What Dogs Teach Us About People

What Dogs Teach Us About People
By Richard Cohen
Tuesday, November 26, 2002; Page A29

Let me start with my friend from years ago, Steve -- a budding scientist and a rigorous thinker. We were in my apartment, my dog, Duke, lying on the floor, and Steve was saying how dogs did not really understand words, merely speech inflection. I had read this many times, and so I agreed -- although I felt this supposed truth did not apply to Duke, a white German shepherd. A bit later, Steve asked me if I wanted to go for a walk. Bingo! Duke leapt to his feet. Steve looked at the dog and then at me: Goodbye theory.

This brings me to the recent finding that dogs and people started to hook up in East Asia sometime around 15,000 years ago. The dog's ancestor was probably the docile East Asian wolf, which -- so the theory goes -- figured out that life was easier being man's best friend than constantly being on the hunt and, worse, hunted. In other words, the domestication of dogs was their idea -- although they probably did not envisage someday wearing a bow and being led into Saks at the end of a rhinestone-encrusted leash.

The East Asian wolves knew a good thing when they saw it, no doubt. But what did the ancient East Asians themselves get out of this arrangement? This is the question that perplexed the scientists in every account I read of the research. "Dogs must have played some essential role in these early human societies," said one of them, UCLA's Robert Wayne. "Dogs are a nice companion but an expensive companion. They eat meat. Humans were willing to pay the price."

Wayne and others pondered why that could be. Dogs are marvelous sentries. They bark at the approach of strangers. Dogs could be used in hunting. Dogs provide warmth on a cold night, if you don't mind the fleas. Dogs can be used as beasts of burden, as long as the burden is not too beastly. And in a pinch, dogs can be eaten, which still happens in certain societies.

Yes, yes. But has any of these scientists ever looked a puppy in the face? There's the answer. A dog is a marvelous animal, cute and smart and loyal. My own Duke, a departing gift from a fast-departing girlfriend, came as a total surprise to me. He was my first dog, a kind of four-legged Dear John letter, but I soon loved him totally. Irresponsible in almost everything I did, I nevertheless was up with him in the morning and hurried home to him at night. I talked to him, of course, and believe me when I say he listened. He was a great companion.

Duke and I drove across the country together. He went snout to snout with buffalo in South Dakota. He scampered along the California coast and up the Rocky Mountains, and slept in some awful motels. He good-naturedly put up with innumerable girlfriends, cramped apartments and the occasional jerk who thought it was good fun to feed him beer. He rarely barked, fought only when attacked and was animalistic only when chasing squirrels or answering sirens with a howl that would have pierced the Arctic night.

Duke loved the ocean, Central Park and, after we moved to Washington, the towpath along the Potomac River. While I was in the Army, I feared he would forget me, and held my breath when I came home on leave. He bounded into my arms.

The latest findings about dogs are really the latest findings about people. Those East Asians of yore shared what little meat they had with dogs because they valued what dogs brought them -- not something eminently practical, but unconditional love. For that reason, they took the pooches wherever they went, eventually crossing the land bridge to the Western Hemisphere. They wanted what we do.

Not everything we do serves a pragmatic, evolutionary purpose. We seek comfort, love -- something a dog provides for which there is no one word. One time, I would not have believed that -- just as Steve did not believe that dogs could recognize language. Duke taught me otherwise, and when he was dying, old and lame, riddled with arthritis, he crawled to the farthest reaches of the back yard, snuggled against the fence and waited for the end. I kept his collar. I have it still.

I'm sure, if the scientists look hard enough, they will find a collar or something similar buried with an ancient man. They might wonder why. Anyone who has ever loved a dog can tell them.