smokerblog

Going to the Dogs

Anyone familiar with us or this website may have a clue that we love our dogs, perhaps to a fault. It shouldn't be surprising then, that we will be watching NOVA tomorrow night for their show on dogs.

Did you know that all dogs are classified as part of the same species? How is it possible that the Chihuahua and Great Dane breeds both share the same set of dna and are both descended from the gray wolf? Well, it's because we humans have been breeding dogs in ways that never would have occured in nature. The study that points to the wolf as the ancestor of domestic dogs (as opposed to the coyote, jackal, and fox, for example) is also the basis for an article the National Geographic recently ran.

Tomorrow night's show, which airs at 8PM on PBS, will also explore the strangely symbiotic relationship between humans and dogs. As an active host to my dogs' parasitic tendencies, I'll be interested to see what I might learn from tomorrow night's program.