Dog's Best Friend

The dog-wolf next door

Mark Derr

An Eminent Ethologist Elucidates Dogs

Marc Bekoff makes a case for how we can live better with our dogs.

The Enduring Friendship of Wolves and Humans

New book challenges received wisdom on how wolves became dogs.

Doping Scandal Imperils Iditarod Sled Dog Race

Dogs have hauled people and their goods around the Arctic for thousands of year. The snowmobile and airplane have nearly rendered them obsolete, except for racing.

RIP Self-Taming Dump-Divers

A new research papers argues that hypersociability is tied to domestication of dogs.

Rats!

Rats bred for tameness confound predictions of several popular theories of animal domestication.

Mourning a Canine Companion

William Harris memorializes his dead friend.

Did Dogs Help Hunters Succeed?

Dogs helped early Japanese hunters and foragers negotiate climate change.

A Wolf Is a Dog Is a Coyote Is a Jackal Is a Dingo

Coyotes, it turns out, are basically wolves—and so are dogs.

Did Dogs Arise on Opposite Sides of Eurasia?

Were dogs domesticated twice on opposite sides of Eurasia?

What a Dog Is Not

Once again the Coppingers rely on an outmoded paradigm to define dogs.

Cesar Millan Crosses the Line Again

How do a weeping woman and a bleeding pig add up to dog training?

Did Dogs Take 18,000 Years to Reach the Middle East?

Most of the world's dogs approximately one-billion dogs are free-ranging, but it's sometimes hard to tell. These dogs guard sheep on the Navajo Reservation.

Central Asia Is Proposed as Birthplace of Dogs

A new genetic study of village dogs--free-ranging dogs--points to Central Asia as the most likely place where dogs originated.

What Happens When the Dogs Strike Back

In "White God," mutts strike back against oppressive humans. Bodie is one of two canine brothers who portray Hagen.

Can the Mystery of the Dog Be Solved?

Dogs did not domesticate themselves in early human garbage dumps, despite what many believe.

Lions and Tigers and Bears, No More

A majority of the world's large carnivores and herbivores face extinction if more is not done to save them from ourselves.

More Evidence that Dogs Rose Early On

New evidence that dogs emerged in multiple places before the end of the last Ice Age.

Need a Lift? Just Look Into a Dog's Eyes.

Japanese researchers make a lofty claim for what staring into your dog's eyes does to you and your dog.

Did Humans and Wolf Dogs Make Neanderthals Perish?

Pat Shipman's "The Invaders" proposes a new explanation for Neanderthal's extinction.

Wolves can be quite social toward people, as Jim Dutcher and his friend demonstrate.

Attempt to Redirect Dog Evolution Falls Flat

Researchers' claims that dogs evolved fewer than 10,000 years ago are at odds with current archaeological and genetic evidence. They are also grounded in the belief that wolves and humans are natural enemies. They are not.

Roots of Dogs Found in Wolf Cooperation

Scientists look at the wolf and see dog.

Saving the Large Carnivores

Female European brown bear in Dynaric Mountains, Slovenia. Copyright Miha Krofel. Courtesy of Science magazine.

What’s Wrong with “The Wrong Dog?”

Our kelpie Harley had a brain tumor that caused seizures. They did not keep him from learning to dive to the bottom of the pool, but physical problems can often affect a dog's behavior, as they did his in other ways.