What Is Domestication?
While some people think that a domesticated animal is simply one that won't bite a human or attempt to flee, the term is actually much more restrictive than this. The process of domestication requires selective breeding over a period of time such that an animal or plant becomes significantly altered from its original state. While most organisms can be genetically modified by humans, only a select few are good candidates for keeping as pets or agricultural animals. Wolves, for example, were ideal candidates because they ate similar diets to our own, hosted relatively few parasites and interacted willingly with people. At first, they simply remained close to humans, hoping to receive bits of food. Over time, this kind of "mutualism" became something greater when humans began to deliberately breed animals for desirable traits. Over somewhere between 14,000 and 40,000 years, humans guided wolf evolution until the resulting creature was virtually unrecognizable from its original form. Over this lengthy stretch of time, people were able to breed for a suite of characteristics, including friendliness, deference to humans, communication and cute looks. While it was once thought that friendliness was the only trait people specifically sought out, we now understand that the domestication of dogs was far more comprehensive.
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