He is the ideal companion in the home, friend of children, companion in life and play, loyal guardian, faithful among the faithful… But where does he come from? And why has it so easily established itself in our habitats? A surprising and instructive work, Animals in History (Tallandier), looks back on his incredible saga in the different civilizations, which have in turn used, raised and even deified…

It all begins around 30,000 BC, with the separation between wolves and dogs and the appearance of subspecies, followed by gradual domestication around 12,000 BC, probably in Eurasia. During this period, recalls the historian Robert Delort, man was not yet a sedentary breeder, but a hunter who had to survive and who found in this animal an ideal hunting companion.

The wild beast is used to hunting in packs, it will gradually identify the man as the chief of the clan. How ? We are reduced to hypotheses: probably by the breeding of young who will attach themselves to the one who feeds and raises them, then with crosses with bitches and other subspecies…

With the sedentarization of the tribes, the dog takes on all its importance: to the hunt is added the guard of the camp, the herd, but also the war and the line – it can be used to pull small loads. The dog is also part of the family diet, a slaughter animal consumed in Neolithic, pre-Columbian and Chinese civilizations, for example. The fur is used to make hats, the skin ends up in gloves, the hair in mattresses and the bones and tendons are used to make glue…

It was the time when crossbreeding and the first breeds were born, traces of which can still be found in ancient civilizations, such as the Mastiff of Babylon, trained for hunting and war, which probably comes from India or Tibet, explains Robert Delort.

But the dog has not always enjoyed a good image, especially in the Judeo-Christian civilization. In the Bible, the author recalls, he is an impure, despicable, violent animal, devourer of rubbish, eater of corpses… And the West has long designated him as a symbol of evil and a vector of disease – during epidemics of rabies, stray dogs are regularly shot and massacred during great hunts.

Their fame eventually imposed itself thanks to the elite, who used it for war and hunting, such as the Vikings or the Franks, some warriors being buried with their best beasts. Training then becomes a real art, entrusted to specialists, without forgetting a targeted diet, with in particular red meat for game dogs. “Gaston Fébus advised, in the 14th century, two meals a day, a custom still in use for the dogs of Louis XV, which received 2.50 pounds of bread a day (more than 3,000 calories)”, specifies the historian Robert Delort .

Pointers are reserved for tracking, barkers and hounds for tracking, mastiffs for big game and basset hounds for snooping in burrows… But it was not until the 19th century that breeds suddenly multiplied, thanks at the first dog shows in England and France – nearly 200 different species already recorded before 1900.

They then enter into competition with cats, which begin to invite themselves into the intimacy of homes, following the example of Louis XV, a great lover of hunting, but who also pampered a magnificent black Persian at Versailles. The rivalry between these cuddly beasts was just beginning…