The history of dogs is so woven in with the history of people that historians and archaeologists cannot agree on when or how they were introduced. Prehistoric people may have found many good uses for dogs. Once domesticated, dogs were used as early warning detection devices against human or animal intruders. They would defend people's caves and camps as their own, and so they must have been excellent protection as well as an alert system. Obviously, the greatest use early people had for their canine companions was hunting. Once the dog was part of the human family, and once humans were part of the pack, hunting together became a valuable common interest. There is also conjecture concerning how far back humans used dogs to guard livestock. Of course as a dog fancier, one must wonder in the end, what attracted dogs to people ? According to dog experts there were mainly three things - food, fire (for heat in winter), and community. Some believe that the relationship between early humans and domesticated dogs can first be traced back 100,000 years to Northern Africa and the middle east. Remains found suggest a communal burial or death, rather than a violent end. Carbon dating has put the most recent findings at 92,000 years ago. Also noted that as little as 10,000 years ago, Algerians were drawing hunting scenes on cave walls, depicting the hunt, with dogs on leashes.

Historians place the working aspect of the dog/human relationship at approximately 80,000 years ago, with the advent of the spear. Spears gave humans a weapon to fend off aggressive animals as well as something to kill them with. It was probably about this time that humans and dogs began hunting together in earnest. It is important to note that the image of a human walking with his or her dog would look nothing like what we might picture it today. Humans have evolved since they first reached out in friendship to dogs. And back then, while dogs might have been mutts, they were more closely related to a type of fox or jackal than the dog we know today. Much like humans, domesticated dogs have changed so much in some instances that they are classed separately from those dogs today that remain wild. The pets we know today are classed by experts as Canis Familiaris. It's important to know that we've both grown up quite a bit. The first domesticated were bred in captivity appear to have come from nomadic berber tribes. While the Egyptians used their dogs for hunting and guarding live stock, the warlords of the middle east had different plans. The Egyptians were safe from other warning neighbors with sea to one side and desert to another, but the small and large kingdoms and fiefdoms of the middle east were much more in conflict with each other. The Persians, Assyrians, Hittites, Sumerians and Babylonians all favored large fighting dogs that were believed to have originally come from India. As humans became more adept at navigation of the sea, they also began to seek dogs that were optimal for specific tasks. Great wolflike animals were bred for hunting wolves, bears and lions in Abyssinia and Persia. The largest and best of the herding dogs came from Tibet. And the fastest hunting Greyhounds came from Egypt.

The Egyptians

Of course, the dog achieved its first great fame among modern people in Egypt. Dogs played an important part in every day life - so much so that they were incorporated into the religion. The god Anubis was portrayed as a dog or as a strange mixture of a human's body with a dog's head. It was not uncommon to have the form of a dog sculpted to rest on the sarcophagus of a deceased king to deter grave robbers, and as a symbol of a guide who would lead the entombed through the afterlife. The Egyptians so loved their dogs that their's was the first civilization that had a law to punish humans who were cruel to dogs.

The Greeks and the Romans

Alexander the Great and later the Roman emperors were also fond of dogs. Because the Greeks and Romans traded with the Egyptians, dogs became popular with Hellenic aristocracy. However, the Greeks used dogs for a variety of purposes. Unlike the Egyptions, who prospered in semi-isolation, the Greeks and the Romans were products of the very heavily populated and mercantile-minded.

Mediterranean and middle eastern cultures. Life was competitive and land came at great cost. Learning from the Persians and their other warlike neighbors, the Greeks began to use two dogs. One was large and massive in build, with a large, broad face, and was known as the Molossian. The other was also large, but with a rather pointed snout, and was somewhat faster and sleeker. This one was known as the Loconian Hound. Aristotle was a fan of both dogs, saying that the Loconian female was gentler and smarter, but try no means fit for war, and that the Molossian was the dog of choice. The Molossian was named for the tribe that made it well-known, which came out of Northern Greece. The Molossian of Alexander the Great's time is the ancestor of todays Mastiff. This became for centuries the ultimate dog of war-large, strong, fearless and smart. The Greeks and then the Romans used these beasts in war for something like a calvary charge. The Loconian Hound was developed, it is believed, in Sparta It was fast and brutal, but of a sleeker build than the traditional Mastiff. The first literary classic pairing of a man and his dog comes from the Greeks. Dating back to one of the first class pieces of literature known and studied for centuries, The Odyssey features the story of Odysseus, warrior of the Trojan War, attempting the long treacherous and adventurous journey home. After many years away from his farm and kingdom, the hero of the story is not recognized by those people who knew him long ago. Despite his claims, he is only believed when his faithful hound, decrepit, and flea-ridden, crawls to his master, for whom has been waiting. The dog then dies, wagging his tail, happy at his masters feet. If dog was man's best friend in Greece, another dog was the mother of Rome. According to myth, two men fought over the founding of Rome: Romulus and Remus, who both had been raised by a wolf, suckling on her milk. It was the Romans who first outfitted their war dogs with thick leather collars, studded with sharp metal blades to keep other attacking dogs off of them. Dogs were instrumental in Rome's rise. As its famous roads were built and expanded, guard posts all along the way were manned by small militia and hosts of guard dogs. The roads were kept safe for Roman use. The Romans also used used their large dogs as beasts of burden. It was not unusual to see dogs, along with cattle, oxen, horses and ponies, pulling carts of all sizes from all different parts of the empire.

The Middle Ages and the Renaissance

In the period after the fall of the Roman Empire, the bubonic plague, or black death, was one of the galvanizing events. It was during this time that the dog aquired many of its more negative lore. During the plague, in which fleas transported the deadly disease, the dog with it's inborn resistance to the plague bacillus, was now on its own. Most livestock was killed by the disease-cattle, sheep, chickens and others. People were killing each other over food. Few people during this period kept pets. Ownerless, dogs ran wild, usually in packs, eating corpses and killing in groups. During feudal times, the aristocracy assumed ownership of many fertile lands, especially the great forests in which many animals were still abundant, as well as many natural resources. The hunt during these times, became very ritualized and many different dogs were used for different kinds of game. Lords and barons had different dogs to take down deer, bears bulls, wolves, large fowl and foxes, and they had other dogs for small game, mostly vermin. Others were bred for specific duties, such as tracking, coursing, and retrieving on land and in water. Henry the 1st of England had a kennel of 200 dogs for huntsmen to train, care for and deploy. As the aristocracy grew, so did their land claims. And unless you were somone of rank, you could not claim game from a claimed preserve. It was not until after the fall of the French king in the late 1700s, during the French revolution, that ordinary people were allowed to hunt in the largest and most heavily stocked game forests. In the early 1800s, many lands across Europe were opened up in an attempt to dissuade the masses from overthrowing various monarchies. These policies were part of larger political agendas, which all worked with varying degrees. However, one thing was an absolute success - hunting became popular to the extreme. The different species we are so fimiliar with today are the result of the continuing quest during this time to find the perfect dog. In many cases throughout history, people have bred dogs for different characteristics such as size, speed, hunting abilities, and others, to produce dogs for a variety of uses. This period became the golden age of the dog. During Victorian times, the dog reached an all-time high status. Your choice of dog conveyed whether you were a sportsman or a true lady. Dogs helped people fulfill their asperations toward a higher station in life. Indeed, it was in this period that many dog classifications began. It was a also a time in which many new dog breeds were bred by varying groups, especially hunters. In the 1700s, and 1800s, many of the sporting breeds, such as the German Shorthaired Pointer, Wirehaired Pointer, Weimaraner and other hunting dogs, were bred because middle-class Europeans had more time for hunting as recreation , and they wanted one dog to perform a series of functions that the European aristocracy could previously afford to keep several breeds to do. Likewise, smaller, toy breeds also became more popular and many breeds which were either to unknown came to the fore. In the end, what resulted was a friendship that had grown to proportions like no other relationship between humans and animals. For centuries, the dog has been more popular than any other pet. From The Call of the Wild to the newest version of 101 Dalmations, humans' love of their canine companions have been celebrated in literature, song, art, folklore and popular culture.