National Hug Your Puppy Day – January 21, 2025

History of National Hug Your Puppy Day

Genetic evidence over the years has suggested that dogs are direct descendants of wolves and that the now-extinct wolf lineages from which dogs came branched off from the line of modern living wolves somewhere between 27,000 and 40,000 years ago. The domestication of dogs is said to have occurred between 14,000 and 29,000 years ago. It is also said that the wolves here were likely responsible for facilitating their domestication by trailing northern Eurasian nomads and feeding on the remains of game animals left behind by animals.Most research results agree on the fact that dog domestication was a process that unfolded over thousands of years with dogs and wild wolves continuing to cross-breed with one another and with early dog populations being replaced by later ones. A few genetic studies have recorded evidence of early domestication events in specific regions. One study posits that wolves were domesticated 16,300 years ago to serve as livestock in China, whereas another report states that early dogs, dating from about 12,000 to 14,000 years ago, came from a small strain of gray wolf that inhabited India at the time. Furthermore, genetic evidence reveals that dogs did not accompany the first humans to the “New World” more than 15,000 years ago, thereby suggesting instead that dogs came to the Americas only 10,000 years ago. A particular study even suggests that some dogs have descended not from the jackal but rather, the wolf. These dogs, which were found in Africa, are said to have possibly given rise to some of the native African breeds we have today.