Man’s Best Friend or Oversized Rat?
Here’s something curious. The phrase “man’s best friend” didn’t appear in print, according to Google’s n-grams, until after the year 1750.
By Jason G. Goldman
This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American
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Here's something curious. The phrase "man's best friend" didn't appear in print, according to Google's n-grams, until after the year 1750. Here's something else that's curious: the owning of dogs as pets by anybody more than the "one percent" - the richest of the rich - is also a relatively new phenomenon, something unique to the last two hundred years or so.
If dogs' vaunted status as honorary members of our human families is a relatively recent development compared to their domestication some 15,000 years ago, then just what were they doing all that time? One possibility: eating our trash.
In my latest at Nautilus Magazine, I explore what canine researcher Clive Wynne calls the "dumpster diver" hypothesis for domestication: Love Your Dog? You Should Thank Garbage.
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