Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel by Carl Safina

Author:Carl Safina [Safina, Carl]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
Tags: Nature, Animal Rights, Animals, General
ISBN: 9780805098884
Google: sDOooAEACAAJ
Amazon: 0805098887
Goodreads: 22320456
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
Published: 2015-03-31T00:00:00+00:00

But why did dogs start looking less like wolves and more like dogs? That happened on its own, too. Turns out—and no one could have predicted this, and no one did—that animals with genes for friendliness look different. The same genes that deliver desire for friendly contact with humans bundle a raft of stowaway physical traits. In discussing selective breeding in domestic animals, Darwin in the first chapter of On the Origin of Species noted, “If a man goes on selecting … he will almost certainly modify unintentionally other parts of the structure, owing to the mysterious laws of correlation.” Weirdly, in various mammals (not just dogs), genes that create the hormones that reduce fear and aggression and increase friendliness also create floppy ears, curly tails, blotchy markings, shorter faces, and rounder heads.

Though he didn’t understand why (genes were unknown then), Darwin did observe that “not a single domestic animal can be named which has not in some country drooping ears.” Now, floppy ears are not found in any wild animal adult. But don’t we just love floppy ears? Some of the traits that humans find so endearing and huggable in dogs are exactly the ones that come along, by sheer coincidence, with a genetic predisposition for friendliness. Our emotional response to those floppy ears makes it seem as if our own friendly feelings toward dogs did indeed coevolve with theirs toward us, so that we experience a positive emotional reaction to animals who look most friendly. They are most friendly. And as I’ve mentioned, how about our instant response to that wagging tail? Humans and dogs, it appears, learned to love each other in deep, genetic ways. It sure can feel that way.

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