The Nature Of Dog/Human Evolution

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The human mind is a marvelous tool.   It is the most important tool humans use, more important than the opposable thumbs or the upright walking.  Tools would have barely evolved just like in the chimpanzee communities, if we didn’t have brains that  then processed MEMORIES.  Remembering to carry a tool all over the place and to spend considerable time, finding the rocks to make the tools, shaping the rocks and then shaping the right sticks so rocks and sticks could be used to create weapsons: without a powerful internal memory device, this would have been impossible.

Evolution News: Early Homo Sapiens And Their Dogs Hunted And Killed Neanderthals

When people lose their memories, they are literally lost.  The world ceases making sense and often, Alzheimer’s patients simply try to wander off.  This is a terrible business.  But this happens to whole societies, too.  Huge hunks of common memory systems, immense tracts of history can and do vanish and only with greatest difficulty, can it be only partially rediscovered via, say, archeology.  History is constantly being written and rewritten and there is always tension about this as people try madly to wipe out history while inserting their own histories in place of the more accurate records.

The discovery that mass media can be abused in this fashion has been exploited by all ruling elites but this impulse runs in many humans of every possible sort: many want a narrative written by themselves and in doing this, can evolve a story line over time, as it morphs and changes, getting stranger and stranger, more and more detached from the original, it eventually becomes ‘mythology’ and relies entirely on ‘belief’ to maintain itself.

Before I go into that process as it pertains to religious dogma, the ultimate belief-alteration systems, I want to talk about how human perceptions can directly impact on reality by selectively choosing things that appeal to a dogma.  In honor of the word, ‘dogma’, I wish to talk about the very first thing on earth that humans deliberately genetically altered via ‘domestication’: dogs were the very first living creature we manipulated deliberately.

‘Dogma’ comes from the Greek word for ‘decent’.  That is, ‘honorable, good or handsome’.  ’Dogma’ has come to mean, ‘established opinions and morals’.  It was first used in texts in 1638, right on the eve of the Glorious Revolution.  A Catholic king ascended to the Throne and tried to suppress the Protestants.  The uprising in Scotland is directly connected with the creation of this new word in the English language.  This is why ‘dogma’ has negative connotations: this word was used to describe the King’s attempt at imposing intellectual and religious conformity on the fractious empire.

Wolf to Woof: The Evolution of Dogs @ nationalgeographic.com

About 12,000 years ago hunter-gatherers in what is now Israel placed a body in a grave with its hand cradling a pup. Whether it was a dog or a wolf can’t be known. Either way, the burial is among the earliest fossil evidence of the dog’s domestication. Scientists know the process was under way by about 14,000 years ago but do not agree on why. Some argue that humans adopted wolf pups and that natural selection favored those less aggressive and better at begging for food. Others say dogs domesticated themselves by adapting to a new niche—human refuse dumps. Scavenging canids that were less likely to flee from people survived in this niche, and succeeding generations became increasingly tame. According to biologist Raymond Coppinger: “All that was selected for was that one trait—the ability to eat in proximity to people.” At the molecular level not much changed at all: The DNA makeup of wolves and dogs is almost identical.

But the very first expression of the concept of ‘dogma’ was with the human/canine interactions during the last Ice Age.  Because humans living in Australia, North and South America as well as all of Eurasia and northern Africa all have dogs since their earliest years, we know that the dog/human relationship is very ancient.  The dog/human relationship also is very significant in religious terms.  The earliest dogs were most likely scavengers who slunk away from the Ice Age hunters.  But I guess that, for pure amusement some tribe in the great steppes must have picked up some of these scavenger wolf puppies who were probably abandoned by their mother, and finding them immense roly-poly fun, were kept as the first pets.

We know that Amazonian tribes, just for example, will capture parrots and other small animals and keep them for pets.  The dogs, on the other hand, were useful pets.  This discovery was probably accidental.  The playful pups who grew up being nurtured by the humans [human mothers even in recent eras, have nursed puppies!] bonded to the humans and considered them part of the wolf pack.  So when strange humans showed up, instead of the normal process of checking each other out, the wolf dogs could sense hostility from much further away via the scent people give off when they have rising adrenaline.

On top of being able to ’sniff out’ danger, the wolf/dogs made tremendous noise when anything, human or nonhuman, approached what the wolf/dogs considered to be the joint ‘nursery’.  That is, they treated other human groups as invading wolf packs and acted accordingly, with all the fighting adult wolf/dogs running to the outer perimeter and stationing themselves right next to the warriors who grasped their spears in an attitude of aggression.  The wolf/dogs were not as aggressive as wild wolves because the humans would not tolerate this.  Alpha wolf/dogs were killed by the humans.  The beta wolf/dogs were rewarded for showing deference to the humans.

It has been noticed by more than one researcher, how humans operate more like wolf packs than fellow primates.  This could be why we trend towards having ‘kings’ and ‘queens’ just like wolf packs have Alphas.  The natural tendency to seek out and follow some Alpha human or to elevate some human to this god-like status is very strong in humans.  The humans who first tamed the wolves and then figured out how to meld themselves into the wolf social matrix were extremely successful.  That is, they and their wolf pack allies could hunt down and kill all rival human groups.

There is little doubt in my mind that the annihilation of the Neanderthals in Eurasia were directly due to these human/wolf hunters killing them.  The human/wolf matrix triumphed over all others.  Homo Sapiens was a formidable danger to all other humanoids starting 100,000 years ago but the aggression levels shot up dramatically with the introduction of these four-legged allies.  For they are swifter than humans on foot.  And they smell tracks and trails much better and even have better eyesight for moving objects on the distant horizon.

In the competition for resources, the human/wolf pack unity won out over all other social configurations because the humans could ‘howl’ along with the wolves and this noise would alert all other humanoids to flee the region.  So evolution favored noisy, screaming, howling humans who basically imitated their wolf allies in noise levels.  Indeed, the entire reason all human babies and small children love to scream, yodel and yell so much, so loudly, it nearly deafens us, is because this was their prime protection.  No living creature, not even very similar humans who were not part of a wolf pack, would run as fast as possible, away from the racket created by the human/wolf children!

Even wolf puppies don’t make all that much noise.  Adult wolves, marking territory, do make loud noise.  So it is amazing and wondrous that human babies make as much noise as wolf pack alpha leaders.  And I would suggest, this is the actions of ancient human mothers who encouraged their babies to join in the ‘wolf howls’ at night as the humans and wolves sat around the campfires and raised their voices to the rising moon.  I know how this feels.  For, as a small child, I would sit with my dogs on the verandah of the ranch and we would begin howling at night and the coyotes would come out of the desert and howl back at us and then, I would stand up and brandish a large stick and give the ‘attack’ howls and the dogs would run with me into the desert.

Coyotes eat dogs when there are no humans around.  Dogs are mostly pretty helpless unless humans are nearby.  Wolves can eat humans, too, if there are no dogs.  But no coyote or wolf can beat nearly any human/dog alliance.  For example, once a bear decided to raid my bee hives.  My mastiff, Cleo and my husband and I ran outside and we said, ‘Bark!  Bark, Cleo!’  And then she roared at the bear while we joined her with equal noise.  The bear turned and ran off as fast as possible.  If it turned to fight, the mastiff would have risked her life to fight it for us. But only if we were joining in and yelling, ‘Attack!  Attack!’

Dogs are marvelous animals and a psychological extension of us humans.  And thanks to them, our society has evolved very heavily in a novel direction for a member of the monkey tribe.  I have lived with monkeys and dogs.  Monkeys consider dogs to be rivals and will plot against them and take advantage of them.  I never met a monkey that wanted to associate with dogs the way we humans do it.  Though it may be possible.

One characteristic of the wolf is their sense of loyalty.  A dog is the perfect sidekick.  All dogs are Robin to the Batman human owners.  Even if a human is cruel and beats the Robin/dog, it will still fight fiercely to protect this deranged Batman beater from all enemies or anyone who even dares to touch a hair on the head of the abuser!  This unthinking loyalty is the human ideal and we strive to impose it upon each other, each either accepting their social status and allying themselves with an alpha Batman and be a dog-like Robin.  Or they plot to overthrow the tyrant and replace it with themselves and then, of course, demand the same Batman/Robin-human/dog relationship.

I think a great deal of not only this strange social force but also, how human brains can manipulate and distort nature and reality.  Our brains are very large thanks to the need to remember so many things including, where we left the babies and the dogs, humans being wandering creatures.  Another reason why babies and puppies are so noisy, I bet.  The very first animal that humans began to change according to whim were these early dogs.  Very swiftly, by at least 12,000 years ago, dogs that had various talents and looks began to appear due to humans keeping only ones that had pleasing aspects desired by humans.  For example: spots, floppy ears or curled tails.  Yes, fashion played a role here.

Humans discovered rather quickly that if they kept only the puppies that looked a certain way, more and more puppies would appear in the dog pack that looked like the ones the humans wanted.  For some reason, humans like spots, for example.  So dogs with these have been quite popular.  Or rather, multi-colored dogs, that is.  We see this in horses.  For example, the Conquistadores brought horses to the New World in the 1500’s.  Some ran free after Coronado’s mission seeking the Cities of Gold failed.  These ran off to the Great Plains and very rapidly multiplied.  The Indians who learned to ride and tame these horses took a liking to having spotted horses and in less than 300 years, the Appaloosa horse evolved due to human selection.

The human/dog interaction, being the oldest, also has the greatest variety compared to all other domesticated animals.  Yet, all dogs are still so closely related to both wolves and coyotes, even, they can all bear each other’s young and mate.  This is a pretty certain sign that the ‘evolution’ imposed by humans is unnatural.  It is not due to natural selection but rather, often even trivial or ridiculous esthetic choices by the humans.  The best way to get fast changes in the looks or shape of a dog is to interbreed very closely so that defective or recessive genes dominate the cellular nature of the offspring.  The queer ways our brains work has been imposed on the dog population of the world and in the last 100 years, has become a serious hazard for our ancient dog buddies.  We are breeding freaks to the point, the dogs are virtually unable to even live, much less, function like the dogs of yore.

The Pekingese Club of America

As I mentioned, all dogs are natural born lovers of authority and dominance.  So kings, emperors and religious leaders have a soft spot for these camp followers.  The Emperors of China are no exception.  They are one of the people who ordered a wide variety of dogs to be bred for various purposes.  And one of these are the famous Pekingese lion lap dogs.  This picture here is from around 1800.  Note the size and shape of the dog: the front legs are very stunted but the rear end is still fairly strong.  The ears don’t fall much below the jaws and the faces are already very flat for a dog.  The tail is curled but is still obviously a tail and has a flag which the dog waves as a signal of friendliness and adoration of the alpha human.  From the official website:

During the Manchurian rule of Beijing (then Peking) from 1644 -1911, Pekingese and sleeve dogs became objects of trade with the Europeans. Pekingese with black-spotted tongues were a particular favorite in Europe. Chinese breeders wanted Pekingese attributes to conform to features in Buddhist lore and art. That’s why a Fu Dog is associated with the breed — what the Chinese refer to as “a lion.” In Chinese mythology, the Pekingese is said to be a cross between a lion and a tiny monkey (marmoset) and one can see how the myth prevails to this day. Small size and special markings were the highest valued traits, and the 4-5 pound “sleeve” Pekes with ferocious temperaments served as guard dogs which were concealed in the large sleeves of garments: “a surprise” that was literally “up one’s sleeve.”

All lap dogs have this feature. This is why they are twice as loud and persistent compared to say, Mastiffs, who don’t bother to bark unless there is real motivation and it has to be pretty big motivation to get them to bother. The smaller the dog, the more it will bark at strangers and the harder it is to convince it to stop barking.

In the 19th century, and no doubt earlier, Pekingese produced in rough and smooth coat varieties with the latter known as “Happa Dogs.” Through the free exchange of breeds in the palaces and monasteries in 17 th to 19 th century China and Tibet, Pekingese evolved and were crossed with every kind of dog: rough and smooth coated Pugs, Japanese Chin, Tibetan Spaniels, Lhasa Apsos, Shih Tzu, Tibetan Terriers, Chow Chows and other developing breeds.

There was no ‘pure breeds’… there were regional types of dogs. And passing the genes from one to the other for various reasons, most often, quite whimsical, was very common before 1850. Here is a picture from 1903.  China was ruled by Europeans who tore it to pieces.  One thing that absolutely delighted the upper classes in Europe were the whimsical toy lap dogs bred by the Oriental elites all over Asia.  These were literally stolen and brought back to the West to be used as living toys.

This picture shows the grave distortions already plaguing these canines.  The pug, in particular, is very twisted.  The front legs are ridiculous and dangerous.  The faces of both have been relentlessly ‘humanized’ by moving the eyes to the front and smashing the nose in.  These strange dogs were embraced by Westerners and they decided to ‘keep the breed clean’ by forming a registry similar to the race horse Thoroughbred registers started in the 18th century.

This not only encouraged massive inbreeding unlike in Asia where there was frequent out-breeding, this also began a process of warping what a dog was and very rapidly evolving it into something entirely different via the judging process at dog shows.  A few months ago, the BBC ran an expose of this process with a documentary of how the British Kennel Club, one of the oldest on earth, how it used the judging process to totally destroy all the dog breeds.  Here is the episode on You Tube that concerns both the pug and the Pekingese dogs we see in the old photo here:

YouTube – Pedigree Dogs Exposed part 4

The European ‘pug’ .  The word comes from a history of words talking about ‘fighting’.  This was an aggressive guard dog which was made smaller so it could take up little space.  Unlike the Mastiff breeds who mostly lived outside, these are indoor dogs.  This pug looks only slightly different from other pooches.  Its main features were the semi-curled tail and the short nose and floppy ears.   It was bred into the Asian court pugs and today, is this small monster of a dog with a bent spine, a very curled tail and all the ‘pug’ features extremely exaggerated.  The nose, so short, the dog can barely breathe.  The legs are also very short and the back so bad, the dogs can’t even climb stairs easily anymore.

Horrible as this is, the fate of the Pekingese was far worse: this merry little dog was transformed into this immense ball of fur with a face smashed to smithereens.  A very sad animal, one that horrifies me.

YouTube – Pedigree Dogs Exposed part 5

Here is the official 2009 mascot of the US Pekingese dog club.  The ears in the top pictures barely went past the chin of this breed 100 years ago.  Now, they drag on the ground.  The pert little tail with a slight curve has turned into a total corkscrew which is utterly buried in long fur.  This fur now covers the poor dog with a second layer of deep fur.

YouTube – Creation of the Pekingese Dog

From the website run by the strange people who have joined the British in utterly and totally destroying this breed of dog and turning it into a caterpillar covered with fatal levels of fur.  This is the decree of the mad, last Empress of China, the same one who ordered a navy of jade boats while Europe and Japan ravaged China:

The Pekingese Club of America

Let the Lion Dog be small; let it wear the swelling cape of dignity around its neck; let it display the billowing standard of pomp above its back.

Let its face be black; let its fore-front be shaggy; let its forehead be straight and low, like the brow of an Imperial righteous harmony boxer.

Let its eyes be large and luminous; let its ears be set like the sails of a war-junk; let its nose be like the monkey god of the Hindus.

Let its forelegs be bent, so that it shall not desire to wander far, or leave the Imperial precincts. Let its body be shaped like that of a hunting lion spying for its prey.

Let its feet be tufted with plentiful hair that its footfall may be soundless; and for its standard of pomp let it rival the whisk of the Tibetan’s yak, which flourished to protect the Imperial litter from the attacks of flying insects.

Let it venerate its ancestors and deposit offerings in the Canine Cemetery of The Forbidden City on each new moon. And for its color – let it be that of a lion, a golden sable, to be carried in the sleeve of a yellow robe – or the color of a red bear, or a black and white bear – or stripped like a dragon – so that there may be dogs appropriate to every costume in the Imperial wardrobe.

Let it comport itself with dignity; let it learn to bite the foreign devils instantly.

I find the business about biting foreign devils to be rather funny.  The ultimate function of dogs is to protect the alpha owners.  Note also, how these unfortunate dogs were fashion accessories.  We see movie and TV goddesses doing the same thing, carting around these little dogs all over the place.  Any animal can be bred to look like anything and this has been imposed on more and more species as humans interfere with other animals.  For example, chickens have been subjected to this for hundreds of years, too.  The ‘Standards of Perfection’ have been used to keep various varieties ‘pure’.

The difference between the bible of bird breeders which used illustrations back in the 19th century, lovely pictures showing several angles of bird breeding perfection, is in stark contrast with the British Kennel Club which uses NO pictures of ‘perfection’ at all.  So over time, the breeds warp more and more, based on their VERBAL and WRITTEN descriptions.  This is quite shocking because virtually all breeds of dogs no longer even remotely resemble their ‘breeds’ 100 years ago!  Instead, as judging fads and whims pass over the dog population, they  move in various directions like water flowing.  So, if 2″ of fur is good, 3″ is better and then 5″ and then 20″ of fur until the fur is dragged on the ground, for example.

Here is the photo of the very best ‘dog’ in the top British show back in 2003:

This pathetic creature needed surgery in order to breathe!  The people who bred dogs to this sorry state should die of shame or maybe strangle themselves on a curtain pull or fall over a tea cart and break their necks.

Scots experts urges BBC to drop Crufts over cruel treatment of dogs – The Sunday Mail

A SCOTS animal cruelty expert yesterday demanded the BBC axe coverage of Crufts dog show.

Mike Flynn, of the Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, spoke out after Panorama’s expose of the horrific health problems suffered by pedigree dogs as a result of in-breeding.

The documentary, screened on Friday, revealed many have life-threatening brain conditions, epilepsy, heart murmurs and cancers.

The BBC has shown highlights from Crufts for 42 years but Flynn demanded they pull out unless breeders’ body The Kennel Club do more to stop in-breeding….

Pugs are so inbred that although there are 10,000 in Britain, their DNA could come from just 50.

The Pekingese’s flat face causes breathing problems meaning some airlines refuse to fly them.

The 2003 Crufts winner Danny – a Pekingese owned by Scot, Bert Easdon – needed surgery to help it breathe.

The trusting dogs who first formed an alliance with humans have been slowly turned into a genetic sport of intense cruelty.  The prime features of a strong dog have been bred out just so we can have ‘looks’ and the ‘looks’ evolve in horrible ways as various funky things are emphasized.  For example, the ruff of fur on the Pekingese dogs was turned into a full body of fur and then, encouraged to cover all parts of the dog until it was unable to survive.  The winner of that Cruft’s show, for example, was so overheated in less than an hour, it had to sit on an ice pack for photos!  This is beyond cruel.  I once had an Scottish Rough Sheepdog.  We had to shave her in summer or she would die.  Her fur finally was the death of her.  Our mongrel, on the other hand, can shed her winter fur the same way wolves do this.

Here is another prime example as to how dogs that were already being bred in odd ways in the 19th century have suddenly deteriorated as breeders emphasize more and more, various bizarre traits:

Here is a late 19th century photo of a French Bassett Hound.  A perky dog with a very erect tail, evolved from the standard hunting hound dog used for the sport of fox hunting.  The ears are floppier than the longer-legged hunting hounds.  Still, it could run and chase and was full of energy.

YouTube – Pedigree Dogs Exposed part 5

Here is a grand champion in Britain from last year:

It is much, much fatter.  The ears are very long and quite prone to ear diseases since the dog can no longer perk up its ears even partially.  They sag.  So does the muzzle.  The skin around the eyes sags, giving it a sad expression which is in stark contrast  with the alert expression on the older dog’s face.  And the whole body’s skin sags!  And this is considered a positive thing for the judges who reward sagging skin!

So every generation, the skin sags worse and worse.  This will end only with the dogs being so compromised, they can’t have babies anymore.  Already, bulldogs can’t naturally conceive if they are the top breeders!

This process afflicts horses, cows, pigs, lab rats, plants, trees, etc: everything we choose to ‘breed’ we send off into various odd directions.  The Kennel Club, for example, never set any VISUAL standards so they have allowed whims to run amok and wrecked nearly all pure bred dogs this way.  But now we have genetic splicing and can make glow in the dark dogs, for example, like they did in South Korea.

The human mind at work is more like Dr. Frankenstein.  But this is part of the way our minds ALWAYS worked, from the very first interactions with the wolves during the Ice Ages.  They are the ones who showed us how to manipulate genetic material to suit our whims.  And this ability has infected our minds in surprising ways.  This is why humans keep turning ourselves into ‘gods’.  We feel, if the wolves we altered view us as gods, then we are gods!  Even humans in historical times have been elevated to ‘godhood’ thanks to this glitch in our minds.

It never ceases to amaze me to see people fall into this trap.  People can’t worship dogs or cats anymore like our distant ancestors.  We think, they worship us [well, cats are the exception, they pretty much refuse to do this and are very insistent of keeping their earlier god status] so why can’t we be gods in all ways?  And so we do this, it is very simple: if enough people can convince other people that someone has special skills such as say, healing, or they have a special biological relationship with gods [via divine sex] or that they can ride up to the heavens and discuss things directly with the invisible [ultimate Wolf] gods, we can rule our own destinies and dictate terms concerning our passage into Death.

This important process of the human mind is always operational.  It will latch onto anything and everything possible.  This is why we are very prone to building belief systems which please us or makes us feel better or stronger.  This is why we can’t process data in a cold way, even the best scientists are enslaved by this mental system that evolved with the human/wolf matrix of thousands of years ago.  Due to this, we struggle to see even small parts of ‘reality’.  The funniest thing here is, the animals we are messing up are still an open door to ‘reality’: they connect us to it in many subtle ways.

You can’t fool these animals.  They have their own ‘reality’ and we can only change their circumstances, we can’t change their perceptions.  This is why they are so good for us when we are going insane.  They comfort and protect us.  Well, the cats might toy with us… heh…. cats are a different in some ways.  We alter their fur and other things but can’t change their attitude that we are scum and they are gods.  It is no surprise that the Bible NEVER mentions cats.  I guess the god involved can’t handle this business and thinks, if it is ignored, it will go away.  I tell Fluff this periodically and he yawns and then stares at me.

I tell my puppy this and she wags her tail and jumps up and down with joy.  See?  Amusing.  The main thing is, if we are convinced about understanding any matrix system, EVEN PEOPLE CREATING THESE SYSTEMS, including all rulers, all of them are DELUSIONAL.  This is due to the warped brains thinking we are gods, not jerks.  But this is why cats consent to live with us.  Someone has to tell us the truth.  We can’t get this from dogs.  They love us too much.

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