One question that sometimes gets asked of people who volunteer for dog welfare organizations is “Why dogs?” What they mean is: Why devote so much of your time and energy to saving dogs, when your efforts could be spent helping children, sick people or those in poverty? Aren’t people more important than dogs?
Every person has their purpose, and every living thing has its place in this world. Somebody has to take care of the dogs, and I want to be one of those people. Ever since I first visited a humane society in 5th grade, I concluded that dogs not only need our help, they deserve it. In fact, we owe it to them because we made them who they are; we created them to be dependent on us. We can’t just ignore them when they become a burden.
Dogs need humans. Wolves don’t. What’s so special about dogs? Over the past thousands of years humans have domesticated dogs to the point that, I believe, dogs expect humans to be in their lives. Many dogs couldn’t survive in the wild; those that could wouldn’t be as happy. I’ve always believed that, and recently I found a study that helps put some science behind my belief.
A researcher found that dogs instinctively respond to human gestures and other such physical cues. Wolves don’t respond to us like dogs do. In fact, not even chimpanzees – our closest genetic relatives – interpret our gestures the way that dogs do innately. Follow the link below to a video on National Geographic’s site to see a demonstration of this study.
National Geographic Video: How Dogs Became Man’s Best Friend
Note: I had to use Internet Explorer to view the video – I couldn’t make it work with my usual Mozilla Firefox. The study I’m referring to is in the second half of the video, so be patient; although the first half is pretty interesting, too.
The next time your dog responds to your body language, think about how and why it could be that another species of animal instinctively understands you. No wonder we love dogs!
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I don’t know when it all started that dogs became a main pet in the US but I’m glad it happened because I love dogs. They are the most loyal and loving and protective animals that I know of. All the love and attention that we give to them could be one reason why they react to us the way they do.
I’m sure that over the thousands of years of humans and dogs living together, dogs evolved to better benefit from the attention we give them. Makes you wonder in what ways WE have evolved due to the influence of dogs, doesn’t it?
[...] washingtonpost.com Dog Unto Others: Canines Have Sense of Fairness | Wired Science from Wired.com #1 – Dogs Instinctively Understand Humans « Why Dogs? The last article may be more along the lines of dogs evolving to co-exist with humans, but it [...]