DOG

The dog (Canis lupus familiaris and Canis lupus dingois a domesticated form of the gray wolf, a member of the Canada family of the orderCarnivora. The term is used for both feral and pet varieties. The domestic dog has been the most widely kept working, hunting and companion animal in human history. The word "dog" may also mean the male of a canine species,as opposed to the word "bitch" for the female of the species.

The dog quickly became ubiquitous across world cultures, and was extremely valuable to early human settlements. For instance, it is believed the successful emigration across the Bering Strait might not have been possible without sled dogs. Dogs perform many roles for people, such as hunting, herding, protection, assisting police and military, companionship, and, more recently, aiding handicapped individuals. This impact on human society has given them the nickname "Man's best friend" in the western world. Currently, there are estimated to be 400 million dogs in the world.

Over the 15,000 year span the dog had been domesticated, it diverged into only a handful of landraces, groups of similar animals whose morphology and behavior have been shaped by environmental factors and functional roles. As the modern understanding of genetics developed, humans began to intentionally breed dogs for a wide range of specific traits. Through this process, the dog has developed into hundreds of varied breeds, and shows more behavioral and morphological variation than any other land mammal. For example, height measured to the withers ranges from a few inches in the Chihuahua to a few feet in the Irish Wolfhound; color varies from white through grays (usually called "blue'") to black, and browns from light (tan) to dark ("red" or "chocolate") in a wide variation of patterns; coats can be short or long, coarse-haired to wool-like, straight, curly, or smooth. It is common for most breeds to shed this coat.

As pets

“The most widespread form of interspecies bonding occurs between humans and dogs and the keeping of dogs as companions, particularly by elites, has a long history. However, pet dog populations grew significantly after World War II as suburbanization increased. In the 1950s and 1960s, dogs were kept outside (using the expression “in the doghouse” to describe exclusion from the group signifies the distance between the doghouse and the home) and were still primarily functional, acting as a guard, children’s playmate, or walking companion.^] From the 1980s, we have seen significant changes in the role of the pet dog, and writer Jon Katz describes the new work of dogs as the emotional support of their owner.^] People and dogs have become increasingly integrated and implicated in each other’s lives, to the point where pet dogs actively shape the way a family and home are experienced. There have been two major trends in the changing status of pet dogs. The first has been the ‘commodification’ of the dog, shaping it to conform to human expectations of personality and behavior. The second has been the broadening of the concept of the family and the home to include dogs-as-dogs within everyday routines and practices. Social geographer Heidi Nast points out the vast range of commodity forms available to transform a pet dog into an ideal companion The list of goods, services and places available is enormous: from dog perfumes, couture, furniture and housing, to dog groomers, therapists, trainers and care-takers, dog cafes, spas, parks and beaches, and dog hotels, airlines and cemeteries. While dog training as an organized activity can be traced back to the 18th century, in the last decades of the 20th century it became a high profile issue as many normal dog behaviors such as barking, jumping up, digging, rolling in dung, fighting, and urine marking became increasingly incompatible with the new role of a pet dog. Dog training books, classes and television programs proliferated as the process of commodifying the pet dog continued.