What Would Happen to Dogs in a Posthuman World?

Over thousands of years, we've bred dogs to be the ultimate human companion. Dogs have been bred to work for us, and to be cute just to please us. How dependent on us are they, really? If humans were to disappear from the earth, could they get along?

In a preview of her new book co-authored with Marc Bekoff, A Dog's World, Jessica Pierce looks at two big questions. Would dogs be able to survive in a world without humans to take care of them? And secondly, how would surviving dogs adapt and evolve in the far future without human interference?

The first thing to realize is that only 20% of the billion dogs in the world are owned by and live with people as pets. The rest are strays, feral, or truly wild dogs. However, many of those dogs depend on humans to either feed them or produce garbage they can forage. But dogs as a whole are good at adapting and most are willing to eat anything.

As for how dogs might evolve, that is purely speculation. Domestic dogs that have been spayed or neutered would, of course, never pass on their genes. Neither would breeds like French bulldogs, who are so overbred they must be delivered by C-section. But that leaves an awful lot of non-pet dogs. Read what might happen to man's best friend in the absence of humans at Aeon.  -via Metafilter

#dog #posthuman #speculation



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