The Evolution of Canine Companionship and Training ~ Biweekly Blog # 1

Welcome to the EmpowerPups Community Communications. On a biweekly basis, we'll post a blog and provide different information. In this first blog we're going to talk about, is from the evolution of the lowly dog to a beloved family, companionship, protector and even to changing of lives as service dog.

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Sitting Around the Campfire Chewing the Mastodon

Imagine you're sitting around an ancient fire and you're roasting mastodon and a wild canid, an animal of the dog family, lurks nearby drawn by scraps.

Slowly over time, that wild canid starts coming closer. As the ancient human chewing on your mastodon meat, you're sitting there and you think, “Maybe if I throw this just a little to that animal, it will start coming closer. It's not showing me any harm, so it might be something that can be good."

Over time you start desensitizing that wild canid to come closer to you. Eventually it starts coming into your community just to come in and get scraps. It starts showing a little bit of interest in knowing you and getting to be part of your community. Hanging outside the fringes of your camp there's a second one that's much more hesitant. But it’s also appears to be more ferocious and in the fact that it is not going to necessarily trust you and not going to come any closer. You start working on getting that wild canid to start getting closer and finally you start building a relationship with that wild dog.

That wild dog starts coming in closer and starts being a part of your community. Whereas the other one still tends to appear potentially vicious and will not come into your community and be like the one that has accepted you.

The first becomes a part of your community, so you decide you're going to keep it around. But more than likely, the one that's vicious and could potentially hurt somebody, most likely will probably end up dead at some point in time. What you start doing now is that we've got this one that keeps coming into the community.  Then it breeds and it brings its puppies into that same community and starts building that relationship.

This is really in all actuality, how the process of domesticating a dog came about many thousands of years ago. You’re the ancient human and you have these dogs that are wild dogs. They start coming into your community and become part of the community.

 Over time our ancestors, long ago, started domesticating dogs. This began the journey of domesticating dogs into our social realm. They came into the community primarily for the scraps and food and later they started building a closer relationship to have shelter. Our ancestors learned they could work with these animals and most likely were just lowly workers, and rather serving as tools and probably protectors more than companions. This scenario and a good piece of roasted mastodon meat started putting together that process of building loyalty and companionship through that simple process of taking time. That process probably took many, many years for dogs to become domesticated.

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An Animal Worthy of Wonder

As societies grew more complex, so did the role of dogs. In ancient Greece the philosopher Plato, saw dogs for more than just being an animal. Plato stated that dogs were “worthy of wonders” and “lovers of learning.” There are even cases of finding gravestones engraved to a dog from that same era.

Diogenes was a philosopher known as Diogenes of Sinope was known for his Cynic philosophy. Cynic means dog-like. He saw dogs as unpretentious beings that lived in the present without anxiousness. having a simplicity in life, not entangled in politics and social norms. His life and philosophy was to live it with the characteristics the same as a dog. He did many things in his dog-like philosophy that would land him in jail today. Its been said that when he met Alexander the Great, he was lying in the sun. Alexander the Great, a great leader of nations and armies, offered Diogenes one wish. His response was, "Stand out of my light." Basically saying to this great and powerful leader, "You're blocking my sunlight. " The story is told of Alexander the Great saying, "If I were not Alexander, I would be Diogenes." To which Diogenes replied, "If I were not Diogenes, I would also wish to be Diogenes." In Sinope, Turkey there is a statue of Diogenes with his dog companion at his side. The statue symbolizes his identity with the dog and his philosophy of how he lived his life.

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Becoming a Bigger Part of the Community

Moving forward in time to medieval times dogs, became much more a part of the community. Certain dogs were bred for hunting. And to this day dogs are still used for hunting with breeds for specific types of hunting. Over time, we started training dogs to do specific things. Though they are now extinct there once was a breed called Turnspit dogs. In a big kitchen, if a leg of lamb or whatever needed to be turned on a spit, the Turnspit dog was trained to walk on a wheel-like treadmill. That would keep the spit with the meat turning. The household may have had several of them for this duty. Since the inception of mechanical spit turning devices, the breed was no longer required and has since gone into extinction. Dachshunds were designed to dig and go after foxes or whatever quarry underneath the ground. Many different breeds were bred for specific types of hunting.

Around the same time our ancestors started training dogs to do that, and the domestication of the dog started transitioning the dog to not just hunting and working dogs, we started seeing dogs as family members.

If you look at many medieval paintings, you'll see dogs in pictures as a regal companion or just a part of the community. Wealthy people would commission a painting to be made of their dog because they wanted to memorialize it.

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Training Evil That Still Continues Today, Unfortunately

Unfortunately, one thought has existed long before those times and still exist today as well. Many of our ancestors were people who felt that a dog had no feelings and couldn’t  feel pain. Many believed you could do anything to cause harm or injury to a dog, and it wouldn’t feel it. In fact, dog training used to be known as dog breaking which could be brutal. We at EmpowerPups do not subscribe to any methodology that could potentially cause harm to a dog.

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Evolution of the Relationships and Training of Dogs

Over time and today we've evolved the relationship between dogs and humans to higher levels. We have incorporated them more into our lives, more than just family members. We know now more about the dogs’ potential in service to humans and have started recognizing them as heelers. We have evolved to see where different training methodologies have come about as well. With EmpowerPups by Hero’s Puppy for Life, we use the Frank Griggs Relationship Bond training. Our training focuses on building a great bond between the individual and the dog, not using fear or harm-based training. Rather it is based on unconditional love and trust where each partner in the relationship, trust each other and care for each other. They do so not because it is demanded, or force, but because they want to.

We can see that process has changed over the course of history. From that of a survival partner to the family member, the journey from the dog follows our evolution as well and its growth into more compassion in a relationship.

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Lives Can Be Made Better

At EmpowerPups by Hero’s Puppy for Life, our goal is to carry this forward in the long journey of the human-canine bonding partnership. We believe this can be the foundation to rebuilding lives. Through and by the mutual relationship of a person and the dog as their support, lives can be made better. In the case of EmpowerPups we start this process from a puppy. We recognize that even a puppy has instinctive abilities to bond and recognize when their human is having an issue.

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Let's Hear from You!

We’d love to hear your story. How do you see your dog's place in the family and what does this journey mean to you? I look forward to reading your thoughts and comments. Hopefully you've enjoyed this short blog, and I’ll be publishing more blogs on a biweekly basis so that we can help you learn more about what we do and learn more about your puppy.

Frank Griggs and His Service Dog, Maximus Amicus Bodidlius aka "Bo"

Frank Griggs is the Founder and CEO of EmpowerPups by Hero's Puppy for Life. He is a Certified Advanced Canine Training Professional and Certified Canine Trainer and Behavior Specialist. Contact him at frankgriggs@heropuppyforlife.org