this post was submitted on 12 Aug 2023
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In addition to our ability to throw shit, humans also have some of the best endurance that mammals have to offer. An example of this is the Human V Horse race in Wales. The race is a 22-mile / 35-kilometer marathon that takes place in mountainous terrain. Normally, a horse would beat a human in a race without a problem. But in a marathon, humans actually stand a chance with an occasional victor in this specific annual race. All due to our exceptional endurance.
Put the projectiles and endurance together, and we make for a terrifying hunter. Imagine you're some other animal out in the wild. Maybe you're really fast or really strong. But if a determined human really wants to try and kill you, there's no out-running it. It'll catch up eventually. And if you choose to fight the human, they'll get the first blow.
Let’s also add on that humans used a tactic called “persistence hunting”, in which you follow after some animal at a brisk pace startling it every time it tries to rest. With nothing more than sweat glands, pointy sticks and ridiculous endurance, we marathon jogged some species to extinction!
That's what made dogs perfect as pets.
Our ancestors noticed these animals that would follow us around in packs. They could generally keep up with us, form bonds easily, were pretty good at killing, and mostly ate the parts of the animals we didn't.
We just chose the ones who were coolest with us and just bred the ones who loved us the most.
There are other animals that fit this description, but dogs are the only ones that also happen to reproduce fast enough that you could feasibly notice the improvement in behavior over generations.
In soviet russia, an experiment was made to see if the domestication of dogs could be replicated on foxes, with mild success. Basically all foxes in western Europe today are in some way crossbred from the tamer foxes produced by this experiment, explaining why foxes aren't completely terrified of humans.