Собаки. Самые лучшие фотографии

"We had a civilization without horses and even a civilization without a wheel, but we never had a civilization without dogs. No dog - no man." These words of Piero Scanciani from his book "Il cane utile" ("The Useful Dog"), published by the Roman publishing house "Pan", make the deepest impression: after all, if you really think about them, this is not a loud phrase, not a paradox, but pure truth backed by science. If we admit that the statement "there is no dog - there is no man" is wrong, then we must ask ourselves why always and everywhere, at all times and in all cultures, there was a dog next to a man - and not only the last 14-15 thousand years, as it is believed until recently, but almost 100 thousand years, according to the latest data obtained as a result of a study of the mitochondrial DNA of our four-legged friends.

If, throughout his evolution, man shared his life with this animal, then there were reasons for that. And these reasons, no doubt, lie in the extraordinary ability of the dog to establish such a close relationship with a person that they have become a prerequisite for his survival. Primitive people made this discovery when they realized that they could sleep better if their caves or camps were guarded by dogs, and eat better if they hunted with the help of dogs.

Later, as people shifted from nomadic to sedentary lifestyles and turned to raising animals instead of hunting them and farming instead of gathering wild plants, they discovered that dogs could help them protect their herds from predators and their territories from intruders . After the man satisfied his urgent needs, he became a conqueror and explorer, and his dogs became excellent fighters, fast and enduring porters and even astronauts. But that's not the end of the story. Even having survived his difficult times, man did not forget about the dog: with the gradual improvement of life and the development of human civilization, the appearance was ennobled and the physical and mental qualities of his faithful friends developed through careful selection.

Today, there are almost 400 recognized dog breeds and a whole army of four-legged specialists has been created to help people - and not only to hunt or defend themselves. Today we admit that man most decisively influenced the evolution of the dog, but we would not be wrong in the slightest if we say that the dog, in turn, influenced the evolution of man, although not to the same extent. Our two species are so closely related that we should speak of a single evolutionary process rather than two different."