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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: nihil who wrote (75257)	2/27/2000 1:52:00 AM
From: Kid Rock	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

Why is it when you scratch any dog's belly in the right place it twitches its leg?

To: nihil who wrote (75257)	2/27/2000 8:36:00 AM
From: Daniel Schuh	Respond to of 108807

You dah man, nihil, and I'm as entertained and impressed as anyone by your range. Especially the 2nd last sentence. Still, there's this conflicting data that started this whole chain. Back up to the original crummy Atlantic article, this time carefully trimmed in a very un-Atlantic style: That means that mitochondrial DNA can be used as an evolutionary chronometer. Wolves and coyotes differ by about six percent in their mitochondrial DNA, and, according to fossil evidence, separated from a common ancestor about a million years ago. Wolves and dogs differ by about one percent; using the wolf-coyote time scale, this suggests that they parted company about 135,000 years ago -- a lot earlier than the date implied by the first distinctly non-wolflike dog fossil. Even now, there's lots of feral dogs out and about in the world, though I don't know if there's much overlap with the range of the wolf. But back in the deep reaches of prehistory, there must have been continuous opportunity for interbreeding, yet apparently there wasn't. Or maybe it's just crummy or overinterpreted data, or bad reporting, I read that article twice through when I first saw it, looking for anything that elaborated much on the above, and it was a waste. I'll have to look around elsewhere. Yes, but you see dogs genetically are wolves. They represent four major different domestication events. That's you, though I know that's more or less the traditional view on canine domestication. But it conflicts a little with the mitochondrial DNA evidence, such as it is. On socialization to humans, we live in a very doggy cul de sac, 4 houses, 4 dogs, backing on a nature preserve. 3 juveniles, a standard poodle and lab, around 2 now, an Irish setter, maybe a year older, and our stray cocker, maybe 9 or 10, that we've had for 2 years. The juveniles are all nuts about each other, the poodle and lab especially, they run together every day. The Irish setter doesn't get to run free as much. The setter has the build of a greyhound and runs like one too, if she spots something to chase, there's no calling her back. When the other dogs are out and about, our cocker will go and greet them, do a polite bit of token sniffing, but then he ignores them and goes looking for some people to suck up to. Cheers, Dan.