First Chapter
It is really the first chapter of this book which is best. Here are some choice quotes:
"Dogs belong to that elite group of con artists at the very pinnacle of their profession, the ones who pick our pockets clean and leave us smiling about it."
"For all the myths and tales of the dog's service to man, only the smallest fraction of dogs that live off human society today earn their keep...For all the myths about how some caveman or cavewoman adopted a wolf cub from the wild and found him a valuable guardian and hunting companion, the behavioral and archeaological evidence now strongly points to a conclusion that even thousands of years ago the overwhelming majority of dogs were biological freeloaders. The things that a small number of modern-day dogs do that clearly pay--assisting the blind and disabled, herding livestock, providing recreational sport for hunters and racing enthusiasts--were late developments in the dogs' checkered career. Every great crime family turns out a few solid citizens eventually."
"social parasites"
"For dogs (or evolution, I should really say) have disconvered the chink in our armor.
"Show us something small and helpless with big eyes and a round head, and we feel an innate inhibition against harming it.
"But is is hard to deny that we feel a very fundamental, innate, unlearned, and in that sense quite irrational attriaction toward cute litle things, especially helpless cute little things. Dogs take advantage of this to no end. They play us like accordians."
If you read this book, or at least the first chapter, you will never look at dogs in the same way again. Here are the interesting ideas I can recall:
(1) Man probably did not actively domesticate the dog, but indirectly did. Early human settlements most likely had trash heaps. Wolves would scavenge among these trash heaps. People would likely kill off the wolves that harmed human beings. In this way, a more tame breed of dog would have evolved.
(2) Budiansky makes the very interesting point that stray dogs don't bite much. If there are stray dogs that do bite, they are immiediately put down. In contrast, most dog bites are committed by cossetted pets. There is not as strong a selection pressure for tameness among them.
(3) Dogs are not man's best friend. Rather human beings are dogs' best friend. What exactly do most pet dogs do for their masters? Nothing. On the other hand, what all do people do for their dogs? Lots. They spend time and money on food and medical care their dogs. Dogs can soil the carpet. In old age, dogs usually develop health problems which require expensive care. Dogs have to be taken out, rain or shine, once or usually twice a day.
I think this was the single most shocking fact of the book for me. I don't know why I never looked at this matter in this light before. I believe many people found this claim controversial. But it's so true and so obvious that it's incredible that this isn't the standard view of dogs.
(3) A certain Russian performed a famous experiment in which he decided to breed tame foxes. In every generation of foxes, he would choose the tamest ones and use them to breed the next generation. The very interesting thing which happened was that new physical features started showing up in the tamer foxes, for instance, floppy ears, and spots. These physical traits had not been selected for, only tameness had been selected for. But selecting for tameness also ended up selecting for these physical traits. This is interesting because dogs have exactly these physical traits which are not present in wolves. So perhaps a similar process happened when wolves were "selected" for tameness.
(4) Juvenile wolves bark. Adult wolves don't. Budiansky says that dogs may in a sense be wolves arrested in an adolescent state. Selecting for tameness may also select for pedomorphism, the retention of juvenile tendencies in an adult.
(5) Wolves are social hierarchical animals. A particular wolf can either be a dominant wolf or submissive to a dominant wolf. Also important, the lower ranking wolves are always angling to become the alpha wolf. Dogs are quite similar. The implication of this is that the dog must be absolutely submissive to the master. And that they should always be put in their place lest they become uppity. A submissive dog casts its eyes downward upon meeting the master's eye, wags its tail, and rolls over on its bellie. In entering a room, the master must lead and the dog must follow. If they cross paths, the dog must give way to the master.
(5) The way pure bred dogs are bred today is just terrible. They are made to conform to an arbitrary physical standard, but breeders don't pay much attention to temperament. This has dire results. In dog competitions, judges will pay attention to the carriage of the dog. Whether a dog has a "proud" stance is one common criteria. But a "proud" or "confident" stance usually reveals agression or dominance on the part of a dog, which is a very bad trait in a pet. Even a breed like the cocker spaniel which has the reputation for being gentle and friendly has been corrupted by the introduction of certain aggressive lines.
