The history of dogs is so closely woven in with the history of people that historians and archaeologists cannot agree on when or how they were introduced. Prehistoric people may have found many good uses for dogs. Once domesticated, dogs were used as early warning detection devices against human or animal intruders. They would defend people's caves and camps as their own, and so they must have been excellent protection as well as an alarm system.

Obviously, the greatest use early people had for their canine companions was hunting. Once the dog was part of the human family, and once humans were part of the pack, hunting together became a valuable common interest. There is also conjecture concerning how far back humans used dogs to guard livestock. Of course, as a dog fancier, one must wonder in the end, what attracted dogs to people? According to dog experts there were mainly three things — food, fire (for heat in winter), and community.

Lloyd M. Wendt, a noted historian of the human/dog connection who wrote the very detailed book Dogs, believes that the relationship between early humans and domesticated dogs can first be traced back 100,000 years to northern Africa and the Middle East. Wendt also noted that 10,000 years ago, Algerians were drawing hunting scenes on cave walls, depicting the hunt, with dogs on leashes.