Physical traits of dogs like tails, skulls, limbs, and ears would play a large role in determining whether dogs survive without humans.
Adorable stories of dogs being emotionally attached to their humans remind us how these canines are relentlessly dependent on us. But what if humans disappeared from the Earth? Given that climate change is paving way for the doomsday, it is not impossible to imagine this scenario. Authors Jessica Pierce and Marc Bekoff revealed a posthuman future of the dogs in their book A Dog’s World, published in Princeton University Press.
“My initial reaction to that question was ‘No, maybe dogs wouldn’t be okay without us’,” Pierce, who is also a faculty at the University of Colorado, told ABC News. She realized that dogs wouldn’t just survive and thrive without humans, but “they’d be better off in many ways.” Answering how dogs would survive without humans, she said, that most of them already do. “Almost all dogs on the planet, even those 800 million free-ranging dogs, rely on human food resources in one way or another, whether it’s direct handouts, a bowl of kibble, or a garbage dump, and their feeding ecology would have to shift quickly and pretty dramatically.”
However, this posthuman survival would largely depend on the dog’s breed as well as on the “survival of the fittest”, said Pierce. Dogs with adaptive traits would persist while others would not. For instance, a short-muzzled dog with a flattened face is most unlikely to persist due to their “brachycephalic skulls,” which cause breathing difficulties. Plus, female bulldogs, who cannot give birth without veterinary assistance, wouldn’t be able to reproduce. Physical characteristics such as excessive skin folds, extremely long or short limbs, floppy ears, or curly tails would also matter.
“Tails are an important part of the communicative toolbox,” Pierce told Live Science. “Even if you’re slightly less skillful at communicating something like an aggressive feeling or a submissive feeling, you’re more likely to wind up in a fight than if you’re able to send clear signals.” Additionally, Friederike Range, an associate professor at the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna, predicted that dogs would interbreed with wolves to create hybrids.
This isn’t surprising given that dogs are thought to have evolved from wolves millions of years ago. “I have no doubt that dogs would survive without us,” Pierce told Live Science. “Dogs are descended from wolves and they still have much of the behavioral repertoire of wolves and other wild canids, so they know how to hunt and scavenge.” Adding to ABC News, Pierce explained that wolf-like breeds such as huskies, malamutes, and German shepherds are more likely to survive than breeds that have maladaptive traits. In some dogs, wolf-like traits may re-emerge as per their requirement, but they won’t return to becoming wolves, as evolution doesn’t work in reverse.
“Dogs would survive without us but I think the years immediately after we disappear would be quite challenging,” said Pierce on the hypothesis that without humans, dogs would lose parasitic control, vaccinations, and most importantly, food. Food, as Range also said, would be a major issue. “If we were to disappear, the food would be the main problem for the dogs, not losing the human as a social partner. As long as they could find food, they would be perfectly happy without us.” But they would have freedom from the cages and constraints that humans have imposed on these wild beasts.
This post was originally published on this site be sure to check out more of their content.
