Bear Grease - Ep. 5: Understanding Our Irrational Connection to Dogs

Episode Date: June 2, 2021

On this episode of the Bear Grease podcast, I’m in pursuit of understanding my irrational connection to dogs. I’ll talk about Lewin Newcomb -- my grandfather -- and his internal hierarchy of important things (of which dogs ranked very close to the top). I’ll interview anthropologist David Ian Howe, who specializes in the dog/human relationship, and we’ll discuss dog domestication, the impact of human selection on dogs, and how canines have affected the trajectory of our civilization. We’ll also interview a dog trainer, Damon Bungard, about his dogs and the unique way he uses them. Lastly, we’ll go on a raccoon hunt with hounds as we explore our irrational connection to canines. Towards the end we’ll draw some conclusions on new ideologies that are trying to change the rules of how human use dogs.Connect with Clay and MeatEaterClay on InstagramMeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YoutubeShop Bear Grease Merch Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Built to perform, built to last. Check out. First Light's new field. Worldware gear at firstlight.com. All right, River, we're going to turn these dogs out by this pond. It's been raining, but I figure by now the coons have had a little time to stir. Let's just get them. All right, you ready, Scooter?

You ready, Fern? All right, you ready? Ah! We'll get them. On this episode of the Bear Grease podcast, we're going deep, deep into human history. to explore the impact of man's best friend, the dog, on us. I'll interview some lads that use their canines for some unique tasks, and I'll interview anthropologist David Ian Howe,

who specializes in the dog-human relationship, and we're searching for answers, because there are some new ideologies trying to change the rules on how humans use dogs in modern times. Then we'll go into the night woods and listen to my dogs work as we reflect on this question. Is partnering with dogs an essential definer of our humanity? Do you ever think that this is ridiculous and kind of irrational? No, of course not.

How much we love our dogs? Of course not. It's totally rational. You think so? I'm not so convinced. You know, most people are home watching Netflix right now. My name is Clay Newcomb, and this is the Bear Grease podcast, where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant. Search for insight in unlikely places and where we'll tell the story of Americans who live their lives close to the land. I like dogs. I always have, but not in the typical way you'd expect a person in 2020 to like a dog.

I don't necessarily like to pet dogs, and I don't think I utilize them as an emotional comfort. but my connection to dogs is a layer deeper. And I don't say that in an elitist kind of way. I quite literally mean it's a layer beyond the surface because it doesn't make sense. I've always felt my love for dogs was irrational and couldn't be explained. You might have those same feelings echoing inside of you. Many people do. My grandfather, Lewin-Nukum, was a bird dog trainer to the core.

He grew up in an era when Quayle in the Southwark. thriving. Every other farmhouse you drove past might have a pair of liver spotted pointers or an English setter behind the house. He understood dogs and how to partner with them. But what was notable to me was the place of regard the bird dogs held in his internal hierarchy of important things. They were dang there at the top. If you look at this from a completely rational perspective, you'd assume the dogs must have provided some essential component of survival. but he and my grandmother didn't live off quail meat. Without trying, he built in me a love for country stores, pies made from scratch at country diners,

biscuits and gravy, and homegrown sweet corn. But the most dominant feature that he instilled in me, aside from components of my internal character and faith, was his irrational, high-ranking platform that he placed his dogs on. there is something deeper to be explored here. My friend Damon Bungard has a unique relationship with his dog, and together they accomplish a unique job. Aside from the fact that I think Damon and his dog Yeager look like each other,

both handsome fellows, of course, Damon has dedicated a good chunk of his life to his dog, and I want to explore their partnership. Damon, I've known you for a while, and you are definitely someone that has an irrational connection to your dog. I'm confident of that after I've seen you interact with your dogs. Tell me what kind of dogs that you have and what you do with them. So I have what's called a tekel, which is a dog that most people see and just say what

kind of a mix is that. It's a working wire hair dachshund. A lot of people are like, oh, is that a schnauzer, you know, what kind of terrier mix is that? and they're the wire hair version of a doxin. It's generally considered the wire hairs are the most hunting and working-oriented, probably from some old terrier genetics that help give them the wire coat. Teckles are also very much, you know, they're bred to the international standard of the FCI-148, I believe it is standard for a working dog.

And the description is working dog above and below ground. Most people here in the United States don't think of a doxon as a working dog. working dog, but that's what they were bred to do in Europe. In fact, the breed standard is all around chest circumference, which is based on animal holes, the size of a badger hole, the size of a fox hole, the size of a rabbit hole. They're tenacious hunters. They're very persistent dogs. They're very independent dogs in Europe. A lot of places require a dog for big game recovery by law. So Teckle-Yager, he's registered with the Deutsche Tuckle Club, and he's one of the you true teckles in North America. So tell me specifically what you do with him. So we track and find

wounded and lost big game for hunters, whether it's a deer or other big game species, somebody shoots it, loses it, can't find it, they track it for a while or there's no sign to track on. They call us. We go out and on lead here in Tennessee, in most states, and we find that animal. How often are you successful at finding wounded game? And so these are animals. that the hunter has tried to find the animal and has been unsuccessful. So they're calling you with the hard ones. Just an average, how many do you think you recover? I don't really get into success rates,

but on general, for the ones we do take 50 to 60 percent, I say you leave with 100 percent confidence in knowing if it's alive or dead. I have full faith that if it's dead, Yeager will find it. Damon, as I hear you describe these dogs, it's clear that this animal has been selected. bred for a very long period of time to partner with humans to complete a task that a human is incapable of completing on their own, which is really the story of the dog as they're doing work for us. I want you to describe for me your personal connection to this dog because I know these dogs

live in your house. These dogs are like, they're important to you. Just talk to me about your personal connection to your dog. A lot of people approach working dogs and and as not being family members, that's very much not Yeager's life. He's on the couch. He's in the bed often when we travel. If you ever have been around dachshunds, just in general, they're full of personality. People talk about personality and dogs, and that's a human thing we're projecting. I care what you want.

They have an attitude. They have a lot of attitude. They're a little dog with a lot of attitude. So you see that with him working. And he's a great tracking dog. He's also really good at flushing. birds. So he just loves to hunt. So I love to hunt. So that's obviously a bond that we share when when we're working together. Tracking is a team effort. There are times where I mean,

he just blows my mind and what what he finds or how he knows to go where he knows to go. I would never know without his help. There's other times where he needs my help. Daman, I know you know some stuff about dog domestication. But let's just erase that. Erase that knowledge. Would you You be surprised if you learned that humans and dogs had been together for such a long period of time that they had developed dependence upon one another. And I think it's interesting to think, too, that there was a time when that connection was essential to human survival. Today, it's not quite that essential for most people. You know, if you think about, I mean, you don't have this relationship with cattle. like we eat cattle

you don't have this relationship with chickens or with lizards or it's like this is a really special bond that humans have with this one species so I get it was more of a statement than the question but I guess my question is

would that surprise you if you could remove yourself you'd be like no this dog and me were just made for each other because I will say you kind of look like your dog and he's a handsome dog He's a handsome dog. I mean, it's all in the beard, yes.

Certainly, certainly as a student of biology and you can get in symbiotic relationships and have we over time selectively, even as humans evolved and has DNA in us that favors the dependency of dogs become more prevalent because they helped us get more food. And therefore that gene bred more, you know, you can get deep, right? into theory. That's where we're going on this podcast. We're going deep. David Howell is an anthropologist who studies the dog human relationship. I'm slightly nervous talking with him because I fear that he might not confirm my bias.

I hope he tells me that my love of hunting dogs is deeply human and highly relevant to modern society and that his words feed the narrative that's been crafted inside of me. But I need to get to the bottom of this. hunting with dogs has become an issue of controversy in modern times and I'm interested to see what he has to say. So David, I am trying to understand and resolve a question that I've had for a long time. And that is I'm trying to understand my irrational connection to dogs and the irrational connection to dogs that I see all throughout society, from pet owners to working dogs to hunting dogs. And it's always struck me as just odd how much we like our dogs.

And then now that I'm beginning to learn more about it, searching a little bit deeper, I'm trying to understand it. Why do we love dogs so much? I wish I had like a one word answer for it other than that we just love them. But dogs have been around for at least 20,000 years or so, probably further than that. So they've just kind of co-adapted with human life for the longest time and it's why they're around. So let's go all the way back to the beginning.

Sure. When do we believe that dogs were first domesticated? So this gets pushed back depending on which paper comes out or like, you know, what school of thought you're with. But the general consensus currently is 20,000 years is like the genetic signatures for a dog up here. A gene signature is about what you think it might be. It's a group of genes or a single gene that displays a unique characteristic only for that species. So if we compare that to modern dog genomes and other DNA looks, you can see that these remains that are found 20,000 years ago are dogs. But there could be stuff before that, that is the in between a wolf and a dog kind of thing.

Because you can't just turn a wolf into a dog overnight, right? Right. So where is the oldest known site where we believe that dogs were with humans and these dogs were domesticated? It's hard to say because there's just so many dog remains that get found and wolf remains that you can't really say, okay, is this a wolf or is a dog? If you find a wolf skull in a cave with human occupation, it could be a dog at that point. The best indicator that I go with is certainly by 14,000 years, we see a human and dog-like burial, like where they're buried together. So at that point, we can say even if it was just a wolf, like that relationship had formed.

What part of the world is that particular 14,000-year-old site in? Yeah, that is in Bon Overcastle, Germany. That was the first dog human burials, the oldest known dog human burials that we see. Correct. That one is kind of contested because it could be a wolf still. It's just a pup, so it's hard to tell. But either way, it's a canid burial with a human. But then in 10,000 years ago, there's one in Israel. It's up by the Sea of Galilee, and it's a Natufian site. So the first people to start farming and doing agriculture. And there's a middle-aged woman buried with a puppy, and her hands are resting on the puppy. So that's definitive. To understand dogs, like, so in 2021, we just have dogs of all sizes, shapes, and colors that do all kind of stuff. All dogs domesticated from the one wild canine that we can trace it back to, which is the wolf. Is that correct? Yeah.

It depends on your school of thought. We find new stuff all the time and keep dating it and keep checking the DNA. and it's a wacky picture. Some people think it is a gray wolf that we know today that they've descended from, or it's an extinct group of wolves that is no longer around, and that dogs are that ecological adaptation of those wolves living with humans, and they just kind of died out. But the main thing is that it did come from a wolf creature.

The genesis of the hundreds of dog breeds we have today came from the Victorian era in Britain when dog shows became popular. The United Kennel Club or the UKC currently recognizes over 300 different breeds of dogs. What brings us all together is understanding that these aren't different species. They're all the same species. The imprint of artificial or human influence selection is notable. It's hard to fathom that the genetic coating of a single species

that looks very much the same, wolves, has such genetic scripting that in its genes, you could get a pug and a golden retriever out of the same stuff. Amazing. Hey, did you know that originally all gray wolves were gray? A black wolf is the influence of domestic dogs hybridizing back into wolf populations. Naturally, there were only gray wolves. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

So to understand our connection to dogs, I think we got to go way back, way back, and understand how dogs were domesticated. I know there's multiple ideas, multiple theories, and the beauty of anthropology in 2021, when we're so certain about so many things, is that there's some stuff that's so deep in history that we are uncertain. I love that.

But there are definitely some theories of dog domestication. And you don't have to think too hard to perceive how, it might have happened. But can you describe for me your number one theory, the theory that you like the best of how dogs originally became domesticated? Yeah, I can definitely do that. It kind of involves two theories, but I can kind of merge it into one. And that is the idea that wolves and humans are like kind of similar animals, not in the sense that, you know, wolves aren't primates, but that wolves and humans have a similar social structure. We both cooperatively hunt, we talk to each other, and we, like, work together to achieve goals.

So humans entering Eurasia out of Africa or wherever, we're seeing wolves, you know, behave the way that they do, and we probably took note of that and learned, okay, this is how you efficiently hunt bison. This is how you efficiently hunt, you know, red deer or whatever, or reindeer is what we both ate a lot of, and noticed how that worked. And it's pretty metal, is the way I would describe it. In the beginning of that, like, relationship forming humans, let's say live in an open air camp like in the Czech Republic somewhere and maybe in a mammoth hut structure and they're cooking food out in the open. Wolves are going to smell that and they're going to be like, okay, well, why would I bother hunting if I can just go sneak up

on this camp at night and steal their food? So if we look at dogs today, we know they just, there's junkyard dogs, there's dump dogs, they just scavenge food and pet dogs do it too. but people would have noticed that those dogs were doing that, or wolves, I should say, and then take a note of it. So eventually they could have been feeding them more, or after generations of that happening, they could be like, okay, these ones aren't going to hurt us. They're just hungry. And that relationship starts forming that way.

So what happened? Over time, there was benefit to the wolves that weren't as afraid of humans. Because there would have been some diversity in a wolf pack. I mean, just like there's diversity in all. The same species, there's going to be animals that are more leery and others that aren't. So perhaps some of these wolves started gaining biological advantage by being less weary of humans because they're eating out of their camp. And then the humans started to take note of this.

And like they just kind of started getting closer and closer. And then you think a human caught a wolf pup? Do you think they tamed a grown one? I mean, like, I know there's probably, there's multiple dimensions. domestication acts happening all across the planet, probably at the same time. I mean, it wasn't just one initial act of domestication. Am I right? Sure, yeah.

And that's kind of where it turns into the different theories. So the base one is that for me. Like that clearly we see it happen now, definitely happened then. But then from there, it determines, like, did people take active note and then kill the aggressive wolves and say, like, just leave the ones that are nice? did they then start adopting their pups and raising them? Because they were like, oh, what if we just raised it from a puppy all day? It's this whole life.

And then there's the other one where this was happening. And then while wolves and humans were hunting, they would have come into contact with each other. And the same thing kind of happened. So instead of scavenging at their camp, humans are like beating wolves to their kill or waiting for wolves to kill something. And then they kill the aggressive ones and all other ones go away.

Hey, I've got a story to tell you, David. It's entirely possible for a hunter-girds to be. gather to catch a canine wild pup. I know this because I've done it. David, one of my favorite stories, my boys were young. They were like four and six years old. We were out scouting for deer here in Arkansas. And I walked out in the woods on just a little jaunt.

I left them kind of by the four-wheeler and I said, hey, I'll be back in five minutes. I went for a little walk and jumped up. I don't know what they were. doing, but it was three coyote pups that looked like nine week old puppies. You know, they probably weighed eight or nine pounds, maybe, and they took off running. Well, I just, by instinct, just started chasing them. I ended up catching one of those suckers. To make a long story short, I was chasing him, and, you know, they just split off one by one. I was chasing three, and then one would split off, and then I was chasing two, and then one split off,

and then I picked one to keep chasing, and I was running, and I remember I started running down this drainage. This coyote was hopping from rock to rock, and I fell, man. My head got in front of my feet, and I took a spill harder than I've ever taken a spill. As I'm falling, I'm trying to figure out what bone I'm going to break. I hit the ground, but what I was most disappointed about was I knew that the coyote was getting away from me. Well, when I hit the ground and realized I wasn't hurt, I lifted up my head and that coyote pup had laid up in a ball about four feet in front of me.

I guess he saw me like coming over him and his instinct was to ball up. Well, he sees me raise up my head and look at him and he takes off running again. So I jump up and take off running and he darts in a hole and I flip over this rock on top of the hole and he's balled up right there. and I just reached down and grabbed him by the nape of the neck and picked him up. Took him home. We tried to tame him. It kept biting me. I kept him for about four weeks and never could tame him. But if I had really wanted to tame him, I could have. I was just afraid he was going to hurt one of my kids.

So I turned a sucker loose. I hope this story somehow age you in your studies of dogs and humans. For sure, it does. Because one of my like weirdest, or not weirdest, I would say. But one of the biggest hangups I had with the, like, it's called the Pinocchio hypothesis is adopting the little bucks because you're trying to make it into a real boy or real wolf or whatever. Real dog, I guess I should say. I've always wondered, do people just stick their hands and wolf dens and risk it and their fingers bit off? Or how does that work?

Oh, I say, so there's a theory of domestication called the Pinocchio theory. Yeah. So either the mother died and they adopt the pups or they just intentionally said, I'm going to make a dog today and like went or, you know, we're going to. to keep it as a pet kind of thing. Yeah. Now that I know this theory, I'm a firm believer in it. I'm being serious.

I think, I mean, because people that are on the landscape a lot, that are in the woods a lot, which obviously hunter gathers, I mean, that would be anywhere else to go. Do you encounter dens, and ground burrow dens like a wolf would have, are very visible, as opposed to other types of animals that would have kind of vegetation. nests as dens, you know, that are camouflage. Like a hole in a ground is not camouflage. And, you know, so I can see.

And prehistoric hunters also killed animals from their dens on purpose because it was a good ambush spot. I bet somebody, like, saw a fresh wolf den, went over there with their spear or their addle-addle or their rock or whatever they had, killed a wolf and then was like dang i hear some pups whimpering reached in there and pulled out a few bought them home threw them to their 10 year old son and said hey let's feed that thing tame it we've just created a whole new theory david there you go that that's cool i don't get to like work with modern hunters too often so it's always nice to hear these stories so the similarities

between wolves and humans is fascinating if a wolf that hunts in the pack he's got to be tuned into the nuance and obviously primarily nonverbal nuance of the PAC members because they have this hierarchy and significant social structure inside their pack that enables them the hunt they have alpha male they have total hierarchy so that enabled wolves to move into a very similar hierarchy that humans had and they would have been able to pick up on nonverbal cues like when a human was upset with them, when a human was happy with them, they would have been able to perceive danger that like this human wants to harm me or this human doesn't. So talk about that a little bit. How did our similarities bring us together? The biggest one that I've learned recently is that

wolves kind of have a more monogamous lifestyle than other animals do. And it's not that they mate for life with one person. They just, they rear their young together. And even if humans in the past We're swapping, you know, babysitting duty between the different people. The point is we put a significant amount of time into raising our young, and wolves do the same thing. All species adapt a strategy for rearing young. Some have lots of offspring and give little to no parental input, like a fish laying thousands of eggs. In the biology world, this is termed R selection or an R-adapted species. Remember that the R stands for reproduction and lots of reproductions.

Other species put significant inputs in smaller numbers of offspring, like an elephant, which its calf stays with the mother for three to five years. This is called K selection, and K refers to carrying capacity, even though those are two Cs, not sure the connection. Humans and wolves are both K-adapted species, meaning that we put a lot of parental input into our offspring. A wolf pup would respond pretty well to how humans obviously were to raise it. And that's why dogs, we kind of see puppies like babies to us now. There's like that hierarchy that they're used to. And they feed off of social cues. So if you watched wolves hunt or wolves eat, one always eats first.

Some have to stay back and wait until later. That's something humans could replicate in the past or just all sorts of little things like that. and eye contact as well. Like you could just be like, no and directly raise your voice and do it and it might stay back kind of thing. You know, I guess the other thing too is that they have built into the structure of their biology a desire to submit to something. Like there is a boss. And so, I mean, in the dog human relationship, the human is always the boss, you know? Yeah.

And I know there's a lot of like debate with like dog training methods if that's like the way to go about it and stuff like that. but I genuinely think it helped humans and dogs coexist together in the past, whether or not it's a good training method or not, you know. Last spring, Clay Newcomb and I collaborated with Jason Phelps at Phelps game calls in building each of our own favorite turkey diaphragms called prime cuts. Now, I'm going to tell you, I love mine because it's easy to use. I'm not going to go, I'm not going to win a turkey calling contest. It's just not going to happen.

But when I run this call, I get the sounds that go. are looking for. I have a great turkey hunting track record. If you go listen to real turkeys out in the woods, they're not going to win calling contests, right? That's who I listen to. I can make those sounds on my cut. I also hunt with Phelps's cut, and I hunt with Clay's cut because they're all three great cuts. Check out prime cuts at Phelpsgamecalls.com. I think you'll be glad you did, and you'll find out that the Steve Rinella cut is an easy-to-use cut for beginning callers who just want to start making good turkey noises and getting action. Talk to me about dog eyes. So dogs have what's called, or all domestic animals have what's called neotony.

And neotony is just accentuated juvenile features. So if you look at a baby chimp, we're going to go, oh, wow, it's cute. If you look at a baby chit monk, you're going to say, oh, wow, it's cute. But to keep something juvenile and, like, behavior, not aggressively, when you keep selecting for that trait, it's going to end up looking like that. Obviously, the ancestors of cows are gone, but their horns have shrunk a bunch. Sheep is Muflon, and then the ibex is the goat. All their horns have shrunk.

So when you do that with dogs, their kind of snout kind of shrinks a little bit. Their teeth get a little smaller, and their whole body gets a little smaller, and they stay cuter, and their eyes have gotten bigger. So what that does is we're accentuating because like you and I are looking at each other right now. And we have this like white sclera in our eyes. We're among the only animals to have that. That's accentuated as much as it is. And then we've brought that out in dogs so that we can both make eye contact with each other and read emotions.

So what you're saying is like most animals have eyes that are completely colored. Like you look at the eye of a deer and it's like all brown. So you can't pick up nuances of. eye movement with the white in our eyes, we're able to communicate more clearly with our eyes. Is that what you're describing? Correct. Yeah. Wow, that's incredible.

It is pretty cool. Chimps have it. Gorillas have it. And not all the time. Their iris kind of takes up most of their eye. Like if you look like a deer or a horse, like you just said. Because there is white, but it's underneath the eyelids. You don't see it.

Like with a horse or a mule. Yeah. We've selected for that puppy dog trait in the puppy dog. We didn't do that intentionally, though. I don't think so because somebody in like, you know, the Mesolithic in a cave wasn't like, I'm going to make this thing's eyes bigger. But it just kind of happens over time because you're selecting for that juvenile behavior. So like if you had a litter of pups, you had six pups, and there were two of them that you felt a stronger connection to. And probably the person didn't even realize why they had a stronger connection to this dog.

They could just communicate with this dog better. They had visual things that they liked about the dog better. They would lean towards nurturing that dog and the survival of that dog would be much more sure. Is that right? So, I mean, just like they would just over time, overdoing that for a thousand generations of dogs, you begin to see what at one time was nuance become like a dominant trait, which would be like white around the eyes and eyes that looked human. Exactly. Yeah, you're just accentuating that.

That is a car, man. Yeah, it is. And have you heard of the Siberian fox experiment at all? I have, but let's talk about it. So the Siberian fox experiment was started by Dmitryaev. He's a Soviet geneticist, and he wanted to breed Russian silver foxes and make them a little more docile so they were easier to get their furs from. I think one story said it was for the Soviet army. I think another, he did, he did. just was doing research, but it doesn't matter. The point is, he was breeding the foxes to get them to be easier to, you know,

a fur farm. And that's kind of where the debate comes if it's a good or bad thing to do it from the beginning. But the point is, he would stick his hand in the cage with a glove on and see which foxes were aggressive. And if they bit the glove or hissed at him, he considered them aggressive. And if he put his hand in there and they just kind of coward or didn't really react to it negatively, he would call them a, you know, domestic or good.

And he kept breeding those with each other and breeding the aggressive ones with each other. And the aggressive ones became very aggressive and had this crazy adrenaline response. But the ones that weren't aggressive ended up getting floppy ears. Their tails started the wag. They had spotted coats. And they had increased eye contact with people. So in a sense, he made a domestic fox, which is why there's a big movement of buying those now. But the point with that would be that, you know, he did it very quickly.

in 15 generations, I think it's 13 or 15, you can make something domestic really quickly, and it definitely changes its features. So they had the bigger eyes, they had all that kind of. So there's something genetically with it. Whether people in the past were doing that from the get-go and did it in 15 generations, I doubt it. Probably took thousands of years. But the point is you can get a dog. To understand this more, you'll need to understand domestication syndrome, which is well accepted in the biology world. And it describes how domestic animals look and act different than their wild counterparts in consistent ways. In domesticated mammals, it consistently produces smaller brains, depigmentation or variance in color, and increased

tameness as a result of hormone changes that influence how the animals respond to fear and stress. Oddly, in many animals, including dogs, domestication usually produces floppy ears. The effects of human selection bias on what once a wild animal was is fascinating. Think of this way. A prehistoric human who would have been basically just like us in consciousness, emotions, and his drive for a better life, bred as dogs in a similar way, say to like a squirrel dog breeder, he'd say, I like the way that that one does its job, so I think I'll breed him to that one that does its good job too. Early on, it probably wasn't that straightforward, but simply the dogs that did the work more naturally were the ones that got fed, were nurtured, and survived. So they naturally bred.

Do that for a long period of time, and you get this human selection bias coming up very strongly in these dogs. The one thing that has been constant in the human archaeological record is that where you find, humans, you find dogs. And we have had this animal with us side by side, and scientists would call it co-evolution. We have certainly

changed dogs from wolves to what we see today and all the specific breeds of dogs. The question that I have, that is not answered for me yet, is how have dogs changed us? And

how much do dogs do dogs in our use and working with dogs actually define our humanity. And I want to hear your thoughts on that because what we're seeing in some parts of where the dog and human world overlap is we're trying to write a new set of rules for how humans can use dogs. And I want to hear your commentary on that. How have dogs changed us? Yeah. Are you familiar with the term behaviorally ecology. Describe that for me. Sure. So it is the idea that organisms operate in a way to get the most bang for their buck. In a sense, you want to spend the least amount of calories to get the most amount of calories back. So obviously hunting with atlattles and chasing something is a lot more calorie

expensive than it is to shoot some of the rival from further away. That being said, human behavioral is part of the archaeology that I study. You can look at sites and how they form based on this, and you can try to piece together what humans were doing, like why they have so much food here or there. With that, dogs having them with you, you would think, why would a hunter-gatherer want to waste their time feeding another organism? Why spend this time doing that? For hundreds of thousands of years, we don't see dogs. And then all of a sudden, these things start appearing at sites, and it would just make no sense to, like, feed something extra. So there's a benefit that we get from them.

And since dogs can kind of just eat the scraps that we have, you don't have to feed them excessive amounts of food or they'll just eat our refuse around the site, we can spend less effort hunting because you have the extra set of eyes, the extra set of ears, and their nose, and they can do a lot of the work for us. So they get a lot more calories back for us

than we have to give to them. So it's definitely increased our population, in a sense. It's increased our hunting ability and it's increased our range because not only do you have something that can help you hunt more efficiently, you also have something that when you tie it up outside your camp at night, you're not going to get lions, you're not going to get panthers, you're not going to get hyenas coming to mess with you at night. It made it safe. Yeah. And I would say agriculture has been the most significant change in our technological history,

you know, because you can mass produce and you can make cities and things like that. But before that, right before it came dogs. And I think that definitely helped get us to that point. Here's an interesting thought. Have you ever taken note of how ill-equipped humans seem to be in the natural world? We don't have thick hair, big claws or teeth. We don't have a great sense of smell. We can't run very fast and we're weak compared to other animals our size.

However, we're the most biologically successful mammal in this epic of planet Earth. Do we owe a big part of our current existence to dogs? Everywhere that we're weak, they're strong. If you look at human existence as a whole, every section of that existence is critical to the next. And there was a time when we were quite literally going one-on-one with nature. We were at the mercy of giant fast predators, extreme temperatures, and we lived off the land.

The last 300 years of human existence, where we've had modern conveniences, is a new human experience comparable to a single page in a book as thick as a jacked-up mudden truck in Mississippi. My point is this. We survived and thrived in our hunter-gatherer past in a big part because of dogs,

not just any dogs, but hunting dogs. The story of the dog is synonymous with the story of mankind. And that really brings me to like why wanted to talk to you because like I said earlier some people and ideas and philosophies currently today are kind of trying to change the rules about how humans use dogs specifically inside of using hunting dogs which is the very foundation of the reason we even have domestic dogs to begin with right the only reason you have a chihuahua the only reason you have a

German Shepherd in your backyard is because of hunting. And then now in hunting space, the most persecuted hunting in North America is big game hunting with dogs, particularly bears, mountain lions. And there's lots of different reasons why people see that. They think it's a relic of the past. They think it's barbaric. Some people would say that it's not relevant to modern times. What are your thoughts on that?

I think we have dogs for this reason. That's what they're good at. And obviously, like, you're a bear hunter. You have dogs that are very good at hunting bear, I'd imagine. I talked to someone else recently about that same thing. And you're right. Like, a German shepherd is a guard dog, and it's a shepherd. And, like, it can do that behavior as a pet in a way. Like, that's not its only job, but it can do it. A chihuahua is just a toy dog, essentially. But then you have dogs like cune hounds and, and, you know, other hounds and, you know, like hunting dogs that are designed and bred for that. And it's doing them a disservice to not do that behavior. And that's where you get aggression issues and that's where you get dogs that are always in shelters. I agree. I think there should be a way for dogs to do that kind of thing, hopefully ethically. But if it's a bear hunting dog, let it bear hunt in an ethical manner, you know. What I feel like is happening, like at the very core of,

the argument that dogs should no longer be used for hunting in the way that they have for the last, and let's be generous and say 14,000 years. Sure. Humans have used dogs for hunting, maybe 20,000. I would make an argument that to take that away from me and my children would be to strip away a part of our history that's potentially even coded into our DNA. Because we have been with dogs for so long, just like we've changed them, there's kind of incalculable ways that they have changed us. And this connection, I read where they've done studies on dogs and humans that when a human engages with a dog, there's oxytocin that is released, which is a chemical in the brain that humans crave and love.

We don't even, most people aren't even aware of it. We crave it and love it. And it gives us a sensation of safety and pleasure. And the same chemical is released in a dog when a human engages with it and pets it. And so it's like this ancient, irrational connection. And to simply for the sake of whatever reason that people would have in 2020 to say that's no longer relevant. I feel like it's stripping away a part of our humanity. And I'm not cool with that, David.

Yeah. I grew up in the greater New York area and didn't live out west, didn't get to experience the wilderness in a way. So I grew up watching stuff like this and being like, why would they do that? Like that, don't do that to the animal. It would hurt it. The cougar is going to die scared. The bear is going to die terrified, you know.

But I moved out west for grad school, ended up hunting pronghorn with my friends, got to gut it with stone tools. That was really fun. And I got to see some dogs hunt at one point. I've never done it myself. But you're right. In a sense, and especially studying this at the same time,

I was just fascinated by it because what I'm studying in the past is people hunting with dogs. That's just the gist of it. And I can't understand that unless I watch dogs hunt now or at least learn about it from people like you. And I agree. I think it's a practice that should be kept because it is an integral part of our relationship. And obviously dogs sniffing, dogs being sentries, dog that can stay. Why couldn't that stay? And I would make the argument, too, that the quality of life that my squirrel dogs have and my coon dogs have, I would say is probably far above the quality of life that a dog has that lives indoors that is never allowed to free range across the landscape. a dog that has been genetically altered from its original state in such a way that it can't really function.

Like a lot of the specific breeds that we have today would not have survived in the wild. They were bred to be for an aesthetic or for a certain very highly specific job. And hunting dogs are much more in tune with their original design. than just like your lap dog. Yeah. I mean, because, you know, like my hounds,

they're far from a wolf, but they're way closer to a wolf than a chihuahua. So that's where I have a problem with someone that has a chihuahua telling me not to bear hunt with my dogs. A philosophical problem. Right. With that idea. Yeah. You know,

I do have empathy for people that may not understand hunting with dogs. So it's not people that we're against. It's really lack of information, lack of understanding. Because for someone that doesn't have any information that sees some portrayal of a bunch of hillbillies turning loose their dogs to go kill a bear, that is very, very easy to portray in a negative way to someone without information. Hillbilly, bros, I've got to clarify that the word hillbilly is a term of endearment to me and not a jacket. Carry on. It takes a lot of steps of information and pursuit of understanding the position of the human that's doing that, to actually come to a place where you could go from zero understanding to enough understanding to go,

yeah, I get it. Yeah, I get why they do that. So we are up against a big mountain that is hard to climb because it's real easy to put up a billboard in any place and say a one-liner, you know, this is a bad thing. It's much harder to portray something as deeply human. Also a very huge component of scientific wildlife management that actually helps the species that we're hunting thrive. It's also that.

I mean, that's the biggest thing, David, of our position as hunters is, yeah, we're not just wanting to have fun with our dogs. That's part of it. And yes, that is why we do it. But it's a beautiful stone that kills two birds with one chunk because we get to have this amazing interaction with our animals and a lifestyle that's built around them. And we also get to be key contributors to the success of the species that we're hunting.

I mean, that's why North American hunting is just like this beautiful thing. And it has been portrayed in such a way that many people wouldn't describe it or understand it in that way. Yeah. And dogs are one of the most contentious. parts of it. And so I hope that understanding kind of the deep human history with dogs, the original way that we used them, the original design of how we used them, can help people bridge the gap between that and now when they see me with my coondogs and squirrel dogs and bear

dogs. Because I think it's an awesome thing. I think it makes me more human to turn loose my dogs in the woods and interact with them. I'm raccoon hunting with my daughter River using our American plot hounds. We've freecast the dogs into the darkness, meaning we've just turned them loose with GPS collars on so we can keep track of them, and they've gone out and found the fresh scent of a raccoon. Hopefully they'll trail the scent of the critter until it runs up a tree, where they'll tree it, meaning they'll bark at the base of the tree, and wait for us to come to them. Following hounds that you've trained is a rare human pleasure,

tickling ancient mechanisms inside of me that are beyond reason. And our hunting serves an important role in wildlife management. We're in for a treat. All right, River. Come here, dog. All right, River, we're going to turn these dogs out by this pond. It's been raining, but I figure by now, the coons have had a little time to stir let's just get them all right you ready

scooter you ready firm uh you ready you ready ah oh get them did fern just barked they're true sounds like it it sounds like it man it's about to rain are they are they moving let's just walk out here are they moving no man if they treat one tonight i'm gonna be pretty proud of not ideal conditions yeah oh yeah good boys talk to him now talk to we're gonna find him in this mess but I think he's in here what do you think it's amazing what these dogs can do we would have never had any clue that Coon was around here talk to him talk to him yeah river I've been dragging you around since You could walk, coon hunting.

Do you ever think that this is ridiculous and kind of irrational? No, of course not. How much we love our dogs? Of course not. It's totally rational. Totally, we think so? I'm not so convinced. You know, most people are home watching Netflix right now.

And we're out here wandering around and ticks and chiggers and getting wet. The river, what do you like about this cune hunting? I like, I like all of it. I like, it's the only, I think it's the only type of hunting, or it's the only type of hunting we do that's a night. And so it's cool to be out here at night. And then, I mean, it was so fun training these dogs. I mean, I remember when we were, I was like 12 years old and training fern, and it was like the coolest thing in the world. And it's so cool now that she'll go, she'll go treeing by herself and that we taught her how to do that.

So it's awesome to see, see that. And then it's also the only kind of hunt you can talk through. So you can have to sit still? You don't have to sit still? You can bring people? Yeah, yeah. You can bring your friends. You can bring your friends.

And bring your dogs. And your dogs. Because your dogs are your friends. And your dogs are your best friends. Good boys. Good boy. Good boy, scooters. They're a good boy.

All right, he's in a hole. We ain't going to find him. We aren't going to find him. Come here, Fern. Let's go home. My grandfather's bird dogs have long since passed. But his love of working and hunting dogs is strongly alive inside of me today. And every time I turn loose my coon hounds or I see my squirrel dogs elated to tree a squirrel,

I sense exactly what he did and what ancient humans of the past did too. A deep and hard to explain fascination in partnering with the dog to do work and acquire wild protein. I'm confident that our connection to dogs and specifically to hunting dogs is an important cog in the robust. definition of what it means to be human. You can follow my guest, David Ian Howe at David Ian Howe.com. You can also follow him on YouTube and Instagram at Ethnocinology. That's E-T-H-N-O-C-Y-N-O-L-G-Y, Ethnoseinology, which is the study of dogs and humans. Check out David Ian Howe.

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