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Current research indicates that domestication, or the attributes of a domesticated animal, can occur much more quickly than previously believed.
Domestication of a wild dog may occur within one or two human generations with deliberate selective breeding.
It is also now generally believed that initial domestication was through mutual desire. Wild canines who scavenged around human habitations received more food than their more skittish or fearful counterparts.
Canines who attacked people or their children were likely killed or driven away, while those more friendly animals survived. Canines would have been beneficial by chasing away other vermin or scavengers. With their sharp senses, they would also be valuable as an alarm against marauding predators. The relationship is theorized to have developed in this way. |
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