The Beginning of the Human/Canine Bond
The history of dogs is so closely woven in with the history of people that historians and archaeologists cannot agree on when or how dogs 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.
Numerous cave paintings depict dogs hunting alongside humans in 4000–5000 B.C., though there are even earlier examples of this partnership. By that time, five primary types of dogs appear in the paintings: greyhounds, pointing dogs, mastiffs, wolf-type dogs, and sheepherding dogs.
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 man's early use of 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. Remains found suggest a communal burial or death, rather than a violent end. Carbon dating has put the most recent findings at 92,000 years ago. He also noted that as little as 10,000 years ago, Algerians were drawing hunting scenes on cave walls, depicting the hunt, with dogs on leashes.
Historians place the working aspect of the human/dog relationship at approximately 80,000 years ago, with the advent of the spear. Spears gave humans a weapon to fend off aggressive animals, as well as something to kill them with. It was probably about this time that humans and dogs began hunting together in earnest.
As humans became more adept at navigation on the sea, they also began to seek dogs that were optimal for specific tasks. Great wolf-like animals were bred for hunting wolves, bears, and lions in Abyssinia and Persia. The largest and best of the herding dogs came from Tibet. And the fastest hunting greyhounds came from Egypt.
