The beauty of the man-dog partnership - The Boston Globe
What is it about dogs and human beings?
It is impossible not to think back to the era when this relationship began. In telling the story of civilization, anthropologists link the invention of agriculture with the “domestication’’ of animals as the historic breakthrough. But domestication suggests, even in the etymology of the word, something that insults the esprit of the dogs before us. The idea seems to be that our ancestors, in “housebreaking’’ wolves, found ways to dominate and train them, but is that what happened? Were humans all that powerful, and the canines all that susceptible to being mastered? At the risk of engaging in what scientists might call baseless speculation (also known as B.S.), let me ask if, instead, the relationship began as a kind of accidental partnership from which each drew benefits, with each getting a better life. In that case, as a friend once suggested to me, symbiosis would be a better word than domestication.
What is it about dogs and human beings?
It is impossible not to think back to the era when this relationship began. In telling the story of civilization, anthropologists link the invention of agriculture with the “domestication’’ of animals as the historic breakthrough. But domestication suggests, even in the etymology of the word, something that insults the esprit of the dogs before us. The idea seems to be that our ancestors, in “housebreaking’’ wolves, found ways to dominate and train them, but is that what happened? Were humans all that powerful, and the canines all that susceptible to being mastered? At the risk of engaging in what scientists might call baseless speculation (also known as B.S.), let me ask if, instead, the relationship began as a kind of accidental partnership from which each drew benefits, with each getting a better life. In that case, as a friend once suggested to me, symbiosis would be a better word than domestication.
Posted using ShareThis
Posts
