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Puppy Time-Lapse

Print | Comments () Posted by Josh Rothman May 29, 2011 09:14 PM

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This video of Dunder the German Shepherd has been delighting people everywhere. One of the most striking things about it is how wolf-like he looks by the end. As the always fascinating Temple Grandin explains, domesticated dogs are essentially wolf puppies who never grow up into full-grown wolves. From her excellent Animals in Translation:

Humans have neotenized dogs: without realizing it, humans have bred dogs to stay immature for their entire lives. In the wild, baby wolves have floppy ears and blunt noses, and the grown-ups have upright ears and long noses. Adult dogs look more like wolf puppies than like wolf adults and act more like wolf puppies than wolf adults, too. That's because dogs are wolf puppies: genetically, dogs are juvenile wolves....

[D]ogs stop developing emootionally and behaviorally at the wolf puppy equivalent of thirty days. A grown-up German shepherd can do every aggressive behavior a thirty-day-old wolf can do, but nothing beyond that age.

The only domestic dog capable of more full-grown wolf behavior, Grandin explains, is the husky, "which looks a lot like a wolf." A Chihuahua, meanwhile, "never advances past the wolf puppy equivalent of twenty days of age." You can read more here.

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