The origin of man's best friend can go back tens of thousands of years, to when men domesticated wolves. Men didn't domesticate wolves once, but there were several times when wolves were domesticated throughout our history. This topic is very important to us as we are extremely interested in exactly where this all happened and started. Now, with modern genetic research and techniques, the picture can begin to be painted. The origin of the domestic dog can be further researched from that link. Currently research is proceeding to further our knowledge of the domestication of dogs, and we know about this from articles such as these....
http://www.sci-news.com/genetics/science-wolf-dog-hybridization-caucasus-01853.html
.... This article is mainly talking about the genetic study that is pointing to a wolf-dog hybridization. The geneticists use certain techniques that extract the DNA from fur samples as well as blood samples. From their findings, 2 to 3 percent were first generation hybrids, which would have been the combination of shepherd dogs and wolves to protect sheep. They wanted to see the hybridization rate, so they did this by examining mitochondrial DNA. Looking into this site will further the knowledge of those who don't fully understand calculating hybridization rates. Furthermore, from this study they found that about a third of the dogs examined shared maternal ancestry with local wolves, and not with the wolves of the Far East, like previously believed. We are still in the process of finishing this puzzle, and we seem to be on the right track.
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