1. Domestication
In their book The First Domestication: How Wolves and Humans Co-Evolved, Raymond Pierotti and Brandy R. Fogg point out that humans were probably originally drawn to (primal wolf-like) dogs because the animals seemed to embody important human values, such as intelligence, courage, group loyalty and co-operation for the common good.
We still don’t know why our ancestors permitted the original dog to come among them and nor do we know if domestication happened only once or on multiple occasions in different times and at different places. One thing is clear, however: domestication modified the dog in body and mind in large and small ways.
Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin thought that dogs had descended from both wolves and jackals. In The Descent of Man, Darwin surmised that domestic dogs “may have lost in wariness and suspicion, yet they have progressed in certain moral qualities, such as in affection, trustworthiness, temper and probably in general intelligence.”
Konrad Lorenz in his book Man and Dog follows Darwin in the speculation that the domestic dog had a dual origin in both wolves and jackals. We now know with certainty that dogs evolved exclusively from wolves. Close study of the dog genome has established the wolf (or rather a wolf-like creature) as the dog’s ancestral progenitor.
Dogs and wolves are so similar at the genomic level that some taxonomists have argued for a single genus of Canis Lupus, wherein dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) and wolves (Canis lupus lupus) are closely related sub-species.
Tameness vs. domestication
Darwin correctly understood that while domestication involves selecting animals for tameness, the former is a complex process involving much more than the latter. Taming is the habituation of an individual animal to human presence. And some tame animals will only tolerate a limited range of people.
Like tameness, domestication involves habituating the animal to human presence and human places, but domestication affects the species and not simply the individual. Domestication alters the genetic and morphological characteristics of a breeding population.
Hence Darwin’s observation that the domestic dog has a modified mind and body when compared to the wild wolf from which the dog has descended. And the key point about domestication, as opposed to simple taming, is that the modified traits in the animal are heritable.
“An immense amount of inherited variation”
Darwin notes in The Origin of Species that domestic dogs give evidence of “an immense amount of inherited variation. Who can believe that the Italian Greyhound, the Bloodhound, the Bull dog or Blenheim Spaniel—so unlike all wild Canidae—ever existed freely in the state of nature?”
The original dog was first selected for its tameability. Once tameness was fixed in the domestic dog genome, it became possible to select dogs for certain physical traits and behaviors. The several breeds and breed types of domestic dog were formed in this manner. As Darwin puts it, artificial selection amounted to “adaptation” of dogs “to man’s use or fancy.” In sum, domestication of the dog led to a unique mutualistic relationship between Homo sapiens and Canis lupus familiaris.
(Beth Clifton collage)
2. Selective Breeding
Darwin noted in The Origin of Species that when it comes to the selective breeding of dogs, chickens, cattle or any other domestic animal species, “No breeder doubts how strong is the tendency to inheritance: like produces like is his fundamental belief.”
Darwin knew nothing of the intricacies of genetics, but he rightly emphasized the commonsense intuitionism that has always guided selective breeding: all other things being equal, the offspring will closely resemble the parents. “Breeding true” is a matter of fixing in a breeding population desirable (phenotypic) outcomes.
The law of unintended consequence
However, Darwin also recognized the operations of the law of unintended consequences. He observed that if “man goes on selecting, and thus augmenting, any peculiarity he will almost certainly unconsciously modify other parts of the structure, owing to the mysterious laws of the correlation of growth.”
In his own way, Darwin had grasped a point well-understood today by geneticists: that when we select for a desired trait, we might also drag along in the bargain an undesired trait, as genes express in complex related ways. It’s well known that breeding for a white coat in dogs can also bring along congenital deafness. Darwin himself remarks that “hairless dogs have imperfect teeth.”
According to Darwin, when it comes to choosing among the various possibilities of canine modification, “man selects for his own good.”
But what of the dogs of violence?
Specific types of dogs are wanted for specific functions, ranging from herding to tracking, and from retrieving to providing companionship. But what of the dogs of violence, the dogs that are wanted for violent purposes: including livestock guardian types; blood sports and dog fighting types; dogs of gladiatorial combat; dogs of warfare and policing; and dogs of terror, torture and social repression?
Such dogs are domestic, but they are not always fully tamed. Such dogs can be deeply untrustworthy. It seems that selecting for aggression in dogs of violence may also have dragged along an uncertain “temper” and a tendency towards unpredictable behavior. The evidence suggests that this sort of unintended consequence is particularly evident in the breeds grouped under the pit bull type, the dog of violence that was developed for blood sports, including dog fighting.
3. Dangerous Dogs
In a recent article in USA Today entitled “Dogs are mauling and killing more People: What to do about it pits neighbor against neighbor” (June 20, 2024), reporter Cybele Mayes-Osterman observes: “More and more in recent years dogs have bitten, mauled and killed in America…In the past decade, the number of fatal dog attacks has more than doubled from an average of over 40 a year to nearly 100 after the pandemic hit, according to the Center for Disease Control.”
Merritt and Beth Clifton, editors of ANIMAL 24-7, have also noted a sharp increase in disfiguring attacks and dog bite related fatalities, now actually doubling decade by decade for five decades.
Dogs as Trojan horse?
Osterman discusses the need for compulsory liability insurance and for preventative measures like a dangerous dog registry. She is skeptical about the effectiveness of breed specific legislation in upholding public safety, and she mentions the familiar charge that BSL can be a Trojan horse for discriminating against certain human groups, including ethnic minorities, who favor controversial breeds like pit bulls.
Osterman gives short shrift to the idea that breed might well be an important causal factor in the precipitous increase of deadly canine violence. Indeed, there is good reason to believe that the growing popularity of certain breeds and breed types, leading to greater numbers of these dogs in the overall dog population, is almost certainly one of the reasons why the rate of dog bite fatalities shows an upward trend.
In recent decades, the level of pit bull ownership has exploded, and now we see more dogs of violence, including Rottweilers, Cane Corsos, Presa Canarios and Dogo Argentinos, making their way into people’s homes as would-be companion animals.
A brief history of dogs of violence will help to clarify why the increase of these breeds ought to be cause for concern.
(Beth Clifton collage)
4. Dogs of Conquest
Canis Bellicosus (the dog of violence) has a long and troubling history, stretching back to Antiquity.
In Homeric times, dogs were caught up in warfare, often accompanying armies into the field. Dogs of war were originally sentries and couriers; only later did the dog take on a combat role as a specially trained weapon of war. Dogs as combatants came into their own during the Spanish conquest of the Americas.
On his second voyage to the New World (1493-96), Christopher Columbus was the first European colonist to make use of attack dogs against the indigenous people of the Americas.
Andres Bernaldez relates in his History of the Catholic Sovereigns Don Ferdinand and Donna Isabella that when Columbus landed on the island that is today known as Cuba, his forces let loose a dog on “the Indians”; the animal “chased them and bit them and did them great damage. For a dog is the equal of ten men against the Indians.”
A deadly precedent
Columbus set a deadly precedent: dogs of violence became an integral part of the war machine that facilitated the Spanish Conquest. Bartolome de Las Casas noted in his Destruction of the Indies that the mastiff type dogs employed by the Spanish “would savage a native to death as soon as look at him, tearing him to shreds and devouring his flesh as though he were a pig. The dogs wrought havoc among the natives and were responsible for much carnage.”
Even as the Natives were reduced to (less than human) “savages” in the European imagination, the ruthless use of attack dogs became a standard feature of the European colonial project.
(Contemporary illustration.)
5. Dogs of Slavery
Canis Bellicosus played a large role in the establishment and maintenance of New World slavery. Dogs were used for tracking purposes against runaway slaves, and they also served as combatants in military raids against maroon communities in both the Caribbean islands and the American continental mainland.
In the long bloody conflict that was the Haitian Revolution (1791-1803), dogs of violence were employed by the French military in their efforts to return the rebellious Haitians back to the state of slavery. The dogs served as trackers and sentries, but also as tools of torture and terror.
A French military commander wrote to an aide-de-camp who had care of the dogs that the animals should be deliberately starved to make them more ferocious in battle. The commander told the aide: “You should give them blacks to eat.”
“The Spanish method”
The use of attack dogs against indigenous people and enslaved Africans was justified on the grounds that allegedly uncivilized non-European people were beyond the pale.
In The Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson spoke of “the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions.”
The brutality of the “savages” made it morally appropriate to use savage brutes against such people in martial conflicts.
In 1755, during the French and Indian War, Benjamin Franklin advised James Read that American military forces would do well to employ “large, strong and fierce” attack dogs, which could be set loose on the enemy. Franklin described the use of combat dogs as “the Spanish method.”
Cuban bloodhounds
Canis Bellicosus played an important role in the dehumanization of both Native Americans and Africans. In short, dogs of violence were deeply implicated in the deepening culture of racism that marked both Spanish and English colonialism.
The Cuban bloodhound was specifically developed by Spanish handlers as a colonial dog of violence. The Cuban bloodhound was also employed as a tracker and catch dog in the slave systems of both North and South America. The Cuban bloodhound was not a true scent hound. It was a mastiff type dog suited for guarding, big game hunting and man-hunting.
(Beth Clifton collage)
Descendants of the Cuban bloodhound
Merritt Clifton points out in his article Cane Corso: a pit bull by any other name that the Cuban bloodhound is “ancestral to the Presa Canario, Fila Brasiliero, Dogo Argentino, and the so-called ‘American’ pit bull terrier.”
These are the breeds that are growing in popularity in today’s dog world, and which may bear a large share of the responsibility for the alarming rise in serious dog attacks.
In the 19th century, the savage [Cuban] bloodhound was a stock image in abolitionist rhetoric.
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
The bloodhound symbolized the brutal savagery of the slave system. Harriet Beecher Stowe presents two slave catchers in Uncle Tom’s Cabin who are worried that their dogs will “damage” a runaway slave woman “if they come on her unawares.”
The men recall a time when their dogs “tore a feller half to pieces, once, down in Mobile, ‘fore we could get them off.”
Stowe wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin in response to the Fugitive Slave Bill 1850, which was popularly known as “the bloodhound bill,” since it permitted the Southern pursuit of runaway slaves into the free states of the North.
(Contemporary illustration)
“The negro hound”
The bloodhound became the “negro hound” and training negro hounds to hunt down runaway enslaved persons became a specialized profession.
Frederick Douglass remarked in a speech in London in 1845: “The bloodhound is regularly trained in the U.S. and advertisements are to be found in the Southern papers of the Union, from persons advertising themselves as bloodhound trainers, and offering to hunt down slaves at 15 dollars a piece.” The negro hound was a weapon of war, a tool of terror and an instrument of social control at one and the same time.
6. Police Dogs
Malcolm X remarked in an interview with Louis Lomax: “A hundred years ago they used to put on a white sheet and use a bloodhound against negroes. Today they have taken off the white sheet and put on police uniforms and traded the bloodhounds for police dogs, and they’re still doing the same thing.”
It’s well-known that during the Civil Rights era German Shepherds were employed by Southern police departments as a means of intimidating and terrorizing and assaulting civil rights protesters. Sadly, that horrible practice is not confined to the past.
In 2015, when Federal investigators from the Department of Justice looked into standard operating procedures in the Ferguson Police Department in Ferguson, Missouri, they found that officers appeared to “use canines not to counter a physical threat but to inflict punishment…FPD’s use of dog bites only against African-American subjects is evidence of discriminatory policing in violation of the 14th amendment and other federal laws.”
Disturbing continuity
The use of police dogs in Ferguson exclusively against African-Americans shows a disturbing continuity with the deployment of Cuban bloodhounds against African Americans in the days of slavery and segregation. It seems that dogs of violence are still integral to the system of racial oppression. Police dogs are trained to bite and hold their victims, but once the dog’s blood is up the dog can be difficult to control, and people have been seriously injured by a mauling police dog.
As is always the case with a dog of violence, the police dog’s ferocity can be wayward and dangerous, sometimes even for the handler.
7. Dogs and the Holocaust
Canis Bellicosus featured in World I and World II and in modern colonial conflicts in Kenya, Zambia and Southern Africa.
However, the most devastating use of the dog of violence in modern times took place in the context of the Nazi war machine, particularly as regards the operation of the concentration camps. German shepherds, Dobermans and other powerful breeds served as guard dogs at Dachau, Auschwitz, Buchenwald and other evil factories of mass death.
The dogs terrorized, mauled and even killed the inmates on occasion. Sometimes to fight off boredom or just to satiate bloodlust, sadistic guards encouraged their canine charges to bite and attack the inmates, especially if they were Jews. One eyewitness testified that at Maideneck the guards allowed “ravenous German shepherds” to tear apart and feast on the bodies of people who were thrown into the kennels while “still alive.”
As in the Spanish Conquest and in the system of slavery, dogs of violence in the concentration camps were involved in an endless train of unimaginable, unspeakable atrocities. Darwin noted that dogs were selectively bred to serve a range of human purposes. But even Darwin never imagined that dogs would be for guard duty at a hellish place like Auschwitz.
8. Dogs of Violence in the Contemporary dog world
In his memoir, Twelve Years a Slave (1853), Solomon Northup relates that it was a common practice in Louisiana for slave catchers to make use of “a kind of bloodhound” that was savage and relentless. These dogs will “attack a negro, at their master’s bidding, and cling to him as the common bulldog will cling to a four-footed animal.”
The gripping dog of our day is the pit bull, a breed type descended from the old-time bull baiting dogs. The history of dogs of violence as blood sports animals is a depressing testament to human depravity and the willful abuse of domestic canines and other species.
Blood sports dogs of the Molossus variety fought in gladiatorial contests with both human beings and animals in the Roman colosseum. Later in the Early modern period, fighting dogs were matched against bulls and bears.
In the 15th century, dog fighting came into its own as a species of industry and a form of entertainment. To enhance the spectacle of two dogs fighting, “bull and terrier” mixes (the prototypes of the pit bull) were specifically developed for this heinous purpose.
Mainstreaming
There was a time when pit bull ownership was largely restricted to the dog fighting world. But in recent decades, pit bull fanciers (who are not dog fighters) have attempted to mainstream pit bull type dogs as ordinary household pets. The experiment has been nothing short of disastrous. Pit bull type dogs are by far the leading canine killers of humans and their pets, including dogs and cats.
Darwin noted in The Origin of Species, “our civilized dogs require to be taught not to attack poultry, sheep and pigs”—and one can also add human beings to the list of prohibited prey.
However, Darwin recognized that training wasn’t always successful in convincing individual dogs to leave certain animals alone. The dogs which failed to heed the lesson might be “beaten; and if not cured, they are then destroyed.”
“A degree of selection”
Culling the intractable aggressive dogs represents “a degree of selection,” since their genes are eliminated from the breeding pool. In this way, we achieve what Darwin called “civilizing by inheritance [in] our dogs.”
But if a breed was conceived for violent purposes, civilizing the individual members becomes so much harder, because the original selection (creating the breed) emphasized aggression and the capacity for violence rather than biddability and gentleness.
Dogs of violence pose an inherent problem for society when attempts are made to keep them as ordinary companion animals. It may well be that we are placing such dogs in situations where they are bound to fail, given their specific genomic character.
“Certain moral qualities”
Darwin thought that the domestication of the dog imparted “certain moral qualities” to this remarkable animal. But the creation of dogs of violence has also given some dogs a deeply problematic behavioral conformation, wherein some individuals are so dangerous they must be regarded as only semi-domesticated.
Increasingly, in contemporary American society, we read of dogs killing children of all ages, as well as senior citizens and full-grown adults.
This disturbing trend represents a genuine public safety crisis and yet there are still many Americans who believe that all breeds are created equal, and that, in the last analysis, a dog is just a dog, whether that dog is a Cane Corso or a Yorkshire Terrier. If only that were true! However, breed matters; it matters a lot.
Dogs reflect the various sides of the human psyche. The best part of us is embodied in a seeing eye dog or a search and rescue dog.
The worst parts of us are made manifest in the dogs of violence. When you think of a pit bull killing another dog just for the fun of it, you realize that this wayward breed of violence is just another variant on the mindless and pointless human violence that is slowly but surely wrecking our world.
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I’m deeply saddened by the fact that we were able to domesticate ANY animals. It was all done for our own selfish reasons and thus we created a world of unspeakable cruelty for them.
Dogs of “terror, torture, and social repression.”
Does anyone still not know this?
Tragically, it seems many do, including many who are directly to blame for refusing to pass laws protecting everyone else from these truly terrible weapons.
Sharing with gratitude.