Dog domestication

Dog domestication is the long process through which ancestral wolf populations adapted to life alongside humans, giving rise to domestic dogs.

Gray wolf: A widespread wolf species from which domestic dogs descend. Dogs descend from ancient gray wolf populations, though the exact source population remains uncertain.
Self-domestication: A process in which less fearful or aggressive individuals gain advantages in human-associated environments without deliberate breeding. One hypothesis holds that early wolves approached human camps before people intentionally bred them.
Raymond Coppinger: An American biologist known for research and writing on dog behavior and domestication. Coppinger advanced the idea that scavenging around human settlements favored tame, camp-following dogs.
Multiple domestication hypothesis: The hypothesis that dogs arose through more than one independent domestication event. It contrasts with a single-origin account by proposing separate wolf populations contributed to dogs.
Human–animal bond: The emotional and social relationship between humans and other animals. Dog domestication produced one of the longest and most intimate interspecies relationships.
Paleolithic dog: An archaeological category for early canids proposed to be domestic dogs from the Paleolithic. These ancient remains anchor debates over when dogs first emerged.
Tameness: A reduced tendency to avoid or react aggressively toward humans. Selection for tolerance of people could make close association between wolves and humans possible.
Robert Wayne: An American evolutionary biologist whose research uses molecular genetics to study canids. Wayne's genetic studies helped establish the close ancestry between dogs and wolves.
Single domestication hypothesis: The hypothesis that domestic dogs descend from one principal wolf domestication event. It offers a simpler alternative to models of repeated domestication.
Herding dog: A dog selectively bred or trained to move and control livestock. Herding shows how people later shaped dogs for specialized work.

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