How Wolf Became Dog

Scientists are racing to solve the enduring mystery of how a large, dangerous carnivore evolved into our best friend

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When you have cared for dogs and wild wolves from the time they are little more than a week old and have bottle-fed and nurtured them day and night, you are wise to their differences. Since 2008 Zsófia Virányi, an ethologist at the Wolf Science Center in Austria, and her colleagues have been raising the two species to figure out what makes a dog a dog—and a wolf a wolf. At the center, the researchers oversee and study four packs of wolves and four packs of dogs, containing anywhere from two to six animals each. They have trained the wolves and dogs to follow basic commands, to walk on leashes and to use their nose to tap the screen of a computer monitor so that they can take cognition tests. Yet despite having lived and worked with the scientists for seven years, the wolves retain an independence of mind and behavior that is most undoglike.

“You can leave a piece of meat on a table and tell one of our dogs, 'No!' and he will not take it,” Virányi says. “But the wolves ignore you. They'll look you in the eye and grab the meat”—a disconcerting assertiveness that she has experienced on more than one occasion. And when this happens, she wonders yet again how the wolf ever became the domesticated dog.

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