[spaxiaroorbes]

From the Cave to the Kennel
What the evolutionary history of the dog tells us about another animal: ourselves. From a cave in France, a new picture has emerged of canines as our prehistoric soulmates.

Chauvet Cave in southern France houses the oldest representational paintings ever discovered. Created some 32,000 years ago, the 400-plus images of large grazing animals and the predators who hunted them form a multi-chambered Paleolithic bestiary. Many scholars believe that these paintings mark the emergence of a recognizably modern human consciousness. We feel that we know their creators, even though they are from a time and place as alien as another planet.

What most intrigues many people about the cave, however, is not the artwork but a set of markings at once more human and more mysterious: the bare footprints of an 8- to 10-year-old torch-bearing boy left in the mud of a back chamber some 26,000 years ago—and, alongside one of them, the paw print of his traveling companion, variously identified as a wolf or a large dog ...

Read more here ~~~ From Cave to Kennel: The Evolution of Man and Dog - WSJ.com

My Thoughts

WOW !!! It only took 32,000 years (or longer) for your dog to get into your lap. Previously, it was thought that dogs evolved at the end of the last ice age, about 15,000 years ago.

Also mentioned in the article is the dog's ability to understand human words as well as a 2 year old human child. In my opinion, understanding of words is the least manifestation of a dogs intelligence. Sometimes, words just confuse a dog. And I think people talk to their dogs WAY too much and it only adds confusion if they aren't careful. Concise commands work best.

On the other hand, have you ever loved someone and just loved to hear them talk? When my dog(s) come back inside and settle next to me so I can pet them, for whatever reason, they like it when I start talking to them and tell them what good dogs they are while petting them. The reason I know they're comforted and amused by my blathering is because their tails start wagging like crazy the moment I start talking and stop when I stop talking.

However, the older my dog gets, the more I realize that the less I say, the more affective I am at getting my point across. My body language and touch speaks a dog's language better than verbal cues.

Dogs "see" the world through smell, touch, sight and sound in that order I think. Sound being at the bottom of the list. I also believe dogs are very intuitive and understand differences of emotions (if not always the emotion itself) and the "vibe" we put out.

My dog(s) for instance, seem to be able to anticipate my actions almost as soon as, if not before, I translate a thought into action. If I'm going to go somewhere for instance ... they let me know LOL.

This article MAY prompt us to wonder what the evolutionary history of our dog tells us about another animal ... ourselves. Though the article mentions humans and dogs evolving together and cites many ways in which dogs evolved to become companions, there is little in the article about humans evolving to be companions of dogs. Or maybe I missed something.