Would Humans Have Survived Without Dogs? | Answers With Joe

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this video is supported by Skillshare [Music] okay ladies and gentlemen this is Zoe Zoe is french bulldog which is a breed that really shouldn't exist it's a combination of a Boston Terrier a pug and a you know English Bulldog it's kind of a Franken dog and they were designed really for only one purpose and that is to look cute and she's good at it what she's not good at is breathing this squat nose of hers is what they call brachiocephalic which means that she winds up snoring throughout the night like a friggin chainsaw and also because of her brat worst shaped body she can't actually get down to clean herself after she does her business so I have to do that for her lest little bits of nastiness wind up in our Oh our bed in our clothes in fact because of the way they're built French bulldogs can't actually have sex so the only way to breed them is through artificial insemination which is why they're so expensive wouldn't care so what if they can't you know reproduce or clean themselves or breathe they weren't designed for that they were designed to be companion dogs and for that they are incredibly good Zoe all the ways just wants to be right next to me except for what I'm trying to record a video clearly alright you can go you can go and now have dog hair all over me dogs have been bred for all kinds of purposes from hunting to protection to hurting getting moles out of the garden even racing over thousands of years we've transformed wolves into helpful even life-saving companions that we've changed dogs over time is no surprise what might be a surprise is how much they've changed us along the way in our evolution from advanced primates to hairless advanced primates there have been several technologies that have helped speed things along our ability to harness fire our ability to communicate through language our ability to make weapons at a stone and metal but perhaps the thing that set us apart from all the other animals most was our ability to use other animals for our benefit human beings are only so strong we're only so fast we can only perceive so much through our senses so there's only so much that we can achieve but we eventually realize that if we harness the abilities of other animals we could achieve so much more we could be as strong as an ox we could be as fast as a horse and we could be as perceptive as a dog dogs are a technology one of our very first technologies dogs and humans go way back long before anything resembling recorded history which means we have no record of there ever being a time without dogs it's believed the domestication of dogs began around 30,000 years ago this is when we first start to see dog bones being buried alongside human bones or at least in proximity of human bones so the theory goes that humans were hunter-gatherers and wolves at the time weren't just seen as a competitor but a threat they hunted in packs they were smart they hunted the same prey we did they also hunted during the day like we did but along the way some of these wolves realized that picking off the scraps that the humans leave behind is a lot easier way to get food than hunting on their own and these were probably some of the more docile wolves that didn't want to have to fight the other wolf for food these docile wolves grew to trust the humans and vice versa over time they began to rely on him it became sort of a symbiotic relationship and the pack mentality shared by both species kind of help them become sort of one integrated family of sorts and in a social sense you know these these wolves would protect the humans from other predators and the humans would provide food and shelter and eventually they learned how to hunt together and over time humans learned that if you bred the more docile dogs with other more docile dogs you would create even more docile dogs so they started breeding for this and other traits so that by the time we actually started writing things down we had specialized intelligent loyal breeds of dogs that made our completely different it was only after we domesticated dogs that we were able to domesticate other animals humans began to realize that instead of chasing after that big beef machine or hunting down and killing that thing that grows our clothes we could just you know put the thing up around them of course putting them inside of a thing made it impossible for them to escape predators which means that you would have to watch them all the time which would be especially difficult at night dogs made that possible they not only protected the herds they also kept them in lyon and ran Runaways back in there a well-trained team of dogs could do the work of dozens of people freeing them up to do more important things thanks to dogs we went from hunter-gatherers to farmers and ranchers of course the agricultural revolution led to the rise of cities and trade routes money mathematics and language to keep track of all that stuff it led to civilization now would we have gotten there without dogs maybe but then maybe not once upon a time we were just a fledgling species trying to eke out our survival just like any other species I've talked in videos before about how we almost went extinct a couple of times it was pretty precarious without this beneficial partnership who knows we actually partner with and lived with dogs for so long that some people actually think that both of our genetics have been changed because of it it's led to a connection with dogs that we just don't have with any other species to the point that many people think that their dogs can read their minds but can they actually read our minds or they just so attune to our behavior in our micro-expressions that they can tell what we're thinking before we outwardly express it for example my dogs always seem to know when I'm gonna leave the house to go take a meeting or go to work or go do something when I get up in the morning even if I'm not doing anything different you know I stumble out of bed I throw on some clothes I put them outside I put some food in their bowl I'm not doing anything different but I can tell they're they're acting differently toward me they can they can tell something's up and of course I'm so attuned to their micro expressions that I can tell that they can tell what's going on you know I can I can see the sadness in their face when they can tell that I'm gonna be going away for a while and I can see the anticipation and the excitement when they can tell that they're gonna be going to the park in fact a recent study in the journal scientific reports shows that dogs make more facial expressions when a human is looking at them than when a person is looking away even if there's no food or treat we weren't involved and this indicates there's not some kind of subconscious movement on the dog's part it's actually a way for them to communicate with us and dogs have one of the most expressive faces in the animal kingdom it could be argued that our faces in their face is kind of co-evolved to be able to read each other's expressions and dogs also seem to be particularly attuned to our gestures in ways that other animals aren't there's sort of a famous experiment called the object choice task that some researchers have done where basically a person points to a cup and the dog knows that the person is pointing to that cup in other words they're asking does the dog know what we mean when we point at the cup and it turns out that they do sort of genuinely have an instinctive knowledge that we are pointing at an object it's not about our finger it's not about our hand it's a symbolic gesture to something else not many other animals actually pick up on this not even chimps our closest genetic relatives and according to champion dog trainer Kahle McCann sometimes a look is all it takes because we know dogs are masters at reading body language we utilize these responses to teach our dogs basic things like sit or lie down or even more advanced things like high-level competitive agility training if I turn my head to my left my dog will run to my left side if I turn my head to my right my dog will run to my right side and I can even use that head change to teach her to go back and forth to either side of my body but some people say just the fact that the dogs can bond with us so strongly that they can you know guess our gestures so well shows that there's a lot of coevolution that's happened here there's a really interesting article about I'll link to it in the description now one last point about the human dog connection that I think is interesting is the fact that we haven't really needed dogs for work purposes in general for quite some time but there's still dogs around in fact there's more of them than ever before and yes some of them are still working dogs that serve a special purpose but most of them are just pets just dogs that we keep around just because we have this instinctual feeling that our lives are better with a minute and maybe part of this reason is oxytocin when humans and dogs interact with each other we both produced this hormone called Tosun which is often called the cuddle hormone it produces feelings of love and closeness we actually have a physiological response to each other okay so this is where the cat people are probably pulling their hair out and screaming at their phones because I'm kind of making it sound like dogs are the only animals that people have a connection with and of course that's not true in fact a lot of things I'm saying about dogs could also be applied to cats you know cats were very useful back in the day especially on sailing ships and in cities where they were mousers and ratters if it wasn't for cats we would probably be overrun with rodents and snakes and yes of course we formed a bond with them that for many people has ever been as strong as a connection that a human could have with a dog I have a cat myself actually he's not here he's probably sitting on a windowsill somewhere being a cat all of which brings me to one last point which is that the whole human dog connection thing the whole symbiotic relationship that we have isn't unique to humans and dogs it's not even unique to humans we've worked with and bonded with horses the aforementioned cats many different types of beasts of burden even birds of prey but it turns out this is not that uncommon you know we like to think of nature as a well a dog-eat-dog world where every species is battling each other out for supremacy but in fact interspecies relationships and partnerships are common and quite vital birds often partner with crocodiles to clean their teeth for them lampreys clean out the gills of sharks and crabs off and carry sea urchins on their back for protection the humans have bonded more strongly with more animals than any other animal in the world and maybe that's what made all the difference maybe our ability to harness the advantages of other animals is what set us apart maybe the lesson here is that instead of being competitive being cooperative yields the best results maybe it's that side of our nature that actually helps us out the most because the dogs have taught us anything it's that doing things together is a lot more fun so I'll put the question to you do you have a dog do you ever feel like it can read your mind do you feel like you have a special connection with a dog or a cat or any other kind of animal talk about in the comments of course if you do have a dog one of the best things you can do is spend time training with them it not only builds a bond between you and the dog it also encourages good behavior and it's it's just fun for the dog so if you're interested in learning more about that you might want to check out the canine masterclass course from Tatyana Ambrose on Skillshare in this class she teaches several training techniques designed not to just to get your dog doing tricks but to build a bond with your dog this is especially good if you have a new pup in the home but it's also a fun thing to do with a dog you've had for awhile a little extra attention goes a long way this of course is just one of thousands of different courses you can take on Skillshare Skillshare is an online learning platform where experts share their knowledge and everything from accounting to photography to cooking software development dogs you name it and the first 500 people who sign up from watching this video will get the first two months totally for free just use the link in the description below try it out you got nothing to lose and you might learn a new skill that changes your life visit the link in the description down below and try out skill share today I want to thank Ken and Cale from McCann dogs for chiming in on this subject today they're good friends of mine and they're excellent world champion dog trainers you can check out their channel in the description down below - and as always a huge thanks to them I answer files on patreon who are keeping the lights on around here supporting this channel hoping that grow you guys are awesome there's some new people that have joined the tribe I want to call out their names and murder them real quick we cut Eve's LF sherrod John Boren Pinder industries Brad Mobley James Aspinwall Kevin Green Haven Bek Roy Varley Brian skein Joan kudrat Martin TJ Richard Eric Matheson or Mathiason pet Pater Prairie knew Dale horn Romeo joy Jan Jamison John Jameson and Christopher Clarke got through it thank you guys so much if you'd like to join them and get early access to videos behind the scenes stuff and just access to me and our discord server it's all a lot of fun you can go to patreon.com/scishow please like and share this video if you liked it and if this is your first time here Google thinks you'll like this video don't let Google down take a look see if you like it yourself and if you do and you check out some of my other videos and you like them I encourage you to subscribe I do put out videos every Monday and every Thursday also t-shirts available at the store answers with Joe dot-com slash shirts the ones that you buy there are not cover with dog hair that's always a plus alright thank you for watching you guys go out now have an opening week and I'll see you on Monday love you guys take care

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Channel: Joe Scott

Views: 158,385

Rating: 4.9493928 out of 5

Keywords: answers with joe, dogs, pets, coevolution, wolves, prehistoric people, human evolution, dog training, the connection between dogs and humans, ancient technology

Id: grohmePiJz4

Channel Id: undefined

Length: 12min 52sec (772 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 01 2019

Reddit Comments

I believe it would be difficult for Humans to have survived as a race with out canid intervention. But it would have been possible We did.

👍︎︎ 1 👤︎︎ u/TheZigRat 📅︎︎ Apr 01 2019 🗫︎ replies

The presenter first presents us with a human-made freak that has difficulty breathing, cannot wipe itself and is physically incapable of fucking. He tells us that all that is OK because this grotesque-looking freak is "cute."

👍︎︎ 1 👤︎︎ u/SemichiSam 📅︎︎ Apr 03 2019 🗫︎ replies