National Geographic: Those Wonderful Dogs Page #2

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will be by their sides

"For us to spend a day

on the hill

horse and dogs

the companionship and love

and hard work that they give to us

you could never receive from

any other animal in the world"

The New Zealand

farmer and his dog

have become

a world-famous partnership

Today, more than

are on the job

across the country

Probably the most

photographed is this one

a public tribute

to the dogs that help

keep the economy

so vital and alive

The origins

of the domesticated dog

lie shrouded

in the distant past

but it is generally

agreed that the dog evolved from

the wolf or that both share

a common ancestor

Wolves and dogs have

the same basic anatomy

physiology, and

patterns of behavior

and underneath the dog's

domestic facade

lie the instincts

of a predatory hunter

Wolves live and hunt in packs

Unlike other meat-eaters

such as members of the cat family

that ambush their prey

wolves stalk chase

after, and run down prey

However

as the wolf quickly learns

even with the

cooperation of the pack

he is no match for

an animal as large as a bison

The mainstay of the

wolf's diet are animals

the size of deer

small moose, or elk

Pack behavior is

strictly regulated by a

dominance hierarchy

understood by all members

In the dog, pack loyalty

is basically unaltered

even after thousands

of years of domestication

The main difference is the dog

looks to man as leader of the pack

Modern-da scientists have

pondered why early man

himself a flesh-eating hunter

would have turned competitors

like wolves or wild dogs into allies

Animal behaviorist Dr. Michael Fox

one of the world's leading

experts on wolves and dogs

has one explanation for

how the partnership may have begun

"I feel that dogs

and humans came together

because of their

similarity in lifestyles

to the degree that we hunted

in small packs

we were gatherer-hunters

and the dog-wolf ancestor

was like that too"

"And it's quite probable that the

early hunting societies found

that dogs were pretty good allies

if they were properly

socialized to help locate

and even ambush prey"

"Dogs, in their long

association with us

have powers of manipulation"

"In one sense we have

domesticated them

but they have domesticated us too

We have the situation

where the dog will come up

and just look at you and look at

you and you have to feed it

The dog knows how

to touch your heart

They have a power in the eye"

"Some people think that

their dogs have ESP

that they know what

you're feeling and thinking

But they are acute observers

of our body language depressed happy

or anxious and reading

all that all the time...

"...because that's how they

communicate with each other too"

In finding out about each other

and the rest of the world

smell is the

dog's primary tool

It is said their

ability to smell is at least

than our own

Their hearing

too, is better than ours

but they see less

well and are colorblind

There are 350 recognized

breeds of dogs in the world

Regardless of

outward differences

they are all the same species,

Canis familiaris

Their wide diversity

in appearance can often be

explained by the

work humans have bred dogs to do

In the language of

his native Germany

dachshund means "badger dog"

His short, stubby

legs and narrow body made him

ideal for squeezing

into burrows after prey

Terriers, too, were bred small

and low to the ground

so they could plunge into dark

holes in pursuit of rats or foxes

The name terrier comes from

the Latin word terra, or earth

Whippets and greyhounds

are long-legged

and sleek because they

were bred for hunting and racing

Firehouse mascots today

Dalmatians were companions

to charioteers in ancient times

In Elizabethan England they

gained fame as coach dogs

with a calming effect on the horses

The regal chow chow boasts a

in China as hunter and guard

For centuries dogs

have helped man hunt

Today, we have made

them highly specialized

Pointers only point nose high,

body frozen in place

And retrievers only retrieve

joyfully leaping into even frigid

waters to bring back their quarry

From predatory

wild animals we have created

regardless of breed

the most adaptable and sociable

of all domesticated animals

It is not precisely known when

we first put dogs

to work as entertainers

but one of the most famous

adored by countless millions, is Lassie

Bob Weatherwax,

son of the original Lassie trainer

is no preparing the seventh generation

Lassie for an upcoming television series

To get the seven dogs who have

actually appeared on the screen

Bob and Rudd Weatherwax had to

breed more than

coloration, intelligence

and temperament

On screen, the Lassie character

has always been a female

but in reality all Lassies have

been male collies

because males tend to have a more

luxuriant coat and greater stamina

The Lassie legend began in the 1940s

with a dog named Pal

"Originally Lassie... MGM

had their own collie to do Lassie

It was a female dog, which is what

Eric Knight wrote

the story around because it had to

have puppies

And my father's dog was

hired as a double dog

and it was a male

collie called Pal

"And I think he knew that the other dog

couldn't do this performance..."

"...and they had a spot where

Lassie had just

come from Scotland back to England

And he had to cross a river,

and it's a nice scene"

The genius of Rudd Weatherwax came

through in this scene in

which he taught Lassie to look

naturally exhausted

as if it weren't a trick at all

"Come on, crawl"

The mind of the dog,

no mater how bright he may be

cannot conceptualize "look tired"

But the dog can obey a series of

off-screen commands

given in a specific order that result

in the tired look the audience sees

"Speak. Stay, stay.

That's the boy. Stay"

Compared to many dogs that bring

a large measure of instinct to

their work

dog actors start

out as a blank slate

Because they are intelligent

they are capable of learning

The motivation to learn

the willingness to behave

in such un-doglike ways

is based simply on the

dog's desire for human praise

"Dog is man's best friend'

I figure the most domesticated

of all animals and they want

to please us

They want to be with man

It's like A for effort'

they'll give you that effort

"All right, come on!

Up! up! All right

come on over here,

come on

All right, take a bow"

The earth's ice-locked polar

regions could

never have been explored without dogs

In the early 1900s sled dog teams

brought Peary to

the North Pole and Amundsen

to the South

When northern regions were settled

dogs became an essential part of life

Until the advent of airplanes

and snowmobiles

dogs alone transported mail

and supplies

pulled sleds, took hunters

in search of prey

Today in Alaska, the pioneering

spirit of that earlier times

is celebrated in a grueling

Beginning in Anchorage

and ending in Nome

it covers a distance roughly the same

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