondomestic—as social companions by evaluating Raymond Pierotti's experiences as an expert witness distinguishing between dogs and wolves. This type of confused thinking has led to bad laws based upon emotional responses rather than attempts to govern effectively and write laws that improve the functioning of society.

Wolves and Coyotes

This chapter focuses on an intriguing aspect of the relationship of humans with wolves in North America and parts of eastern Siberia—that wolves are considered “creator” figures, suggesting that they played an important role in the way humans conceived of themselves as they adapted to new environmental conditions. Thus, wolves could function as both teacher and creator to peoples who were willing to respect wolves as hunters and pay attention to the examples they set. A related trope, often confused with the creator figure, is the idea of smaller canids such as coyotes and foxes as “trickster” figures. The chapter then addresses why tricksters among many American tribes are scavengers and omnivores, for example, coyotes and ravens, occupying an ecological mediating position between herbivores and carnivores and “in between” in terms of subsistence strategies.

North America

This chapter explores the historical relationship between Indigenous Americans and wolves illustrated through the stories of Indigenous peoples of North America, especially on the Great Plains and the Intermountain West. Tribal accounts have not been previously employed in scholarly examinations of the origins of “dogs” or studies of domestication. All the Plains tribes examined closely (Cheyenne, Lakota, Blackfoot, Pawnee, Shoshone) have stories characterizing wolves as guides, protectors, or entities that directly taught or showed humans how to hunt, creating reciprocal relationships in which each species provided food for the other or shared food. Indeed, evidence from tribes suggests a coevolutionary reciprocal relationship between Homo sapiens and American Canis lupus that existed until at least the nineteenth century.

Wolves, Archaeologists, and the Origin of Dogs

This chapter focuses on archaeological research and its role in explaining the transformation from wolf to dog, addressing why this topic is controversial: the tendency to identify wolf remains found in archaeological sites as evidence of either interlopers or human killing overshadows the alternate possibility of social bonding between humans and wolves. This probably has prevented appreciation of considerable early evidence of relationships between humans and wolves before the latter became sufficiently phenotypically distinct (“doglike”) to be recognized as domestic animals shaped by humans. Some archaeologists do not acknowledge the possibility that humans interacted with and coevolved with wolves for thousands of years without generating significant phenotypic change in either species, and thus early wolves living with or cooperatively hunting with humans probably go unrecognized by scholars looking only at obvious physical changes.

The Process of Domestication

This chapter discusses the history of the process of domestication conceptually and considers the meaning of the terms domestic, wild, and tame and how the concept of feral fits within this framework. It explores differences among traits in generating phenotypes, including the classic Russian studies on fox behavior and morphology. Domestic dogs are not a natural grouping because they involve multiple lineages (polyphyly) that have undergone extensive interbreeding among lines (reticulate evolution), which reduces clarity concerning traits that might be used to identify dogs as a species. Evidence of polyphyletic origins is also found in other domesticated animals, especially cats, cattle, and pigs. Differences between what it means for an animal to be tame versus domesticated reveals that these concepts are regularly confused and conflated in the popular literature, even by scientists.

Asia

This chapter discusses the history of humans and canids in Asia. The history of Western civilization reveals a long-standing tradition of demonizing or dehumanizing other peoples, especially peoples considered as potential rivals for territory or resources. In contemporary culture, this attitude manifests itself in the entertainment industry's obsession with “werewolves”: the hybrid nature of such creatures can be seen as an example of one of the most consistent bugbears of “civilized” nations and societies—dog-men or cynocephali. Such beliefs are based upon practices among tribes in central Asia: the men hunted with wolves or large “wolflike” dogs and at times wore masks or capes of dog skin when fighting. In Japan until the late nineteenth century, humans enjoyed a basically cooperative and benign relationship with local wolves. The identities involved are not clear because traditional Japanese describe “wolves” as benign, whereas they are more cautious about what they call “mountain-dogs.”