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Bernard DENIS, France
Honorary Professor, National Veterinary School, Nantes
Ex-member of the FCI Scientific Commission
Translation: J. Mulholland

The function of waste scavenger is well known today for dogs, especially in big cities in the Middle East. Remains of human meals, garbage, peelings, carcasses, excrements etc… disappear thanks to them. It is quite possible that the dog played this role in the Palaeolithic camps and Neolithic villages. Moreover, the waste of the Palaeolithic man was no doubt a strong attraction for wild dogs and helps to explain the long period of commensalism already mentioned.

The protection of persons and belongings, passive or active, can also be recognized as one of the first utilizations of the dog. Effectively, dogs identify and recognize the humans with whom they live and hunt and thus consider the latter’s living space and usual paths as their own territory; if prehistoric dogs were really of a small build, the defence function was perhaps limited but the alarm function was fully active.

Lastly, we must discuss the utilization of the dead animal. The eating of dog meat first comes to mind but, if we do not exclude that there could have been wolf hunts for the meat, it seems that, once domesticated, it was more interesting to use the live dog. The use of dogs for meat is only attested in Europe during the Neolithic period and appears to be late compared to the beginnings of domestication. We do not know of any archaeological traces of the use of skin or fur but it is obviously very probable. Also, it is not impossible that the dog fossils found in several human tombs be the remains of sacrificed victims, thus comforting the ritual function afore mentioned.

© Wikimedia Commons

Mosaic from Pompeii

All in all, the first utilizations of the Dogs, more or less mingled with the reasons of domestication itself, are cooperation with Man during the hunt (but one should perhaps put this in perspective), the spontaneous tendency of women to tame and socialize orphan puppies and the attraction which human waste exercises on dogs.

To close this chapter, it would be an interesting exercise to take a great step ahead and ask ourselves what the Latin agronomists and naturalists, whose texts constitute the foundation of agronomic and zootechnic literature, wrote about the utilization of the dog. Of course we do not expect the agronomists to evoke the functions of companion or waste scavenger which, nevertheless, certainly existed. The dog is primarily considered as the protector of livestock against predators (essentially wolves) and the guardian of farms and homes. Ideally, they are different types of dogs, described at length, which accomplish two functions: the guardian of the farm should scare predators and, consequently, be big and, if possible, black; the livestock guardian is lighter in build and is preferably white to avoid being confused with a predator. There is a third category of dogs which is of no interest to farmers: hunting dogs which have a much finer and elegant morphology than the others because they have to pursue the game²⁷

In naturalist literature we find that the dog’s loyalty to its master is praised but also the existence of dogs which are trained and used for fighting in Minor Asia²⁸. Contrary to what happens with the agronomists, the function of the hunting dog is privileged²⁹. All in all, in the Roman era, the use of the dog evolves somewhat but is, above all, refined: the agronomists and naturalists describe dogs more apt than others to accomplish such and such a task. One perceives, especially amongst the hunters, the specialisations which will later come about and which begin to be described in some manuscripts at the end of the Middle Ages³⁰.

CONCLUSION

If cynology, in to-day’s sense of the word, is recent, the relationship which unites the human and the dog is extremely ancient. The fact that the latter was domesticated several thousands of years before the species which succeeded it illustrates its very privileged place close to Man. Nowadays, compared to other domesticated species, the dog distinguishes itself by an extraordinary variability in morphology and an unequalled range of possible utilizations. Depending perhaps on predisposed biological factors, this situation is also the outcome of a very long history. This began with domestication and some first utilizations, for which we have given the main threads, as an introduction so to speak to references of the modern history of the dog and official cynology.

© Wikimedia Commons

« Heure à l’usage de Paris » around 1410-1415

²⁷ We find considerations about the dog in VARRON et COLOMELLE, the latter being the most precise (work consulted: under the direction of NISARD, M., Les agronomes latins, Caton, Varron, Columelle, Palladius, avec la traduction en français, J.J. Dubochet et Cie. Ed., Paris, 1851).

²⁸ PLINE l’ANCIEN, Histoire Naturelle, Livre VIII (Natural History, Book VIII), Société d’Edition “Les Belles Lettres”, Paris, 1952.

²⁹ According to PLINE l’ANCIEN, « each day experience discovers a thousand other qualities in the dog, but it is during the hunt that its sense of smell and skill are best observed ».

³⁰ In France, one must mention le Livre de la Chasse, by Gaston PHOEBUS, written at the end of the XIV^th century.