Man and Dog May Have Been “Partners”

Before I begin this presentation, a few comments on the current thinking on genetics, mutations, and the swiftness with which they occur, as well as species survival in nature are in order. Scientists count human generations at about 20 years; dog generations are counted at 2 years. There are two schools of thought on how fast mutations and/or adaptations to a changed environment occur. Some say that it only takes a generation or two to adapt to a changed environment so that a species can survive. Some say that it takes many generations. In any case, those species that can adapt readily to a changed environment survive, thrive, and evolve with nature doing some pretty severe selecting. According to the latest archaeological information, wolf types have been around for 400,000 years or more. Wolf and early man remains have been found in close proximity for around 100,000 years. Nobody yet knows exactly when the wolf-dog/early man relationship became a fact, but man and dog may have been “partners” as far back as 14,000 years ago, and maybe more, as evidenced by the most recent archaeological discoveries of dogs ceremonially buried with their masters. The relationship may have started much earlier with wolf pups figuring out that the garbage dumps of early man, or the remains of their kills, constituted an easy meal. As younger wolves developed the habit of hanging around human habitations, kids and dogs being what they are, the children of early man and these pups may have become playmates. The smaller, less aggressive wolf pups would have been easily assimilated into early man’s clan life as man’s and wolves’ social order is very similar in both structure and size. Younger, smaller wolves would have been fairly easily tamed as they would be used to being submissive in the wolf pack order. In due course, man figured out that wolves/dogs could be helpful in hunting, as the wolf/dog pack’s methods of hunting were similar to the methods used by early man, or vice versa. Not to mention the fact that alerting early man to danger approaching his camp, and helping to keep humans warm, probably followed very soon as the wolf/dogs became part of early man’s “pack”. From there, over the years and centuries man and dog’s relationship progressed to herding, guarding, and a myriad of other “jobs” as agriculture, instead of hunting/gathering, became the norm at about 14,000 years ago and the science of animal husbandry was born. Also according to the latest research, as attested to by the fact that there are over 400 distinct dog breeds in the world today, wolf and dog DNA is, for all intents and purposes, indistinguishable there being slightly more than 1% difference in their DNA profiles. Wolf/dog DNA also seems to be very malleable as evidenced by Russian experiments with breeding silver foxes to be more tame therefore more easily manageable to raise for fur. It was discovered that, within a very few generations of selective breeding for only one trait, tameness, most characteristics of our modern day dogs showed up. Ears that tended to be floppy instead of upright, tails that were held higher rather than lower, more rounded heads and shortened muzzles, as well as large areas of white, all evidenced themselves in just 2 or 3 generations. Modern day dogs are “puppies”, retaining many of the characteristics of young, immature wolf pups into adulthood. As the knowledge and practice of animal husbandry advanced, the selective breeding of dogs for specific traits also proliferated. For instance, almost all wild canids will hesitate before pouncing on their prey. It wasn’t all that hard to develop that instinct to hesitate into a full-blown point. Wild canids also sometimes carry the remains of their prey long distances back to dens to feed young pups and/or other members of the pack, so the retrieving instinct was equally fairly easy to imprint. The instinct to hunt a certain kind of prey over another was another trait selected for. Over the centuries, many breeds of dogs were developed from a few prototypes – mastiff types, sighthound types, hound types, spaniel types, etc. With the recent addition of the Spinone Italiano to the sporting group, there are now 28 breeds and varieties in this group. Roughly, they are divided into 3 main groups: the retrievers, the spaniels and the pointing and continental pointing breeds. Since I know the most about pointing breeds, I will concentrate on those tonight. However, I want to make a few comments about the retrievers and spaniels. The 6 Retrievers (Goldens, Labs, Curly Coats, Flat Coats, Chesapeakes and Irish Water Spaniels) were water specialists used mainly for hunting waterfowl but also used to retrieve behind the pointers on upland game birds. They are less independent and therefore more easily trained to sit in blinds or cover waiting to be sent out to retrieve ducks, geese and other waterfowl when the hunter shoots and downs them. Spaniels (the American Water Spaniel, the Clumber, the 3 varieties of American Cocker Spaniel, the English Cocker, the English Springer, the Field Spaniel, the Sussex Spaniel, and the Welsh Springer Spaniel) are also less independent, and rather than going out some distance away from the hunter, hunt rather closely in a windshield wiper pattern, “hup” or sit when the bird is scented, leaping or rushing forward to flush the bird when given the command, and then retrieving, on land or water, when the bird is downed. They are used for both upland birds and waterfowl. Pointing breeds are much more independent and can range as much as a half-mile or more in search of birds, and therefore the pointing instinct needed to be developed so that the hunter could get within gun range before the dog flushed the birds so that the opportunity to shoot them wasn’t lost. The 3 setters, Irish, English, and Gordon, were developed respectively in Ireland, England and Scotland to hunt only upland game birds: partridge, grouse, pheasant, quail, woodcock, etc. Originally they would go “on set”. That is, they would sort of crouch down, so the hunter could throw a net over both the dog and the birds. The pointer, the “Cadillac” of pointing breeds, the performance level of which is the basis for all pointing breed field trial and hunt test rules, and whose “style” on point is the criteria for all other pointing breeds, was developed in England but refined into the dog you see today in the US. Here, they were used to hunt large open areas of southern plantations. They were specialists, hunting only upland game birds, and wagons with retrievers usually followed the hunting parties to retrieve the birds. Pointers to this day, usually do not retrieve, only point. The rest of the pointing breeds, the Brittany, the German Shorthaired Pointer, German Wirehaired Pointer, Spinone Italiano, Viszla, Weimaraner, and Wirehaired Pointing Griffon are all part of a sub group known as the continental pointing breeds. These breeds were not specialists like the pointer and setters, but rather developed to hunt both fur and feather on land or water as well as track larger wounded game. They came into being when the kingdoms and city-states of most European areas were consolidated into countries or nations. At which time the huge kennels that were kept by most European royalty and noblemen, which contained several specialist breeds for different kinds of hunting, were disbanded, and the search was on for breeds that could do it all. When these breeds were introduced to the US, the AKC didn’t have a slot for dogs that hunted both fur and feather (feather being the domain of the sporting breeds, fur being the domain of the hound breeds), so, since they all pointed; they were lumped in with the sporting pointing breeds. Three of the breeds – the German Shorthaired Pointer, German Wirehaired Pointer and Weimaraner were developed in Germany; the Brittany and Wirehaired Pointing Griffon were developed in France; the Spinone in Italy; and the Viszla in Hungary. Arguably, and depending on which breed experts you read or listen to, and given the fact that several of these breeds look very similar; these breeds were most likely not developed from 2 or 3 common ancestors although almost all are thought to have different percentages of an ancient mastiff type for size and substance, an ancient sighthound type for swiftness, probably an ancient hound type for nose or scenting ability, as well as a touch of some sort of spaniel here and there for willingness to work in water. When the AKC was started back in the 1800’s by a group of wealthy sportsmen, some of the first competitions were sporting field events. My huntin’ dog is better than your huntin’ dog! In fact, you will notice that the AKC logo has a pointer on it. Field trials and, more recently, hunt tests are a stylized way of proving a hunting dog’s ability. Field trials are judged dog performance versus dog performance, hunt tests against a standard of performance. Kind of like the difference between conformation and obedience. A side note: to be really competitive in field trials, it often requires a huge investment of time and money not to mention knowledge of training methods. Either the owner has to have the time, especially in the more urbanized areas of this country, to take his dog out to a suitable area for training and conditioning 3 to 4 days a week, or pay a professional handler anywhere from $350 to $500 a month not including travel expenses or entry fees; has to own a horse and horse trailer and all the accouterments and expenses that go with that, and often has to be able to travel long distances from late August to late April on the west coast, or August to November and March to May in the Midwest and on the east coast, to compete, as pointing breed field trials require at least 5 square miles of land with appropriate cover and these areas aren’t found down the street.

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