Tag: dog

The dog (Canis lupus familiaris) is a subspecies of the gray wolf (Canis lupus), a member of the Canidae family of the mammalian order Carnivora. The term domestic dog is generally used for both domesticated and feral varieties. The dog was the first domesticated animal and has been the most widely kept working, hunting, and pet animal in human history. The word "dog" may also mean the male of a canine species, as opposed to the word "bitch" for the female.

Dogs' value to early human hunter-gatherers led to them quickly becoming ubiquitous across world cultures. Dogs perform many roles for people, such as hunting, herding, pulling loads, protection, assisting police and military, companionship, and, more recently, aiding handicapped individuals. This impact on human society has given them the nickname "man's best friend" in the Western world. In some cultures, however, dogs are also a source of meat. In 2001, there were estimated to be 400 million dogs in the world.

Most breeds of dogs are at most a few hundred years old, having been artificially selected for particular morphologies and behaviours by people for specific functional roles. Through this selective breeding, the dog has developed into hundreds of varied breeds, and shows more behavioural and morphological variation than any other land mammal.

Source: Wikipedia