I recently watched the 2024 Netflix documentary, Inside the Mind of a Dog (which I highly recommend, especially if you’re a big fan of dogs like I am).
It begins with explaining how dogs and humans became so “hopelessly intertwined.” Most people know that dogs evolved from wolves; some might also know they share 99.9% of their DNA. But have you ever asked yourself why or how dogs evolved from wolves?
It turns out, the evolutionary journey from Canis lupus to Canis familiaris wound through an unexpected (to me, anyway) quality: friendliness.
