Animal Domestication Essay

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Animal domestication has influenced history and has had a positive impact on people of the past. Domestication can be understood as the process in which animal species have come into contact with people and has greatly changed how the animals live. Animal domestication didn’t just happen overnight; it was a complex progression that took many years. Domestication caused social, political, cultural and economic changes (Mammals and humans: Domestication and Commensals).
The dog (Canis lupus f. familiaris) was the first animal to be domesticated. An animal that has been confined and bred for a long period of time, kept in an environment where humans control its food supply and breeding, and is used economically by humans is considered a domestic animal. The start of the relationship between dogs and humans is uncertain. However, the dog’s ancestor is the wolf (Canis lupus). Wolves roamed all of Eurasia, Central America, North America, and north Africa roughly fifteen thousand years ago. The wolf developed into subspecies which vary in color and size. The two species that are believed to be the dog’s ancestor are the Eurasian wolf and the Indian wolf (See A1 and A2). Over a period of thousands of years, humans and wolves got accustomed to each other. Food was the key to attracting wolves. After luring the wolves in with food, humans appreciated the watchful nature they possessed. Since taming a full grown wolf was a difficult task, humans of the past took to taming cubs (baby wolves) instead. The cubs needed to be fed, so women would nurse them with their breast milk. The loyal ones were allowed to become adults and produce offspring (Mammals and humans: domestication and commensals). Humans greatly appreciated dogs and Herod...

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... (The Piankhi Stela). It’s unknown how the Egyptians trained their horses, but a teacher compared horses to schoolboys. “Horses brought from the field, they forget their mothers. Yoked they go up and down on all his majesty’s errands. They become like those that bore them, that stand in the stable. They do their utmost for fear of a beating” (Lichtheim). In the eastern Mediterranean, the Egyptians’ horses were admired. The Assyrians tried to get as many horses as they could (Ancient Egypt: Farmed and domesticated animals).
The domestication of dogs, goats, cattle, horses and even other animals we have today, was a gradual process. Animal domestication positively impacted people long ago. It caused economic, social, cultural and political changes. Many people today own animals that were domesticated long ago (Mammals and Humans: Domesticated animals and commensals

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