Well darn, thought I had my word doc here at work, but it's on the home computer, so I'll post more tonite if anyone wants to play, but in the mean time....

you guys actually can swallow the incredibly contorted statements he makes about "traditional" theorists? For example, he paints them as believing that first someone captured a wolf pup, and a year later that same guy had the wolf practically herding his flock of sheep and hunting the elk for him! Not to mention that he ran a kennel and selectively bred his wolves. Gimme a break, guys! No one in his right mind ever postulated such an idiotic theory, but that's EXACTLY how Coppinger paints his opposition. If a reasonable man (not to mention a scientific one) wants to make a reasonable argument for his ideas, he presents them logically and doesn't purposefully misrepresent the opposition's arguments just so he can ridicule them, but Coppinger does exactly that.

This same author admitted he went into a wolf enclosure, was told to "treat them just like dogs", and promptly leaned over the alpha female and thumped her on her sides. After the caretaker pried her teeth off his throat, he couldn't understand why she took offense to his behavior! This guys shows so little understanding of dogs it's scary. I remember another statement that he's never had a dog that could learn to operate a gate latch and escape, but wolves all can, so that means they are very different in their learning abilities. Is there anyone on this board who can raise his hand and say his dog hasn't opened his kennel in under half a second if you forgot the clip to lock it???

Belayev's fox experiment is the strongest evidence possible for discrediting Coppinger's theory. In ten generations (a mere eyeblink in the course of evolution), Belayev had transformed his wild, aggressive foxes into tame, docile creatures with many of the juevenile characteristics that our dogs show. There is no need to posulate some mystery proto-dog (the remains of which have never been found), when we know that the characteristics which make our dogs into domesticated animals are present in their wild predecessors.

Your comments about Coppinger are venomous to say the least.
After having listed to him lecture more than 20 years ago (oh and he handled the nasty Akbash critter he had with him just fine) i found his comments and theories right on the money. His book is a book. Not a scientific paper. But, if you read info from his and studies like Green's you see it it fits. If you have a sociobilogical back ground it fits well into the theory. The tame wolf stuff doesn't work in OUR modern society of steel and fences. Coupled with the evidence that current dog evolution isn't this quarter million year process but more recent it really fits well.
Lee if you really like the glorified tame wolf thing maybe you should visit some of the wolf rescue facilities and see some of the mistakes housed there.
Coppinger's theory might not be romantic...and therefore quite unpopular....but it fits sociobiological theory better than the tame wolf approach.

Here's just a tiny sampling of the idiotic comments in his book:

pg 69: "Where did this idea come from that in the beginning all dogs were purebreds...?" (Someone please name me any fool besides Coppinger who said that?)

pg 41: "According to the Pinocchio Hypothesis, once the wolf is tamed and trained to human wishes, it turns into a dog" :rolleyes:

This is the crux of his argument against the evolution of dogs from wolves - the timeline. Over and over, he compares a wolf's behavior to a dog's and because he finds some differences that can't be changed within one animal's lifetime, he dismisses the theory. Yet no one has ever postulated that dogs evolved from wolves in a short time period.

pg 50: "Since wolves can't pass their tame and trained characters onto the next generation, ....the pinocchio hypothesis does not fit the behavioral facts." I must have dogs from really crappy breedings cuz I'll be darned if any of my puppies came with "trained characteristics" from birth like sitting on command and coming when called! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> Tameness is simply a function of socialization; it's not a characteristic one can breed. However, submissiveness IS, and that is what Belayev did, with remarkable results.

He also paints a ridiculous picture of the “professional Mesolithic breeder”, saying on pg 51 “…a Mesolithic breeder would have had to sort through hundreds of wolves, find variations in natural tameness, isolate those tamer wolves from the rest of the population, and breed only the most tame, for many generations.” How about the much simpler, logical possibility that, if pups were raised in villages, they sorted themselves out. Those that were more submissive by nature, more adaptable to their new environment stayed in the village, while the more self-confident, independent pups left the villages as they matured and returned to their natural environment. Only the more suitable, adaptive, “tame” or submissive ones would remain in the village, breed together, raise their litters among humans, and so on for many generations. Coppinger ridicules mainstream theory again by condescendingly painting a picture of the Mesolithic man supposedly sorting thru his hundreds of potential breeding specimens, selecting for tameness and trainability, and conducting some kind of scientific breeding program ( pg 53). But he never mentions the possibility that the exact same prototype wolf that he portrays as being less afraid of humans and more willing to feed at the village dump might also have joined the human family by being adopted. The pup with the temperament to adapt, fit in, and thrive in this environment would be the ones that would remain with the humans, breed among them, thus producing pups with similar traits to the breeding parents – adaptability, “tameness” or submissiveness.

How does the protodog theory mesh with the genetic DNA evidence being compiled that seems to support the wolf evolution theory?

Am I mistaken, or didn't some Swedish scientist trace the origins of our modern dog's DNA to one grey wolf female? This was just recently. . .

Belayev's fox experiment is the strongest evidence possible for discrediting Coppinger's theory. In ten generations (a mere eyeblink in the course of evolution), Belayev had transformed his wild, aggressive foxes into tame, docile creatures with many of the juevenile characteristics that our dogs show. There is no need to posulate some mystery proto-dog (the remains of which have never been found), when we know that the characteristics which make our dogs into domesticated animals are present in their wild predecessors. I remember seeing something about that years ago...I think. In fact they even started throwing flop ears and white coloration, if we're talking about the same program. This was for fur harvesting, wasn't it?

I should really read the entire threads. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />

Originally posted by VanCamp Robert:
How does the protodog theory mesh with the genetic DNA evidence being compiled that seems to support the wolf evolution theory?
DNA supports the wolf ancestory.

Looking around on the net I thought this article seemed to be pertinent to the discussion.


The Truth About Dogs

I don't disagree with the DNA promoting the wolf ancestry. I would think the dog developed from the wolf via the Proto dog. Does that make sense to anyone?

Hi Ellen!!!

You should e-mail me sometime.