Great-Grand-Pup?

Dogs have been getting belly rubs from humans for centuries. But when did they make the switch from wild canines to domesticated pets?

An international research team says the bond between people and pups goes back at least 15,800 years. The team recently announced that it had found evidence of a dog that old. The animal lived alongside humans in what is now Türkiye (formerly Turkey). The pup lived about 5,000 years earlier than the previously known oldest dog.

The experts studied genetic material from the bones of several ancient dogs from sites across Europe and Asia. The Türkiye pup lived centuries before the others.

Even though the dogs lived far apart, their genetic material was similar. Experts say that shows they were closely related.

How did that happen? Early human societies likely gifted dogs to each other, says British scientist Greger Larson, who worked on the study. 

The findings also suggest the Türkiye pup wasn’t the very first dog. “We still don’t know where and when the first dogs appeared,” Larson says. “But we’re hoping the answers . . . reveal themselves soon.”

—Brooke Ross