Note: In this series of 8 articles, ‘he’ is also to be read as ‘she’ or ‘they’ or whatever that won’t exclude any entities.
My journey towards discovering the qualities of an extraordinary species began some two decades ago when I brought home two furry, four-legged balls.
I discovered later the species could detect the scent from just one single drop of butyric acid (C4H8O2) released in an enclosed tank measuring 21km diameter and 92m high (31,986,430,457 cu. m.). Stupefying! Our sweat contains the acid in microscopic quantities. (1 metre = 3.28 feet and 1 kilometre = 0.62 miles)
And that’s just for starters. The species has many other staggering qualities and capabilities to blow the minds of the uninitiated open to learning of new things.
In bringing up my furry balls, I followed the ‘advice’ from a supposedly experienced owner. Some four months later, one died.
The reason the vet told me for the demise showed the advice I had got was way off the mark. Meanwhile, the other had also fallen ill. A quick trip to the vet’s, giving of lots of TLC at home, and after some 30-odd hours the wonder gazed into my eyes with his bright ones while kissing my hand. Then he climbed out of his blanket. Lesson learned: Always get a second or even third opinion.
I then began to equip myself as much as I could by reading books and any published reports I have come across related to the species.
The more I read, and the longer I have been keeping more examples of the species, the more I came to notice that Nature has engineered an astounding organic product for Homo sapiens to benefit from. For that reason, I refuse to refer to the species as ‘it’.
Or, if we believe that an entity called God exists and that He created everything, he is an awesome gift from Him.
Ironically, the product-gift has been, and still is, not just spurned and maligned, but also often abused and maimed and horrendously tortured by many – including some of those who often bow and pray and sing praises to that same supernatural being, the gift-giver.
That species is the dog.
Surprised? There will be more, bigger surprises below and in subsequent articles. The biggest surprise comes towards the end of this series of 8 articles.
Genesis of a wonder
The dog descended from a wolf-like, canid genus Tomarctus, which was also the progenitor of the wolf and the fox and went extinct some 14 million years ago.
Scientists have not yet been able to determine when the species and humans began to live together. The most recent evidence, however, indicates the two species were already co-existing some 40,000 years ago, in Eurasia. How they began to come together remains a hypothesis.
But perhaps what is more important to we the lay people is the symbiosis between the dog and humans, and the amazing abilities the former has to benefit the latter. The articles in this series aim to highlight some of these qualities.
Naturally, dog owners benefit little, if any, of what their dogs can offer if they do not bond with the latter. Most, if not all, owners of mutts in certain parts of the world do not. Even some of those who keep pure breeds do not – as we can surmise from their keeping of their status symbols in cages.
Practically all owners of mutts in certain parts of the world leave their dogs to their own devices from morn till night, or, worse, keep them chained up day in and day out outside. They never give their dogs food suitable for the species and proper care. They shout, curse, swear or kick at their dogs when the latter displease them.
Symbiosis engineered
Over the millennia, the dog’s genes were engineered by Nature to cause it to have a symbiotic relationship with humans.
The species was also prepared for communication with humans.
One manifestation of this is the dog’s ability to read hand signs. The only one other species to have this ability is primates.
Where previously this ability was thought to exist only in adults dogs, which were presumed to have acquired it from observing their owners, the results of studies conducted recently as reported in June this year showed that, in actuality, puppies are born with ‘human-like’ social skills.
The lead study author, Dr Emily Bray of the University of Arizona, informed that the skills enable dogs to communicate with their owners from a young age.
This begins with the puppies’ ability to read people by following cues, such as pointing gestures and making eye contact. A report published at the time of writing revealed that they learn to understand human language in the same way human babies do.
However, it might take a bit longer for them to know how to communicate back with humans, such as by barking in different ways.
Emotional bonds began in the mists of time
Scientists also cannot tell us for certain when humans had formed emotional bonds with the species. But they can tell us that humans had already done so during the Palaeolithic era (Stone Age).
This is evident in the remains of a dog found, in 1914, buried with a man in his 40s and a woman in her 20s at Oberkassel, today a suburb of Bonn, Germany. The burial took place about 14,200 years ago.
Known in the scientific circle as the Bonn-Oberkassel dog, the canine has been pathologically determined to have contracted distemper virus as a puppy of about 19 weeks old. The virus is almost always fatal.
The poor thing may have suffered two or three periods of serious illness lasting five to six weeks. He managed to live to more than seven months old. He could have survived that long only due to intensive human care and nursing. He had received that, doubtless, from the couple. Of course, had the couple had access to modern medicine, the pup would have recovered fully.
