Expert: Walter Hintz - 5/13/2007

Question
QUESTION: What most facinates you about the evolution of the domesticated dogs today?  Also, What are possible explainations as to why and how dogs evolved the way they did?
ANSWER: Hi Camille
The explanation for the wide variety of dogs (and all domestic animals) is simple. They did not evolve through natural selection. They are the result of artificial selection. Dogs like Bassett hounds and poodles would never have developed through natural selection. Can you visualize one of those tiny little Shiatsu (spelling?) trying to survive in a forest.  Modern dogs are "man made" through selective breeding.
 The same thing is true about plants.  Those big juicy fruits are the result of horticulture.

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: How would you explain the evolution of Wolves into the domesticated dogs we have today.  Isn't there a possiblility that they became tamed because of one's natural instinct to survive?  Isn't it possible that the wolves that were in need of food found that they were unharmed and came closer and closer to humans and as a result became domesticated because of their sheer need to live?  Could the process of natural selection and artificial selection coincide?

Answer
Since answering the last time, I did a little more investigation. Most lists of carnivore include a wolf-like group -wolves,coyotes, foxes and dogs. So there was a creature called a dog that descended along the same line a wolves That would mean that that the dog is the result of natural selection.  The variation among dogs is the result of selective breeding