
My Favorite Photo Ever: A Military Dog Jumping Out of a Helicopter - shawndumas
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/05/my-favorite-photo-ever-a-military-dog-jumping-out-of-a-helicopter/238431/
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tzs
There is some strong evidence of Man and Dog working closely together going
back at least 30k years, and even some evidence going back 100k years--far
longer than for any other domesticated animal.

There is also evidence that the long association of Man and Dog has changed
both species. By hunting together, each evolved to emphasize their strengths
in the partnership, and lost things they no longer needed. There is a good
discussion of this in Temple Grandin's "Animals in Translation".

Some scientists even think it was our ancestor's symbiotic relationship with
dogs that let them outcompete other groups such as Neanderthals.

Dogs are able to figure out human states of mind from our facial expressions
and body language much better than any other animal, and we can do the same
for them. There's a good episode of "Nova" that covers this, and shows some of
the experiments.

To put it succinctly, according to science dogs really are "Man's best
friend".

This makes me wonder what the heck went wrong in those cultures that reject
dogs, and consider them to be pests and vermin to be exterminated or at best
tolerated.

