P a g e | 1University of Puerto Rico Mayaguez Campus

English Department

Hector Martell

Professor Ellen Pratt

English 3231 Section 086

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Prologue

I still remember being totally desperate to find the right topic to write about. I was

arriving from the University and while I was walking to close the gate from my house, I noticed

an extremely odd behavior from “Crema” and “Dalmata”. Maybe I should explain first who they

are. A couple years ago I moved to a new house, a very nice place, far away from the rowdiness

of the city. A perfect place to live and to abandon animals too, specially dogs. Getting back to

Crema and Dalmata, they are to dogs that someone abandoned a couple of years ago near home.

They made our street they territory and since then they have been protecting it from everything

they found odd. Unfortunately they are old now and they are not as strong as before, they can’t

fight like before. But they still maintain the control of their territory they fight together like

beast, as if they planned every single step. With the same intensity that they defend their territory

they also show affection to us. They even recognize every car that enters to my house. That

complicated and intriguer behavior has caught be attention since I moved to the new place. How

can this animals be so intelligent? How can they recognize voices? How can they recognize the

car of each member of my family?

This is one of the major reasons that carried me to write about this topic. Dogs have been

a very important factor in our development of the human being. Being together for so many

years have promote so many domestication, that in many times they can understand us better that

we can understand each other. Through the pages of this multi-genre research project you will

find, how this relationship began, their domestication, develop, studies of their behavior, and

many facts that will help you to find the answer of the question that guide me to write the

project. Dogs and human relationship and adaptation to survive or a real friendship?

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Research Paper Introduction

As human being we are very social specie. We are constantly surrounded by others like

us. It wasn’t always like, at the beginning of his existent the relations were other forms a life

that surround him were inexistent. Through years the human being was separate from other

species, the only relation that unite him with the others animals that surround him were predator

and prey. After some years he noticed that the environments that he already conquered were very

hostile, making them vulnerable and unable to succeed. As the human being found out, other

species like the wolf noticed the being around other different animals had their benefits.

Together they could share their abilities to survive; they can interchange protection, food, shelter

making their life easier to each other. That is how the relationship between the first

domesticated animal the dog emerged hundreds years ago. But how from being a tool for

surviving the dog became the “man’s best friend”. A relationship that begun like an adaptation

to survive, after hundreds of years ended developing feelings that attach both of them, meaning

to each other more than tools to make their life easier.

Relationship beginning

How this odd strong relationship appeared? This is a debate of many scientific that have

dedicated their life to the study of this unique relationship. But the majority of them agreed that

dogs were likely attracted to human campsites because humans like dogs were hunters, and

animal remains, such as bones, bits of skin, and other scraps of corpse from the victims of recent

hunts, were likely to be scattered around human campsites. The ancestors of today's dogs (being

always conscious about food) learned that by hanging around man's habitations, they could grab

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a quick bite to eat now and then, without all the energy expense that involved hunting their un

preys. Like Dr. Stanley said in one of his recent articles titled: Dogs and Humans - How the

relationship began, although primitive man may not have been very concerned with cleanliness,

it is still true that rotting food smells, and attracts insects and other plagues that will make

humans daily life uncomfortable. Thus it is likely that dogs were initially tolerated around the

perimeter of camps simply because they would dispose of the garbage. This waste disposal

function continued for countless centuries and is still being fulfilled by dogs in many less

developed regions of the world. Besides solving their waste problem, the time that the first

human beings lived were very dangerous, there were many larger animals around them, that saw

the human like very good source of food. Having their “friends” near will also bring them

protection whenever a strange human or wild beast approached. This benefits that the animal that

was approaching man’s territories give to the man, were definitely a reason to stole puppies from

the wild dog and bringing the home. This was definitely the first step of their domestication.

Also these are some of the reason why the majority of the scientific agreed that the dogs were the

one that began this strong relationship.

Dog history

To have a better understanding of this unique relationship between the human being and his

“best friend” we should understand more about their evolution. The dog (Canis lupus familiaris)

is a domesticated subspecies of the gray wolf. When this new species emerged? Scientifics have

different theories but the majority agrees that the domestication of the gray wolf took place in a

handful of events roughly 15,000 years ago in central Asia. The dog quickly became ubiquitous

across culture in all parts of the world, and was extremely valuable to early human settlements.

His morphology and behavior have been shaped by environmental factors and functional roles.

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As the modern understanding of genetics developed, humans began to intentionally breed dogs

for a wide range of specific traits. Through this process, the dog has developed into hundreds of

varied breeds, and shows more behavioral and morphological variation than any other land

mammal. (Tyrone C. Spady and Elaine A. Ostrander, 2008)

Develop

The domestic dog has been one of the most widely kept working and companion animals in

human history. They have been bred for herding livestock, hunting, rodent control, guarding,

helping fishermen with nets, and pulling loads, in addition to their roles as companion. After

many years of sharing together so many times, the people have noticed that the abilities from

these unique animals are not just his physical help. Dogs nowadays served like guide dogs,

utility dogs, assistance dogs, hearing dogs, and psychological therapy dogs provide assistance to

individuals with physical or mental disabilities. Some dogs owned by epileptics have been shown

to alert their handler when the handler shows signs of an impending seizure, sometimes well in

advance of onset, allowing the owner to seek safety, medication, or medical care.

They are not only our companions, the fact that we have been living whit them so many years

have made them the perfect model to study human behavior. This discovery was found by the

expert in dog behavior Jozsef Topal. They found that although chimpanzees share many of our

genes, dogs have lived with us for so long and undergone so much domestication that they are

now serving as a model for understanding human social behavior. Cooperation, attachment to

people, understanding human verbal and non-verbal communications, and the ability to imitate

are some of the traits that they share with humans. Researchers believe adapting to the same

living conditions during this period may have resulted in the similarities. Topal assures that they

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might even think like us at times too. The authors also support that dogs exhibit all three primary

types of social behavior that humans evolved when they split from chimpanzees 6 million years

ago. The first is sociality, or organization into groups. The second is synchronization, where

following shared social rules and even taking on each other’s emotions helps to strengthen group

unity. The third is constructive activity, where individuals within a group cooperate and

communicate with each other to achieve goals.

Another new study that proves that dogs express feelings or emotion toward humans is one led

by Dr Kun Guo a professor from University of Lincoln. They appear to read emotion in human

faces in just the same way people do. They can even see at a glance if we are happy, sad, pleased

or angry. When humans look at a new face their eyes tend to wander left, falling on the right

hand side of the person's face first. This "left gaze bias" only occurs when we encounter faces

and does not apply any other time, such as when inspecting animals or inanimate objects. When

Dr Kun Guo and his team showed to 17 dogs images of human, dog and monkey faces and

inanimate objects, film of the dogs' eyes and head movements revealed a strong “left gaze bias”

when the animals were presented with human faces. But this did not occur when they were

shown other images, including dog’s faces. Dr. Guo suggests that over thousands of generations

of association with humans, dogs may have evolved the left gaze bias as a way to gauge our

emotions. Other study made by Dr. Kun Guo showed that angry human faces induce a much

stronger left gaze bias in dogs than neutral or happy faces.

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Conclusion

Certainly domestic dogs inherited a complex social hierarchy and behaviors from their

wolf ancestors. Dogs are pack animals with a complex set of behaviors related to determining

each dog's position in the social hierarchy. These sophisticated forms of social cognition and

communication may account for their trainability, playfulness, and ability to fit into human

houses and social situations, and these attributes have earned dogs a unique relationship with

humans despite being potentially dangerous. "...We will probably never have conclusive

evidence to tell us how dogs and humans first formed their personal and working relationship

with each other, but it is most likely the case that man did not initially choose dog; rather dogs

chose man” (Dr. Stanley Coren, 2009). Despite that we will never discover how this

indescribable relationship began, but the evidence that researchers have found until today clearly

shows that the unique relationship that this two species formed once began like a respond of

adaptation to survive to a hostil difficult environment. Both of them rapidly recognized the

extreme benefits of their join and they took benefit of it. They reached the main benefits

“survive” but they also began the strongest join formed in the world, the join between a dog and

his owner. "Not only have we lived with dogs for thousands of years, but because of this

relationship, we have acted as an agent of selection to modify aspects of their behavior and

minds." (Jozsef Topal) What began like form of adaptation end in a join that certainly have

feelings involve. We humans made them dogs, and they made us human.

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Annotated Bibliography

Tacon, Paul and Collin Pardoe. “Dog Make us Human” Nature Australia Autumn 2002: 52-. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. University of Puerto Rico Lib. 5 April. 2009 < http://web.ebscohost.com>.

This study was made by Paul Tacon a principal research scientist and head of the Australian museum’s people and place research center. This article presents a very unique theory “dogs make us human”. Through the pages of this paper you will find information related with the dog-human relationship an how it emerged. It begins giving basic information about the dogs’ evolution from their descendants the gray wolfs and the reasons of why these two species join together. The author assures that that domestication of dogs led to profound changes in the biological and behavioral evolution of both species, and that that unique relationship between these two species was fundamental key in the conquest of Planet Earth.

Whiteley, Hellen. “Avoiding bad-dog syndrome”. The Saturday Evening Post Nov. 1986, late ed.:30.

This newspaper article was written by the veterinarian Hellen Whiteley and it was published in Saturday Evening Post. Through this article Hellen Whiteley helps owners to control common misbehavior in dogs. She assures that every single behavior problems from dogs are not severe, and not difficult to diagnose. She also comment that every dog misbehavior are usually originate from instinctual an natural canine behaviors, often sutaine by naïve owners, and that is easier to eliminate such inappropriate behaviors in the bud with proper puppy training. She also offers in her article a list of some common behavioral problems in dogs an how to solve them.

Stanley, Coren. “Dogs and Humans - How the relationship began”. Pets.ca. August 2003. Canada Pet Information Center. 4 April 2009. < http://www.pets.ca/articles/article-dog_human.htm>

This article title “Dogs and Humans –How the relationship began-”, was written by Dr. Stanley Coren an excerpt of the intelligence of dogs, professor of psychology, that have written 6 book on dogs and is host of the television show “Good Dog!”. Through this publication Dr. Stanley presents a very unique theory about humans and dogs relationship. He assures that “ it is most likely the case that man did not initially choose dog; rather dogs chose man”. Besides his theory he presents several evidence supporting his theory, explaining to us how the relationships begin between the primitive man and the gray wolf. Without a doubt dog domestication was a key to the survival and succeed of the human being.

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Maguire, Sharon. “Dogs and Human Emotions”. Dogbreedinfo.com May 2009. Dog Breed Info Center. 10 Apr. 2009 < http://www.dogbreedinfo.com/articles/emotionaldog.htm>.

In this article Sharon Maguire assures that dogs do possess emotions, nevertheless they are not as complex as human's. According to her dogs feel the emotions coming from humans. She comment that dog knows if you are sad, nervous, stressed, happy, calm, strong minded, confident, passive, or anxious. They simply read it as a weakness and they react accordingly. She says that these reactions are product of their natural instinct to have an order in their pack. When we live with dogs, we become their pack. The entire pack cooperates under a single leader. Lines should clearly define and rules should be set. She conclude saying that the humans must be the ones making the decisions, not the dogs in order to establish a healthy relationship between the dog and the owner.

Carter, Mia. “Study Says Dogs Read Human Emotions on Faces.” Petcare.Suite101.com 30 Oct. 2008. Suite 101 The Genuine Article Literary. 12 Apr. 2009<http://petcare.suite 101.com/ article.cfm /study _says_dogs_detect_emotions_on_human_faces>.

In this article Mia Carter describes another article that was published in the October 2008 in an edition of the U.K. scientific journal, New Scientist. The study was made by Dr. Kin Guo, of the University of Lincoln in the U.K. This study searched dog's ability to detect human emotions, the results suggests that dogs look to the face for signs of anger, happiness, or sadness, just like humans do. The study revealed that dogs react uniquely when presented with a human face and their method of processing and understanding the human face is very similar to human method. When presented with non-human faces, there was no remarkable reaction; but when presented with human faces. This study shows another strident evident of how the human dog relationship development as go so far that they can feel and read humans emotions.

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GenreGenress

Monologue

Newspaper report

Collage

Recipe

Video

It was not enough being our faithful friends for

centuries? A new controversial study shows that person’s mood. This study was led by Dr. Kin Guo, a professor from University of Lincoln in the UK. This study suggests that dogs look to the faces signs of anger, happiness, or sadness, just like humans do. They study the dog’s ability to read human emotions by looking for subtle changes in facial expression. The most amazing finding of this investigation is that the dogs did not show any change when they showed them no human faces. This tendency was never seen in non humans. Dr Guo also found that dogs shows an

tendency call “left gaze bias” ( a tendency that only occur in humans when they encounter other human faces; don’t apply too objects or animals), in this case the dogs also showed this tendency. This very important according to the researchers because the dogs only exhibited this tendency when looking to human faces and only with human faces. This study was performed with 17 dogs, who were presented with images of human, monkeys, dogs faces and photograph of other objects. Dr. Guo suggests that over thousands of generations of association with humans, dogs may have evolved the left gaze bias as a way to gauge our emotions.

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More than Faithful Friendsby: Hector Martell

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My fire provider

(based on To Build a Fire story by Jack London)

It was a cold morning, colder than it should be. There were no clouds in the sky, the snow

covers the paths, and the sunbeams shine so hard that I can almost see my foots. It was a perfect day

to rest at home, in the warm sitting room in front of this awesome lights that produce heat that humans

call fire. But here I’m sitting in the coldest place from the world; no even my coat is enough to calm this

penetrating cold. I was falling asleep when a heard the most dry voice, my master of course. The man I

have always fallow for the last ten years. “Move!” yelled my master. Bad news, everything looks like we

are going to begin a new trip. I do not know why, but something clearly tells me that we should not

make this trip. But what can I do? I am just his faithful friend, the one who never complain, the one who

always obey his orders.

So we begin a trip to who knows where, but I feel I have to fallow him that’s why I am here for,

to take care of him no matter what happens. The path are full of snow sometimes I can not even see my

master. The big light from the sky begin to disappear and it become to get darker. We have been

walking for so long, and I feel my body is colder each time. When we are going to stop? When my

master is going to make some fire?

Finally he decides to stop, I think he is hungry. I really know him! There he is enjoying his smelly

food. I have been with him for so long that I know him more that anyone else. We should camp here

and bury a hole in the snow so we can protect our selfs something does no smell so good. He already

finished his lunch and we begin again our exhausting trip. I will desire to stay here but I have to fallow

him he is my master. There he his struggling with the snow and looking for water traps, very dangerous

by the way; they can frost you in seconds. Sometimes he make me go before him, he does not care

about, if he only ask me with love I will do it just to protect him, but the only thing he can do is think in

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his own. No! He felt on a water trap. What happen to him? It looks sick, but at least he his making fire.

Something is not right, this smell…This smell is scaring me, and each time the smell is getting stronger. It

smells like fear, the only smell I have never notice in my master.

My master is calling me in the oddest way, I don’t know what is happening to him but something

inside me tell me that, for the first time in my life I should not obey him. He stand up again know he is

running, what is happening to him? Where is he? I can not see him but I can smell his fear. There he is

in the floor looking me with his eyes full of anger. What have I done? Another smell is becoming

stronger, but I can not recognize it yet. Death, only the death can smell like that. O dear supplier, he

never taught me how to make fire you never showed a signal a love. And now you are leaving me in the

middle of nowhere. I smell something; maybe near I can fin another provider.

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Materials:

1. A pet name2. Patience3. Clear commands4. Enough dog snacks5. Time6. Prevention7. Reasonable expectations

Method:

Begin by building attention using your pet's name when calling it for food, walks, and play. Do this randomly 10 times a day. And never and under any circumstance punish your pet for coming to you or by calling it.

Add enough patience to enforce commands that you give, and don't constantly repeat commands, because you will ruin the mix. If you are not going to enforce a command, don’t add them to the mix.

Timing is one of the key elements in this recipe. Use the timing to create a consistent and durable mix.

Add dogs snacks every time your pet react positively to a command, don’t add dog snacks to undesirable behavior. Do not punish desirable behavior. Such as having your puppy eliminates outside and then immediately leaving the puppy. If the puppy wants to be with you, you will have just punished the pup for doing the right behavior. If you don’t have dog’s snacks you can add signs of affection or other activities you know your pet is going to enjoy.

Pour 2 cups of prevention to the mix that at this point should be taking form soft but firm. The basic goal of prevention is to intervene before a problem is created instead of simply responding to the problem.

Pour the mix in and empty mold of optimism and perseverance and bake it with the right expectations.

The result is a stronger relationship between you and your pet. Dogs are social animals and develop a real attachment to their owners. That attachment is at the key for

successful dog training. A dog that trusts his owner and who sincerely wants to please his companion is will remain attentive and happy during the training process.

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