In Tom Edison’s Shaggy Dog, a short story by Kurt Vonnegut, Thomas Edison discovers that dogs are intellectually superior beings. They’re so smart, in fact, that the canines found the easiest possible way to survive: endearing themselves to humans. When Edison confronts his own dog about this revelation, the dog says, “Look, Mr. Edison. Why not keep quiet about this? It’s been working out to everybody’s satisfaction for hundreds of thousands of years. Let sleeping dogs lie.”
It’s true that humankind’s close relationship with canines spans millennia (SN: 7/18/17). This long-term interspecies friendship is a topic of intense scientific study, though where, when and even why it began remains murky (SN: 7/6/17). Short a talking dog, scientists have had to rely on archaeological and genetic evidence for clues (SN: 6/2/16). But the similarities between wolves and early domesticated dogs can make it challenging for researchers to tell them apart. In the earliest days, before wolves were fully domesticated, perhaps the most notable difference is simply the animals’ involvement with people.
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