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Speaker 1: So we thought it would be fun to take another

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Speaker 1: peek or another listen to some of our earliest episodes

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Speaker 1: of the Backstory, And we especially love talking about our

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Speaker 1: fur babies. Are you with me on this is your dog?

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Speaker 1: Your fur baby? You worry about what they're eating or

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Speaker 1: if they're anxious, maybe even throw birthday parties for them

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Speaker 1: or even buy clothing for them. Yikes? So how did

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Speaker 1: your pup evolve from a man eating wolf? I'm Patty Steele,

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Speaker 1: from predator to furbaby in twenty thousand years. Next on

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Speaker 1: the Backstory. We're back with the backstory. Now for us

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Speaker 1: dog lovers, is there anything better than your best friend

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Speaker 1: looking at you with those liquid puppy eyes? Science backs

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Speaker 1: up feeling. Researchers say that when our dogs stare into

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Speaker 1: our eyes, we have the same hormonal response that bonds

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Speaker 1: us to our human babies. It's the release of that wonderful,

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Speaker 1: feel good hormone oxytocin, and dogs get their own blast

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Speaker 1: of oxytocin when they look at us. Well guess what.

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Speaker 1: It is the only known hormonal bonding effect between humans

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Speaker 1: and any other species. Now, experts say we didn't domesticate dogs.

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Speaker 1: They did it to themselves because it got them what

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Speaker 1: they needed. One dog expert at Duke University says dogs

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Speaker 1: have literally hijacked the human bonding system. Okay, so let's

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Speaker 1: go back maybe twenty thousand years ago. You're part of

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Speaker 1: a hunter gatherer society, which means yeah, hunt for me,

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Speaker 1: and then you find like wild veggies, fruits and nuts

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Speaker 1: to eat. But it's not a safe life. You're wandering

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Speaker 1: through woods, jungles, and fields searching for food. Predators like

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Speaker 1: wolves are watching you day and night. Some of the wolves, though,

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Speaker 1: notice something more valuable about you other than you being

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Speaker 1: a quick meal. They watch your social interactions and the

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Speaker 1: ability to feed and protect one another, and most importantly,

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Speaker 1: they munch on your discarded leftovers. The friendly ones slowly

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Speaker 1: move physically closer to you and eventually find a way

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Speaker 1: to hit you up for food. Yeah, that's right. The

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Speaker 1: first incidents of begging at the table or by the fire,

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Speaker 1: and they notice as they get closer to you, you

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Speaker 1: protect them and take care of them when they're injured

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Speaker 1: or sick. We humans start to bond with them as well,

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Speaker 1: because we notice that having wolves nearby and feeding them

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Speaker 1: least of their friendly makes them like us and They

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Speaker 1: in turn protect us from other aggressive animals, plus they

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Speaker 1: give us companionship. Over the course of thousands of years,

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Speaker 1: these wolves change genetically. They develop facial muscles and characteristics

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Speaker 1: that attract us, the ability to make those puppy eyes,

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Speaker 1: which wolves can't do. In fact, the bonding we do

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Speaker 1: with our pooches through looking into each other's eyes is

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Speaker 1: actually interpreted by a wolf as hostility, and these evolving

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Speaker 1: wolf dogs begin to take social cues from us. Did

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Speaker 1: you ever point at something and say, go get it,

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Speaker 1: Bosco and your dog actually follows where you're pointing. Wolves

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Speaker 1: can't do that. Even our closest relative in the animal world, chimpanzees,

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Speaker 1: can't do that either. Why they just don't relate to

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Speaker 1: us like dogs do. You can literally spend twenty four

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Speaker 1: hours a day with a wolf puppy, raise them really

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Speaker 1: close to you, but they're just never attracted to people.

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Speaker 1: They don't really want to be with people. They mostly

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Speaker 1: want to be with wolves. Dogs are the exact opposite.

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Speaker 1: Most of them naturally love and trust people and even

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Speaker 1: other animals. Over time, the genes that promote friendliness, which

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Speaker 1: wolves don't really have, as well as those that give

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Speaker 1: dogs breeds specific things like soft fur, fluffy ears, and tails.

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Speaker 1: The ability to help us, hunt and to guard us

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Speaker 1: all evolve based on their need to please us and

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Speaker 1: get a reward. On our end, it was based on

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Speaker 1: our very desires for the perfect companion. We've also spent

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Speaker 1: thousands of years sort of reinventing our dogs into everything

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Speaker 1: from Great Danes and Saint Bernard's to little bundles of

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Speaker 1: fluff like teacup poodles and Yorkis. Forget this, Some dog

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Speaker 1: breeds share a bigger percentage of wolf DNA than others.

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Speaker 1: Some are obvious, like huskies and melamutes. But there's one

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Speaker 1: more breed that has more wolf DNA than almost any

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Speaker 1: other breed, the tiny little fluffballs called chitsus. How funny

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Speaker 1: is that we love these beings? In fact, our language

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Speaker 1: shows how crazy about dogs we've gotten. The word puppy

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Speaker 1: comes from the French word poope or doll, and archaeologists

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Speaker 1: say that but human beings began burying themselves with their

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Speaker 1: dogs after their deaths as long as fourteen thousand years ago.

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Speaker 1: Now that's love. At the end of the day, it

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Speaker 1: is survival of the friendliest, say the experts, and that

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Speaker 1: may explain why there are about two hundred and fifty

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Speaker 1: thousand not very friendly wolves on earth, but close to

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Speaker 1: a billion lovable and loving dogs, eighty million of them

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Speaker 1: in the US alone. That desire to please is something

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Speaker 1: dogs and a lot of humans cultivate in themselves because

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Speaker 1: ultimately it's a path to getting what you want and

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Speaker 1: to survival. So now I think I'm going to go

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Speaker 1: grab some treats and stare into both my dog's big

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Speaker 1: brown puppy eyes. Hope you're enjoying the Backstory with me,

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Speaker 1: Patty Steele, Please please subscribe, and if you have a

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Speaker 1: story you would like me to dig into and share,

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Speaker 1: feel free to dm me on Facebook at Patty Steele

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Speaker 1: or on Instagram at Real Patty Steele. I'm Patty Steele.

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Speaker 1: The Backstory is a production of iHeartMedia and Steel Trap Productions.

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Speaker 1: Our producer is Doug Fraser. Our executive producer is Steve

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Speaker 1: Goldstein of Amplify Media. We're out with new episodes twice

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Speaker 1: a week. Thanks for listening to the Backstory, the pieces

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Speaker 1: of history you didn't know you needed to know