Hello reader! Continuing from our previous post in the series of an introduction to dog breeds we will take up the evolution of hound dog breeds in this post. In our previous post, we have explained the domestication of the early wolf-like canids and the formation of distinct lines of early dog breeds. We have also given a brief account of what might have contributed in different subspecies of early domesticated wolf-like canids and the appearance of Asian subspecies of early dogs. Later these subspecies evolved and gave way to different modern dog breeds. The earliest true dogs appeared some 15-13,000 years ago and the earliest properly documented use of dog was for hunting.
The earliest appearance of hound dog breeds
As mentioned earlier in our previous post, the early descendants of wolf accompanied humans on the hunt. We, humans, have exemplary brain power but we lack in physical abilities to pursue a prey at high speed. Here the early dog assisted us and formed a never-ending partnership and friendship based on a give and take relationship. It is difficult to imagine this give and take relationship in modern times especially in the urban environment where most new dog breeds are being kept as a pet.
I feel that the reason of rising atrocities on animals is somehow attributed to this culture of keeping animals as pets just for leisure purposes. Sometimes it is true that pets are not meant for everyone. It takes a very special person to keep a pet happy throughout its life. There are many wrongdoings that are going on recent days not only with dogs but with other pets also. People keep exotic animals to satisfy their psychological need of social praise, otherwise, there is no other reason to have a wild animal in confinement of a human home. This is an altogether different topic to discuss; we will take up this topic sometime later in this series or in our series of social
awareness about pets and wildlife. For now, let us get back to our topic of the evolution of hound dog breeds.
We were discussing the relationship between early dog and humans. As discussed in our earlier post the humans provided the food to the early dog and in return, early dog provided the protection and service in different ways to human. This relation later flourished and many subsections of dogs developed special abilities and capabilities to shine in a particular field.
Since early dogs have evolved from the early wolf, they inherited similar traits.
Almost all dogs have the basic instinct of chasing moving objects be it a toy, a ball or a fast-moving prey. At early stages of human and dog friendly, the hunting instincts were crude as present in the wolves. These early dogs might have been extremely independent and very difficult to train. These characteristics are shared with some stubborn and independent modern day dog breeds like Afghan hound or an Anatolian shepherd dog breeds.
In the course of many thousand years hunting dogs or the hound dog breeds evolved with specialization in coursing (sight hound dog breeds), trailing (scent hound dog breeds), flushing (spaniel dog breeds in a general and broad sense), retrieving (retriever dog breeds), shepherds (protection, guarding and shepherding dog breeds) and many other specialized dog breeds and groups.
This process evolution by natural selection was influenced by many factors. These factors that have influenced this evolution and bifurcation of early canid into several dog breeds are;
- The physical features of the environment in which the dog is living.
- The need of a job that is expected from those particular dog breeds And
- Selective breeding; to enhance desired specialty traits.
We will discuss each point in detail in our upcoming series. For now I would like to conclude this post.
There are several topics remaining like the scent hounds, crossbreds hound dog breeds, controversies regarding hound dog breeds before we start breed introduction.So, it’s a goodbye for now.If you like our work at; Kaivalaya’s Ani-Mall please like and subscribe our blog.We are also open to any suggestion from our readers to improve our works.Thank you so much for visiting Kaivalaya’s Ani-Mall.
