Content area
Full text
A Dogs History of the World: Canines and the Domestication of Humans. By Laura Hobgood-Oster. Waco, Tex.: Baylor University Press, 2014. vii + 188 pp. $29.95 (cloth).
Many of us have had our lives made more enjoyable, more fulfilling, and more whole with the companionship of a dog. Sometimes we admit this sheepishly, purchasing holiday or birthday gifts for our pets, but with a selfeffacing sense of humor. And sometimes, when a working animal saves a loved one from isolating disability, or when we lose a beloved pet, we are absolutely earnest about the power of an animals love.
In A Dogs History of the World: Canines and the Domestication of Humans, Laura Hobgood-Oster traces how human history intersects-and grew to be intertwined with-the history of domesticated dogs. Not only did we become socialized and domesticated together, alongside our working and pet animals, our dogs have served us in a range of relationships as varied as human vocations and needs. For example, fifteen thousand years ago, dogs were our partners in hunting and herding. Rock carvings dating from the third to the first millennium in Armenia reveal that dogs were already helping humans guard and herd animals, and were even...