Let’s take a trip. Let’s travel back in time 40,000 years to a period known as the ‘Upper Paleolithic’ era, or the beginning of the last Ice Age. The continent upon which we stand is ‘Eurasia.’ Cro-Magnon man is beginning his ascent to Homo sapiens, while Neanderthals are gradually taking their leave.
When we arrive, darkness is fast re-claiming the land, the sun having set but one or two hours ago. To our right we see what we would call a small bonfire at the mouth of a cave. Through the flames, we see human beings -men, women, children – dressed in the skins of animals. Huddled together, they look out at what frightens them the most: the night.
One of them has been studying the darkness. He rises slowly, points a finger and says a single word. “Wolves!” He is right. A pack of lethal, hungry wolves has encircled the cave entrance waiting for a human to make a mistake; to stray just a bit too far from the fire.
Two men and two women grab firebrands, and go screaming at the wolves. The animals flee in terror. The humans move back into the cave happy to be rid of the wolves.
The humans are wrong…
She is big, and she is grey, and she is very intelligent. She is, in fact, the alpha female to this pack. When her pack fled, she did not. She merely backed deeper into a thicket, lay down, put her head on her paws, and studied the humans.
The next day, after being sure no wolves lurked about, the hunting group headed out. They hunted for several hours, yet, as keen as their senses were, not one of them realized they were being shadowed. The great she-wolf moved in parallel to their column, forty yards up-wind, and out of sight.
On a sudden turning of the wind, she smelled danger! She raised her head high and loosed a piercing howl. The hunters stopped short, turned to face the sound and waited. They were listening for answering calls. If repeated howling came from all around them, it meant they had wandered into a wolf ambush, and they would soon be fighting for their lives. But there were no answering calls. That led to another mystery: where were they; the calls? Wolves hunt in packs; wolves travel in packs. Why was this wolf alone?
Suddenly, ahead of them came a loud crashing in the underbrush, and a great cave bear lurched into view. He, too, was hunting. Had the humans not been halted by the wolf-call, they would have kept walking; taken unawares, they would have been annihilated. They backed cautiously away and decided to end the hunt. When they reached their cave, they questioned the elders about the solitary wolf, but even the old ones did not understand this behavior.
The clan began to sense they were being watched. They turned to look, and there by the mouth of the cave lay a wolf; and she was big, and she was grey. She looked at them with quiet eyes, her head cocked to the side in curiosity; and behind her, her tail swished slowly side-to-side in the dust.
Then the humans understood; this was the wolf who had warned them; this the wolf who had saved them.
One of the women reached down, picked up a piece of meat; and, after a moment’s hesitation, threw it to the wolf; and with that offering, a bonding was forged; one which has endured for forty millennia.
Now, is that story true? Oh hell, I don’t know! I made it up!
Presently, I do lean toward the idea that it was the wolf, not the dog, which was first domesticated.
Be that as it may, i will tell you this: somewhere, uncounted years before history, an amazing event occurred: human kind stopped being wolf-dogs’ prey, and became wolf-dogs’ companions; a pairing which has moved as one through all times, all places, and all cultures.
Did it occur over thousands of years, summoned forth by the slow cadence of Darwinian law? Or did one clan – or one individual – summon the will and the determination to become a wolf-master? Likely, we’ll never know.
In my own thinking, no matter how it occurred, this transformation was perhaps one of the most providential events in living history. Were someone to say it was ‘Heaven-sent’, they would face no challenge from me.
So this I conclude about people and dogs: They improve us. As human beings, we cannot be, by ourselves, what we are with them. Just why that is, we cannot fully explain because the mystery of it yet abides, even after all these years…
And perhaps some mysteries are better left unsolved…
Lucky Garvin
