Bakchieva 1

How Cats and Dogs Were Domesticated and For What Purpose

Aliya Bakchieva

Mrs. Montgomery

Writing EO 7

17 April 2018
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Outline

I. Dogs

A. Origin of the Domestic Dogs

B.

II

III

IV Conclusion

V. Works Cited

Table of Contents

Outline page 2
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Introduction page 4

Origin of the Domestic Dog page 5

How Dogs Were Domesticated page 6

History of Dogs page 7

How Cats Were Domesticated page 8

Ancestors of Cats page 9

Ancient Egypt page 10

Works Cited page 11

Introduction

In author's opinion this topic is very entertaining to read, because it’s related to two

fascinating animals that we all love. Cats and dogs are the most famous and taken as a pet

animals in the world. They are both favorable and adorable in many ways. Dogs are protective
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and caring animals, they are

man's best friend. Cats are

inactive animals that always

wants to do stuff by it self, but

anyways they are clever and

really ancient animals that were

once worshipped by Egyptians.

Dogs have been our protectors

for more than 10,000 years and

they always will be, because they

love us and wants us to be safe.

Although, our fluffy friends were

with us a long time…I think we

still have a question, where have they been, before started to be our pets, how did they look like

and how they were domesticated and for what purposes?

According to Merriam Webster Dictionary definition, to domesticate is to breed or train

(an animal) to need and accept the care of human beings : to tame (an animal).

Origin of the Domestic Dog

The origin of the domestic dog is not clear. Some people think that the domestic dog is a

member of the genus Canis. Most of them also say that ancestors of the domestic dogs (not all)

are wolves, but scientists strongly believe that both wild and domestic dogs can be members of
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South Asian wolves. People think that wolves are dogs ancestors, because half of the big dogs

have a lot of similarities because of their reflections and look. There is also one superlative dog

breed that almost have no difference

between a wolf, this dog is

“Czechoslovakian Wolfdog”. Dogs

were the first species to be

domesticated. Genetically, dogs and

wolves are 98.8 percent identical,

because of their look and instinct.

How Dogs Were Domesticated

All dogs were, domesticated by the bait or lure of an easy food. While humans were still hunters

following large groups of animals, dog’s ancestors were always near them by the smell of food and after

hunters were done with their food, dogs were eating leftovers. Dogs then, started to think that humans are

feeding them if they are following them, and they wanted to treat them, too by protecting. After a while

humans realized that dogs would bark if strangers or predators were near, so humans began to feed them
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more often and allowed

them to stay. In other

centuries when some dogs

were not wolves they were

also helping people. This

dogs were hunter dogs and

most of this dogs were

Beagles and Jack Russell

Terriers. While a person

was on a horse, an

enormous group of this dog

breeds were running and following the prey until they catch it. This was continuing from old days to modern

and dogs still loyally followed and protected us ever since. According to this text dogs were domesticated

because of the meal that humans were giving them. By this method our four legged friends started to have

an instinct that when people were giving them food everyday and also protecting them dogs would treat

them the same way.

History of Dogs

Wolves appeared around 15,000 years ago in the Middle East. Last year a Swedish

genetic whose name is Pontus Skoglund find a 35,000 year old Siberian wolf bone and concluded that

canine domestication was first occurred in 27,000 to 40,000 years ago. According to authors text about

“Domestication of Dogs” dogs were domesticated because of humans that were feeding them.

Scientists still don’t have any reasons why a wild wolf had an instinct to protect human only because of

food. Interestingly even if most of the people say that dogs are man's best friends, women may have

been the first to make a wolf a pet. Later there became a lot of dogs that did not look like dogs at all.
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Mostly this four legged animals were terriers, beagles and poodles. This dogs became hunting dogs.

Their cramped sizes were really helpful, because they could easily go inside the holes and catch a prey.

Their legs were little bit

abridged so they could

ran really speedy.

How Cats Were Domesticated

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Cats were, domesticated in

about 10,000 years ago. They are

the only animals that

domesticated themselves.

(Probably that is why cats are

mostly selfish creatures and prefer

to do stuff by their own.) After

humans stopped following herds,

they began to farm. Vegetables,

that they were planting attracted

mouse, squirrels and other

rodents, that really attracted cats. As a result, there were almost none of them. Than people that were

planting this healthy stuff almost never saw rodents again and they wanted to know why. Then humans

later realized that, because of cats rodents did not come. Therefore, humans treated them the same way

and thought that they are protecting them and their garden. So they started to feed them and allowed

them to stay. Interestingly cats share 95.6 percent of their DNA with tigers

Ancestors of Cats
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The author strongly believe that you already knew that ancestors of cats are not only Panthera cats

like lions, tigers, and snow

leopards, and also Acinonyx.

There are other cats, and their

names are Felis. Panthera,

Acinonyx and Felis are three

types of Felidae family. Felis are

cats that look exactly like the cats

that we keep at our houses. They

have the same look and the same

size, so do you have any reasons

why it is like this? Felis or Felis

catus is a domestic cat and yeah,

it is wild. Felis catus is one of the most recently evolved species from the Felidae family.

Ancient Egypt

Maybe if you were studying something about Ancient Egypt or just saw paintings that Egyptians

drew on the walls, you probably saw cats there, and most of these cats were Sphynx cats. In Ancient
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Egypt, there were a lot

of hazardous diseases

and by saying

“hazardous” the author

met that there were no

way people can stay a

live and also how you

already know it was

ancient time and people

did not had medicines

that they needed. These diseases were spreading because of rodents that were touching food with their

contaminated puny paws and infected it. Therefore, when cats were hungry they were just eating them.

Later it started to be less and less of this disease and Egyptians realized that it was because of cats and

they started to worship them.

Works Cited

Crisp, Marty. Everything Dog. New York: North World Press, 2003. Print.

George, Charles and Linda, George. Bomb Detection Dogs. Minnesota: Capstone Books, 1998.

Print.
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Smith, Steve. Encyclopedia of North American Sporting Dogs. Minocqua: Willow Creek Press,

2009. Print

Carver, Leslie. “How Long Have Dogs and Cats Been Domesticated”. Pets.thenest.com.

Stockbyte/Getty. Images, 2018, May 3 2018.

Urbigkit, Cat. Brave Dogs Gentle Dogs. Pennsylvania: Boyds Mills Press, Inc. 2005. Print.