The Bond - How Humans and Canines Bonded through the Power of Meat and the Carnivore Diet

The human-canine bond is one of the most cherished and celebrated bonds between humans and animals. Simply seeing a dog is enough to lift our spirits, draw us in, and make us smile, and the same can be said about our dogs when they see us. When dogs see their owners they are overwhelmed with a flood of positive emotions which are typically expressed by increased respiration, heart rate, and uncontrollable licking and wagging. But how did we get here? How did we get from having two very distinctly different species who were likely competing for the same domain, the same resources, and one of which was likely hunting the other, to being united through an inseparable bond?

It is very clear that these conditioned emotional responses didn’t happen overnight and are likely the result of hundreds or thousands of years of positive experiences between humans and canines. It is believed that canines have stood beside man for over 14,000 years and there is evidence to suggest that canines evolved alongside humans for over 100,000 years. If we look at the time frame for which it is believed that humans domesticated dogs we will notice another very important event began to occur. This period, from around 14,000 years ago to the present day, has seen the most dramatic increase in evolution in recorded history. Our species has evolved at unprecedented rates during this time frame and it begs the question, did the domestication of canines play a role in this sudden explosion of evolution?

We have to ask ourselves, why did we domesticate canines in the first place? Of all the animals we could have chosen to stand by our sides, why them? What was so special about canines? Did we simply need companionship? Or were there other motives? My personal belief is that we were tribal people, existing in tight-knit communities and it is highly unlikely that we were seeking companionship outside of that, especially companionship with an animal that would have likely killed any outliers if given the chance. I believe the connection goes deeper than that. While canines and humans are vastly different species, we share many commonalities. Canines are also tribal creatures, existing in tightly-knit packs with a well-defined hierarchy. A single canine may not be able to fight off large predators and may not be an effective hunter, but packs make each of these animals very effective and efficient apex predators. These wild dogs execute very strategic and coordinated attacks to separate large prey from herds to kill them, with one large animal providing enough nutrition to feed the entire pack. The way these animals communicate and organize themselves to track and kill prey is not only admirable, it is very familiar.

During the time leading up to the domestication of canines, humans were primarily carnivorous apex predators, hunting for food and seizing the opportunity to scavenge where possible. Most of our nutrition came from animals, and up to the extinction of megafauna around 10,000 years ago, very large animals. Like canines, a single human may be defenseless against large predators and wouldn’t have the strength to effectively hunt large mammals. In a tribal setting however, humans would communicate and organize themselves in coordinated attacks to bring down very large animals to feed their tribes. The copious amounts of meat and fat provided ample nutrition for tribes to thrive, thus propelling their evolution forward by leaps and bounds. If you think this sounds familiar, you are right!

Perhaps the most profound similarity humans share with canines is that of food and nutrition. From a biological standpoint, this makes sense. Humans and dogs share a very similar digestive system, a sub-2.0 pH stomach acid and a relatively short digestive tract consisting of a longer small-intestine and short large-intestine, indicative of very similar nutritional requirements. Two species competing for the same domain, hunting the same animals, and likely scavenging off one-another. From an evolutionary standpoint, the picture starts to become increasingly more clear. At some point during our evolution, humans likely took notice of these similarities and began to admire the power of the pack, mimicking their hunting style. It would be inevitable that the packs and the tribes would cross paths and it is likely that the packs became so accustomed to the tribes, scavenging the remains from recent kills, that they began to associate humans with food, thus cuing the positively charged, conditioned emotional response. Now, whether these wild dogs became so comfortable with the tribes that humans were able to begin to feed them to draw them in, eventually resulting in full domestication or whether humans began seizing litters of pups with the sole purpose of domestication is up for debate. However, I believe one thing is for certain, canines developed a profound sense of respect towards humans, and humans developed a profound sense of respect towards canines. So much so that they allowed canines to join their tribe, assisting each other with the hunt, helping one another through times of scarcity and famine, providing for one another, and in times of adversity, protecting one another. It is entirely possible that this kinship was one of the driving forces that unleashed an explosion of human evolution and it is of my sincerest belief that this is where the bond began. Through thousands of years of feasting together, this is why our heart still flutters when we see each other, a timeless and unwavering bond of the Apex, the joining of the pack and the tribe through the power of meat.