| The
Dog, ranks high in the scale of intelligence, and was evidently
designed
to be the companion and the friend of mankind. We exact the services of
other animals, and, the task being performed, we dismiss them to their
accustomed food and rest; but several of the varieties of the dog
follow
us to our home; they are connected with many of our pleasures and
wants,
from play, guard, working to our sleeping hours.
There
is no incongruity in the idea that in the very earliest period of man's
habitation of this world he made a friend and companion of some sort of
aboriginal representative of our modern dog, and that in return for its
aid in protecting him from wilder animals, and in guarding his sheep
and
goats, he gave it a share of his food, a corner in his dwelling, and
grew
to trust it and care for it. Probably the first dog was originally
little
else than an unusually gentle jackal, or an ailing wolf driven by its
companions
from the wild marauding pack to seek shelter in alien surroundings. One
can well conceive the possibility of the partnership beginning in the
circumstance
of some helpless whelps being brought home by the early hunters to be
tended
and reared by the women and children.
We
could probably assume that our early ancestors didn't take the trouble
to tame and train an adult wild animal for their own purposes, and
primitive
man was surely equally indifferent to the questionable advantage of
harbouring
a dangerous guest. But a litter of woolly whelps introduced into the
home
as playthings for the children would grow to regard themselves, and be
regarded, as members of the family, and it would soon be found that the
hunting instincts of the maturing animal were of value to his captors.
The savage master, treading the primeval forests in search of food,
would
not fail to recognise the helpfulness of a keener nose and sharper eyes
even than his own unsullied senses, while the dog in his turn would
find
a better shelter in association with man than if he were hunting on his
own account. Thus mutual benefit would result in some kind of tacit
agreement
of partnership, and through the generations the wild wolf or jackal
would
gradually become gentler, more docile, and tractable, and the dreaded
enemy
of the flock develop into the trusted guardian of the fold.
In
nearly all parts of the world traces of an indigenous dog family are
found,
the only exceptions being the West Indian Islands, Madagascar, the
eastern
islands of the Malayan Archipelago, New Zealand, and the Polynesian
Islands,
where there is no sign that any dog, wolf, or fox has existed as a true
aboriginal animal.
|
