NEIL, SADIE & THE WOLVES

by Michelle Ransom-Hughes, featuring Neil Sandell

(A wolf howls/ gentle music/ the faint crackling of a fire)

Michelle

I don’t know if you’ve heard of the ‘wolf-pug’ meme...

Neil

There's two photographs, in the top frame there's a picture of a wolf and there's a little thought bubble coming from the wolf and it says, “Hmm, humans at a campfire, it’s cold and I’m starving. Maybe I should ask for scraps, what’s the worst thing that could happen?”

In the bottom frame it says with the caption, “Ten thousand years later”. And you see a pug, and it’s looking forlorn and the pug is wearing, ah, a knitted birthday cake.

(He giggles) What could go wrong?

Michelle

Neil Sandell was always going to love the wolf-pug meme. Firstly he’s got a big place in his heart for pugs, having lived with four of them.

It made me laugh and I thought, perfect, perfect. But it did make me think, actually, what did happen? How much of that is true?

Yeah - cause the premise of the meme is that there was a sort of sliding doors moment... a time when the majestic wolf of prehistory sat down with people, thereby sealing its fate as a lapdog.

Anyway this meme sparked an idea for Neil

I’ve done other documentaries about the deep past, so, what could go wrong, investigating the invention of the dog?

Hello. I’m Michelle Ransom-Hughes and you’re hearing journalist, Neil Sandell.

This episode of Oh My Dog is the story of Neil, Sadie and the wolves. Sadie’s the dog who lives with Neil. And the wolves? They're Sadie's distant ancestors. They all feature in Neil's latest radio documentary, which I'll get Neil to introduce for you.

Ah, it’s “Entre chien et loup”. With the subtitle, “How dogs began.” So, “Entre chien et loup: How dogs began”

Thanks, Neil. You’ll want to listen to that when you’ve finished here. It's super interesting science and social history.

But back to our story - Neil is from Canada, where he had a long and distinguished career at the CBC as a radio journalist. And several years ago, he and his wife packed up, and moved to Nice, in France. They’d been dreaming of doing it for the longest time, and in the end it was their two dogs who made it happen.

Pugs don't fly because they’re, they have breathing problems. So you cannot fly even from one city in Canada to the next, much less from Canada to Europe, with pugs. I quickly learned the only way to get your dogs over would be by ship. And the only ship was the Queen Mary 2. So getting kennel space on the Queen Mary 2 was like winning a lottery.

I got an email one day and it said ‘Would you be interested in travelling in ten months?’. It was like - now or never.

Despite boarding an ocean liner with his pugs, Neil hasn't always been a dog person.

You know what, my wife is very much an animal person. And I like animals but, she had to work on me a little bit and now that I’m on my fifth dog in my life, I mean, I can't imagine not living with dogs.

Okay, let’s get this dog chronology straight…

Yeah, so we had a pair of pugs, who we adopted from another family who didn't want them any more. They died, then after a time we got a new generation of pugs, one as puppy and one adopted. Those were the two dogs that we brought to France. And then when they died, and they died within about ten months of each other, they were the same age, then we were bereft. And after a period of mourning, we went looking for a dog and we didn't think we were going to look for a dog like Sadie, we were just ready to go to a refuge, a dog shelter and pick up a mutt.

M
Which they did do, driving about four hours to visit a shelter dog they’d seen online. But, when they got there - that dog just wasn’t for them.

But then, as the cliche goes, Sadie found us and we fell in love with her, and it was kind of remarkable what a great dog she is, considering that, that you know, she was an abandoned dog.

Tell me about Sadie. What sort of dog is she?

NS
Sadie is a wire haired dachshund… long and low like all dachshunds. Big snout but she has this really messy hair, so she totally looks like an unmade bed. She’s always tousled. She has a great disposition. Ah very friendly, very cuddly, not yappy. Some dachshunds can be yappy. And she's really an all weather dog, she's amazing. You know if it's raining out. she's gung ho: “I do not care. Let’s go out!”

Outdoors she becomes a hunter. The breed was trained as badger hunters.

Heaps of badgers around Nice.

She goes for pigeons and for cats. And like in a country trail she's absolutely wired. It's fabulous to see, it's fascinating to see, her nose is going every which way, she’s like completely zoned in. We all know how heightened dogs are in general to smells, and she’s a scent hound. So it's super stimulating. When she comes back from that kind of a walk she's exhausted even though she hasn't actually done a lot of walking. It’s actually a joy to see her in that environment. Oh, here’s my little dog right now… looking for some attention. Sadie?

(We hear little feet on a wooden floor, and Sadie settles down)

What sort of colouring does she have?

Well, in French they would say, ‘charbon’. She's very dark and mottled, though her face has flecks of red as I’m looking at her lying on the floor. She has kind of a long snout, big clown nose, her hair flops over her eyes. Big ears. Yeah - long and low. My wife and I talk about her as being a kind of uh, a stretch limousine.

Does she spread her affections between you both?

NS
Oh yeah, she’s a bit of a slut. Whoever has belly rubs and mostly whoever has food.

Yup. And is she bilingual?

I think so, I think so. (Laughing) She’s learned English. From what I understand about dog behaviour, I mean they all respond to some commands, but mostly they’re responding to tone of voice. The other interesting thing is she’ll respond to a just a little click you might use if you were riding a horse. Like click click, that’ll call her. The other thing is, you know we know nothing about her background. How did this wonderful dog land up in a shelter at the age of four? She wasn’t chipped, there’s no story of somebody delivering her. She was just there. That is one of the mysteries of our girl, Sadie. Our best theory is that she was a hunting dog, and she got lost.

It’d be almost impossible not to try and imagine the life your dog had, before they came to you. I discovered that Neil and his wife sometimes take this to the extreme.

One of our previous dogs, Lola, a black pug… had a really precocious lovely personality, really mischievous. And one day we were walking around the streets and we came across a fashion boutique called Lola. After that we ended up spinning out this fantasy that Lola was, our Lola, owned that shop and that she was an international fashion expert, and that which then begat more fantasies... The imaginary life of Lola was that she was an international business woman that had had a yacht in Monaco, which was very close, and that she’d fallen on hard times because she’d lost her bitcoin password. (giggles) And all of this stuff. Anyhow, we kind of love doing that.

Alright, let’s put Lola aside… because it wasn’t Lola, it was Sadie, Neil’s adopted dachshund, that led him to this much bigger question of canid evolution - the question of when did wolves become dogs?

Yeah - it was a collision of two things, because I was curious about Sadie’s origin stories and there was nothing. I came to his realisation that we know more, or I know more about the origin of dogs, than of my particular dog, and I love origin stories and then there's an internet meme…

That’s the ‘wolf/ pug’ meme, right? - referencing this popular idea that back in prehistory, ancient wolves found a place by human campfires... and from there, were domesticated by humans…. to become the dogs we know (and love) today.

You know I love thinking about … prehistory because it's so long... You know thinking in terms of what happened ten thousand or twenty thousand years ago - I mean this is a gulf of time that I can't even get my head around. And yet it still comes alive when you find somebody to talk about it.

So that's what Neil did. He tracked down passionate biologists and archaeologists and other scientists from around the world who all work in this space ‘between the dog and the wolf’. One thing that’s clear (and actually exciting) about this field of research, is that it's full of wildly different theories.

But, Neil tells me, two central facts are broadly agreed upon. One: dogs did evolve from ancient wolves; and two: dogs were the first domesticated animals. So, what is the biggest, most contentious question in all of this?

When domestication happened. Yeah it’s highly contested because it depends on what you look for in terms of evidence. So there are people who say, “Look I have this jawbone, I think it's a dog”. Other people say, “No, maybe it’s just a variation on the wolf”. Other people say, “No, this bone, for sure, for sure, for sure it’s a dog”.

The problem with that is that if evolution takes place in a continuum over thousands of years, if you say, ‘That is a dog, this is where dogs began”, then it forces you to define exactly what a dog is. So the ‘when’ is highly disputed. The ‘where’... scientists are zoning in on that.

When they're looking for evidence… ‘they’ being the scientists, the first line of evidence is archeological, is old bones that have been dug up. Then the next line of evidence is genetics. They also do something called isotope analysis which is remarkable to me - where they can figure out what an animal was eating and then see parallels.

So I mean, once you start getting pics of dogs depicted in art, then that's real solid evidence. Go further back in time, once you see dog burials, where dogs are being buried with people... that’s pretty firm evidence that ah there’s this animal that’s cared for, that was valued, that was personified: that's a dog. I think most people in the field would agree that there's a specimen that was found in Germany that’s dated 15 thousand years ago, that’s a dog. They also say there's no evidence of dogs forty thousand years ago. So you have this long period of in between, that there may or may not have been dogs, or there were half dog half wolves. We don't know, I mean some people say they know, but we don't know for sure it’s disputed.

Tens of thousands of years of this in-between. Of half dogs half wolves. It’s a tantalising question… When did dogs begin?

You know that beautiful time of the evening some people call the blue hour? When trees and buildings all transform in moments, and everything is redrawn in silhouette… The French have an expression for this

Yeah, ‘entre chien et loup’. Well literally it translates from French to English: between dog and wolf. And the expression in French means twilight. But to me it has a more metaphorical meaning of that in-between time when things are uncertain and you don't really know. I just thought it was a perfect way of describing this uncertain time period: before dogs and after dogs, right? I mean entomologists think the expression comes from that time of day where if you were to see a dog and a wolf you might not be able to distinguish them. You know, assuming the dog is not a chihuahua.

The other thing that people are very curious about is where, where were the first dogs There's a site in Lake Baikal, in Siberia, which is being investigated by archeologists for many many years. And that region is thought to be where dogs started. But we don't know, we can’t say for sure. But when you hear scientists talk about Eurasia they're probably talking about that rough region.

There are 3 theories of how dogs evolved from wolves, and how dogs became domesticated. For a long time the notion was that we domesticated dogs. That either we developed a hunting partnership with wolves, and they eventually became part of the family. or, we, prehistoric people, kidnapped wolf pups and then bred them, and took the tame ones and bred them, and eventually you get a dog.

So Catherine Lord is an evolutionary biologist and she’s done her research into the differences between dogs and wolves in the first six weeks of life. So she has hand raised something like 42 wolves, as pups, which to me is mind-blowing. That's a lot of litters. That’s more than a decade of research. The gist of what she told me is that wolves, young wolves, insist on being fed every four hours.

And when she’s doing it, she’s doing it by the bottle. But of course a mother wolf, the pups would suckle the wolf mum. So Catherine was telling me that when you're raising the pups you’re living with the pups in the same room essentially. And if you fall asleep when they're hungry and want to be fed and want the bottle, they’ll come into your room and wake you up and they’ll start biting your ear. (chuckling) She said you get pierced ears if you don’t pay attention.

Catherine Lord thinks that the idea of raising wolf puppies as a prehistoric hunter gatherer is completely impractical. How do you contain these baby wolves? How do you feed them? how once they grow up, how do you keep them in the settlement? How do you mate them with other animals, because how do you force wolves to mate? And then how do you find wolves that are tame to mate them with? So she thinks it’s pretty impractical. And so the more simple view of how domestication happened is that wolves start hanging around human settlements, scavenging off human refuse … and gradually getting habituated to this human niche. And ah slowly changing over time to become less like wolves in that they were not hunters, they became scavengers. And gradually that's how domestication happened. Self domestication is the notion.

Self domestication? So this theory centres the wolf in its evolution, instead of the human?

Yeah, absolutely. The other thing is, that if you think that humans set out to domesticate a dog, it assumes that humans had this vision of what a dog could be. So how do you know that you want a dog, when there's never been a dog? That is a real leap of imagination. So for me the more plausible explanation is that these wolves over centuries and millennia became used to hanging around human settlement, became tamer, and more dependent on humans. And then at certain points, humans see that these animals could actually be useful to them and that's when the co-evolution starts happening. That's when you get humans making use of these animals, either as guard dogs and sentries, or hauling things like sledge dogs, or hunting, helping them hunt, flushing out game from the woods or the bush.

Sweeping floors with their tails.

NS
Sweeping floors with their tails. Exactly. Helping you with that piece of pizza you didn't want.

Making his documentary, Neil found so many researchers out there trying to unpuzzle the evolution of dogs. many of them are taking really creative angles… including…. listening to the animals’ voices.

Of all of the canid species, dogs, as opposed to coyotes, wolves, or others, dogs have the most different kinds of barks. And it's thought that barking evolved fairly early. It's also understood that humans have, are extremely sensitive to barking. Just the same sensitivity that humans have to babies crying. So you'd think that in terms of evolution, humans would be hardwired to a baby crying in their midst because it’s a matter of survival. You want to take care of the baby. Dog barking does the same thing to humans and I'm sure at a hormonal level. So, when do these village dogs, these early dogs, who are hanging around human settlements, bark? Probably when a stranger or a strange thing or danger is approaching. So this is the theory: these dogs that are not yet part of the community, are acting inadvertently as sentries. they may not be warning humans that somebody or something is coming that's dangerous; they may be doing it strictly territorially. But, at some point humans make the connection (this is a kind of coevolutionary thing) - humans make this connection, that a dog barking can be useful to them. It is a sentry. In an environment where there are dangerous predators around… where there’s danger lurking, hunter gatherers are living precarious existence. And so this idea that this kind of wolf, but maybe a dog, is of use, is the beginning of something really really important.

There's this notion in archeology that you can trace the development of humankind through its use of tools, whether its a spearhead or whatever, it’s an indicator. And so the use of an animal as a kind of biological tool (and that animal being dog) is hugely significant. Because dog domestication took place before millennia before the domestication of any other animal whether it was beast of burden like oxen or chickens, or for that matter crops. Dogs were the first and there’s some very smart people who say - this was a gateway event.

Look, that all sounds plausible, but I’m still not convinced Neil didn't take on this project, purely so he could meet a wolf…

So there’s a place in rural Austria, about an hour outside of Vienna that is like a conservation area and within that is the Wolf Science Centre. And it's been around since 2008 and it's a scientific research centre. The founders wanted to have a pack of dogs and a pack of wolves that they could do comparative studies, so like how do they behave differently? How do they behave the same? These are dogs in capacity but they have a huge amount of area to roam in - in enclosures. So I went there to speak to the scientists, and see what they were learning, hear their perspectives. And for me I really wanted to see what a wolf was like, like not on TV but in person. And that was pretty awesome actually.

This wolf was called Nanook, from the Yukon, I believe in Canada originally. A timbre wolf to be sure. And this was an animal that was hand-raised there as a puppy. Big white wolf. The scientist who was giving me the guided tour had hand raised this animal. And so when we got to see Nanook, she, Frederique Aranga started calling Nanook, and Nanook came to her - just like a dog would come. And so Frederique Arunga reached her hand through this enclosure, through this wire fence, and started petting it, just like you would pet a dog and my jaw was dropping… it was fabulous, it was fabulous! Just caressing this dog’s muzzle - excuse me - caressing this wolf’s muzzle - like a dog, like I would Sadie at home. Cooing into a wolf’s ear.

And I said to her, “Would I be able to do that?”, and she said, “No I don't think so!” But this was a wolf that knew her from its very earliest days. And that's the thing about this research centre all of the dogs and all of the wolves are hand raised so that they are socialised and that means the scientists can work with them up close it's easier to care for them.

I wondered how the wolf Nanook's energy compared with what he was used to from dogs?

Mmm, it was pretty close. it looked really familiar which in itself was surprising to me. Because my impression of wolves was wildness. But this was obviously not a wild animal but ah, you know, the scientists there, it’s a familiar question to them, what's the difference between dogs and wolves? And they all said dogs are very dependent on people and wolves accept you as an equal and they are very independent. I mean there are many many more differences, but in terms of their attitudes to humans, that would be the main thing. And so wolves are still predators and dogs are scavengers in their natural state, and wolves could exist very easily without humans, probably better without humans. Ah, dogs not so much.

At the centre, in study after study, dogs demonstrate just how different they are from the wolf.

Yeah so one of the things that they are really interested in is how wolves cooperate with one another and how dogs cooperate with one another. There’s a test that I read is used with a lot of different animals, but they have a food reward and two dogs pull the rope at the same time or two wolves pull the rope at the same time they’ll actually get the food and wolves cooperate beautifully and dogs not so much - dogs actually don't cooperate with each other very much. So that was one revelation: wolves are hugely cooperative, dogs are very independent, they don't cooperate.

Another thing is levels of aggression. Wolves are not so aggressive with each other. If something’s bothering them they’ll escalate the violence very, in very measured steps, dogs they're kind of hair trigger, in terms of getting angry, growling and nipping, that kind of thing.

Yeah the idea of the dog pack is a bit of a myth isn't it?

Yeah wolves survive by living together and hunting in packs they are nurturing their young together they are very social animals dogs not so much. Scientist do study free-ranging dogs and they'll hang around together but its not like wolves. It's a totally different social structure and it’s a social structure that's changed the way they breed. For example, wolves breed once every year or two years when they’re in the wild, and wolves mate for life. Dogs that are in the wild breed every I think it’s eight months, they’re promiscuous. They're very different animals behaviourally, even though they're quite similar genetically. And that's really one of the conundrums of the two species.

But what’s been lost to dogs through this evolution? Or is the wild still there?

I think we have to be honest and accept that we want our dogs to be well behaved within certain constraints. On the other hand it gives me huge joy to take my own dog outside and see her in a natural environment bounding about and just being herself. But look dogs are pets, they have the status of family members and I don't think we can deny that. In the documentary one of the archaeologists kind of encapsulates our relationships with dogs, going from hunting partners and personified humans (in prehistoric times hunter gather times), to kind of the decline of dogs during the agricultural revolution to the revival of dogs in modern day. Although she doesn’t say this in the documentary, she says they've always been a signifier of our values. And so now the trend of going to a refuge and finding a perfect mutt, a perfect mongrel, and being so proud of that - as an emblem of our values, that is yet another indicator of how dogs are… a self expression. And you know, is that okay? Well, it is what it is, I think.

Certainly for Neil, sharing his life in France with Sadie, has meant a lot.

So you know our dogs, the two pugs that we brought with us from Canada across the Atlantic, were elderly dogs by the time they got to France. Maybe they had two or three years left in their normal life. And when we lost them, when they died, ah, specially the last one, It was like a last link, in a way, with home. Obviously not a last link because we have family and friends and a lifetime of allegiance to Canada. But there was something that was pretty final about losing them. And of course, suddenly your world is quiet. You don't hear the clicking of their feet. you don't hear their vocalisations. Suddenly the dog dish is just sitting there and not needing to be filled. This is a particular thing that happens to you, as a dog owner when you lose a dog. And it's a universal thing that happens. And some people take a long time to get over that, it's a mourning period for everybody, right?

It’s proper grief.

Absolutely. It’s proper grief and everybody deals with it individually and at their own pace. You have to think about whether you want to get another dog, and have another dog. And can you bear losing another dog? All of those questions are quite normal and so when we were ready to get another dog and we found Sadie there’s that, already, the soil was fertile to fall in love with another animal. Which we did in a heartbeat

For my wife and I, finding Sadie really saved us in a lot of ways. Our life went from a sad song to a wonderful song. So I'll never forget that about her. She's been a fabulous dog, and a very good girl.

My sincere thanks to Neil Sandell, for sharing your story and research with me. It’s been a fun virtual trip to France, and… into deep the evolutionary twilight zone,

Now I must urge you, dog lovers, to seek out Neil’s documentary,

“Entre chien en loup: How dogs began”

It's beautifully made and there’s so much to absorb and think about. I'll link to the documentary on the Oh My Dog website where you’ll also find a photo of gorgeous Sadie, and all our other episodes.

I’m Michelle Ransom-Hughes, thank you so much for listening.