My Dog
Why is my dog so
unbelievably important to study? To start, his survival as an entity is
nearly guaranteed. He
has no enemies nor does
he have to compete for food. His environment is carefully controlled and
his absolute
happiness is assured.
Murder, suicide, and starvation are all nearly out of the question.
My dog's opportunity
to mate is assured; that is, if he still had the necessary hardware (ie,
testicles) to get
the job done. Even
though his reproduction has been nixed, he still has the chance to
create life beyond his own.
Through the magic of
cloning, my dog can one up any other wild animal by transferring a near
exact copy of
his genes to another
generation.
Many years prior to
Sonny's birth, golden retrievers were bred to be the perfect companion.
Retrievers's are often
very gentle and loyal
animals, as well as surprisingly intelligent . These favorable traits
saw their inception thousands
of years ago as a few
simple genetic mutations. The increase in brainpower likely helped the
ancestors of the golden
retriever immensely. The
more developed mind probably worked hand-in-hand with the golden's
natural pack instinct.
All dogs seem to be wise
enough to stick together, but golden's are especially good with
communication and coordination within the pack.
The golden's
benevolence actually seems to me to be a quite favorable trait. It is
likely that the kindness survived because
golden's have a tendency
to take care of each other. I have observed Sonny to be just as
affectionate and playful with other dogs
as he is with humans.
From that simple observation, I can stipulate that this benevolence is
equal toward all species that
Sonny associates himself
with. This is, perhaps, similar to the altruistic behavior that our
guest speaker mentioned.
While still in the
wild, there was definite population pressure. There always would be a
limited supply of food and a
number of dogs over what
the ecosystem could support. While goldens take care of one another,
the more intelligent
and strong would be the
likely ones to be selected for survival. Then there were the malevolent
retrievers who refused
to join a pack. The evil
dogs ended up killing the themselves off because they could not obtain
the same resources as their counterparts.
Because retrievers
are both intelligent and affectionate, they made an unexpected
advancement in their ability to survive.
Simply put, they moved
in with the humans. The dogs that expressed the favorable traits were
selectively bred to form a
new generation of
intelligent and kind dogs. It seems that the same traits retrievers have
in the wild also makes them a good
domestic animal.