Domestication Never Ending Understanding, you name it.

If dogs evolved from wolves through domestication, how that process may have affected dog cognitive development? Now (actually just published a couple of moths ago) an exciting study demonstrates the role of domestication in enhancing the cooperative communication skills of dogs. The study highlights how the selection of attraction to humans altered the developmental routes of dogs.

How does that relate to our dogs nowadays?

Dogs have the ability to understand humans. That is clear to all of those having a dog in their family. Isn’t it? That door has been open to the scientific world twenty something years ago, when Brian Hare, M. Tomasello, Adam Miklosi and his colleagues were running some initial and groundbreaking studies on dogs cognition.

Now, what may not be necessarily clear is the process of parallel evolution humans and dogs went through and are actually going through. together, and the mutual influence influence of those two species. That process, as mentioned, is ongoing, it requires a further step in understanding the interaction of people and dogs and can completely change the perspective we have on human evolution.

Interested in the topic?

Check and download for free the scientific paper here.

Cooperative Communication with Humans Evolved to Emerge Early in Dogs bioRxiv 2021.01.12.425620; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.01.12.425620