Working Dogs Through The Ages

In last week’s post, we talked about how dogs moved from hunting competitors to become an integrated part of our society. For many of us in the modern age, we look on dogs as companions and family pets, but dogs have been considered working animals for thousands of years.

Specifically, how have dogs worked with us to improve our lives and livelihood through the millennia?

• Greeks and Romans: Molossus dogs (forebears of modern mastiffs) were bred for war, protection and hunting.

• Vikings: Native Arctic wolves were interbred with domestic dogs producing a ‘spitz-type’ dog related to the modern Norwegian elkhound. Dogs were used for cattle herding, and for hunting moose and bear.

• Spanish Conquistadors: Mastiffs were carried on ships to the New World, where they were armored and used as battle dogs used to pursue, disembowel and dismember the enemy.

• American Civil War: Cuban bloodhounds (a mastiff breed used as killer pursuit dogs) were used to track escaped slaves at the Confederate Andersonville prison.

• World War I: ‘Mercy’ dogs were sent out onto the battlefields with first aid packs after battles for soldiers to self-treat their injuries. Dogs were also used for personal protection and tracking.

• World War II: For the first time, dogs were used in modern military service with a single handler to search out and signal danger, carry messages between foxholes, and patrol for the enemy.

• Vietnam War: It is estimated that approximately 5,000 dogs served in the Vietnam War as scouts, trackers, sentries, and were also used for explosives and tunnel/booby-trap detection. It is believed that military dogs saved up to 10,000 lives during the Vietnam War.

Next week we’re going to highlight a very special historical dog, Sergeant Stubby from World War I. Then later on, we’re going to look at the roles of dogs in modern life, from war, to police work, to search-and-rescue, to service and therapy dogs. Hope to see you back again.

**Last week to enter!** To celebrate the upcoming launch of LONE WOLF, Kensington is holding our first Goodreads giveaway! You can find it below. Be sure to enter for your chance to win an early copy months before it actually releases!

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Lone Wolf

by Sara Driscoll

Giveaway ends October 02, 2016.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter Giveaway

Photo credit: Victor R. Ruiz, Kristýna Žikovská, New York Public Library, The Soldier’s Story (1866), Library of Congress, World War II Database, and Wikimedia Commons.

A History of Man’s Best Friend

We’ve all heard the phrase ‘man’s best friend’ in reference to dogs. Dogs are our working partners, guides, guards, and family, but how did that connection between canines and humans come about?

Dogs, as we know them in the modern sense, branched off from the wild wolves in modern Asia, Europe, and the Middle East about 25,000 to 38,000 years ago, toward the end of the last Ice Age. This time period means that these animals co-existed with man during his hunter-gatherer stage, immediately preceding the development of agriculture. Of all domesticated animals, dogs were the first to be domesticated in approximately 13,000 BCE, a full 4,000 years before the next domesticated animal, the sheep. Notably, the dog was the first species to have a reciprocal relationship with humans.

How did this change in relationship status move dogs and humans from competing hunters to partners on a common team? No one knows for sure, since this was long before recorded histories, but genetics and early art tell a convincing tale. It is most likely that wild dogs were attracted to cooking fires of men and the smell of roasting meat. They would also be drawn by the smell of discarded animal carcases and at first were likely raiders, pillaging any unattended or discarded meat. The key to this early relationship was the type of animals attracted to human societies: these animals were generally less aggressive and were likely the non-dominant pack members with a lower flight threshold—in other words, ideal animals for domestication. Genetically, this interaction coincided with a morphological change in the canine skull, specifically the development of a shorter snout with fewer, more crowded, and smaller teeth—all physical characteristics associated with reduced aggression.

The relationship between man and dog was commensal to begin, meaning that while it was opportunistic for the dogs, it didn’t affect the humans in any way. But their interaction became mutualistic—a relationship good for both species—as humans took advantage of the dogs’ specific skills in hunting and protection, and then adapted new skills such as herding.

An alternate theory suggests that dogs exploited an earlier mutation to be able to digest starches and carbohydrates, something wolves are not able to do. This change occurred just as man was discovering the advantages of agriculture, allowing the dogs to feed off scrap heaps more efficiently. Interestingly, humans adapted to starch digestion at nearly the same time in an intriguing twist of parallel evolution.

Over the centuries and millennia, selective breeding by humans developed dogs into the modern species we know today. Much of modern breeding revolves around appearance, however early domestication selected almost exclusively for behavioural traits. In fact, scientific studies show there was a genetic selection for adrenaline and noradrenaline pathways leading to tameness and a greater emotional response in the animals. This helped to create the domesticated, loyal, connected personalities we recognize in our dogs today.

Please join us next week as we come back looking at the role of working dogs from the Romans and Vikings onwards.

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To celebrate the upcoming launch of LONE WOLF, Kensington is holding our first Goodreads giveaway! You can find it below. Be sure to enter for your chance to win an early copy months before it actually releases!

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Lone Wolf

by Sara Driscoll

Giveaway ends October 02, 2016.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter Giveaway

Photo credit: Fugzu and Elizabeth Tersigni

Report From the Writing Trenches – September 2016

The blog is back! Sorry for the long summer hiatus, but it’s paid off for me—I finished the first draft of FBI K-9s book #2, BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE, this past weekend. *throws confetti* *collapses*

So what are Ann and I up to, writing-wise? Let’s go down the list:

1. LONE WOLF: FBI K-9s book #1 will release in eBook on November 29th and hardcopies will be in bookstores and beyond on that date or very shortly thereafter. I’ll be holding a launch right around that time, most likely at A Different Drummer Books in Burlington, but possibly an early release the preceding weekend. More details on that hopefully in the next few weeks. At this point, LONE WOLF hard copy ARCs are out and are being sent to our early readers, bloggers, and reviewers. For the first time, as a part of Kensington, copies of the books will be available on NetGalley, so some of our readers have arranged to get their copies digitally. And last week, we were pleased to see the blurb for the book from Leo J. Maloney, author of the Dan Morgan series, including ARCH ENEMY—“Tense and exciting, Sara Driscoll has created a new power couple, Meg and her FBI K-9, Hawk.”
2. BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE: As I stated before, the first draft of this book is now complete, coming in at just under 80,000 words. This is a great length for a thriller—it gives us room to still add a little more as we edit, and it also leave us room for chapter titles and definitions. What’s the theme this time? We’re 99% sure we know what it is, but that will get solidified within the next two weeks. We’ll edit from now until the end of the September. October 1st sees the manuscript going out to our amazing critique team (thank you Jenny, Lisa, Sharon, and Rick!). They’ll have the book for 2 weeks and then that leaves us about 4 weeks to put the final touches on it. The book is officially due on December 1st, but with LONE WOLF coming out on November 29th, it realistically needs to be done about 2 weeks early so we can keep all the balls in the air.
3. FBI K-9s (Welcome to the real world of publishing, part one): Ann and I were very sad to find out recently that our Kensington Editor, the wonderful Peter Senftleben, was leaving the company to become a mysteries, suspense and thriller editor at Crooked Lane. We’re so very grateful to Peter for buying the three-book series, and very much enjoyed working with him and will definitely miss him. Peter, of course, has left us in very capable hands for the remainder of the series, so onwards and upwards.
4. Abbott and Lowell Forensic Mysteries (Welcome to the real world of publishing, part two): I’ve had many questions about the next book in the Abbott and Lowell series, LAMENT THE COMMON BONES. Readers knew we were writing it last year but there has yet to be an announcement about its release date. Well, we’ve got some bad news there. Our editor at Five Star definitely wanted the book, but before it was officially purchased, Five Star closed out their mystery line and is going strictly with westerns from now on. So the book has been orphaned. At this point, I’m not exactly sure what’s going to happen with it. It’s extremely difficult to sell the fifth book in a series, but our agent is working on it. But never fear, dear readers, the worst case scenario is that we’ll self-publish, definitely in eBook format and most likely in print as well. The book will get out one way or another—it’s the end of the big arc that started in A FLAME IN THE WIND OF DEATH and continued through TWO PARTS BLOODY MURDER, so we’d be doing a huge disservice to our readers if we didn’t release it. So stay tuned for more news to come here.

To celebrate the upcoming launch of LONE WOLF, Kensington is holding our first Goodreads giveaway starting today! You can find it below. Be sure to enter for your chance to win an early copy months before it actually releases!

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Lone Wolf

by Sara Driscoll

Giveaway ends October 02, 2016.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter Giveaway

We’ll be back next week with the first of our K-9 posts, so please join us!