From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Evolution of Minds

by Daniel C. Dennett

Synanthropy is probably the route to domestication taken by most of our domesticated species. For instance, as Coppinger and Coppinger (2001) argue, the myth of wolves being turned into dogs via the deliberate removal of wild wolf pups from their dens by intrepid domesticators is hardly plausible. Almost certainly once human settlements began to generate concentrations of discarded edible food, these dumps became attractive to wild wolves who varied, initially, in their ability to tolerate proximity to dangerous human beings. Those who could bear to be that close became geographically and reproductively isolated from their more wary cousins, who kept their distance, and what emerged over time was the junkyard dog, belonging to nobody, nobody’s pet or companion, but a familiar presence in the community, like house mice, rats, and squirrels. Dogs in effect domesticated themselves over many generations until their human neighbors became their owners, their companions, their guardians, their masters.