How Wolves Become Dogs

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There's a story scientists tell about how wolves became dogs, but it's incomplete. We think dogs evolved from an ancestral wolf to something very wolf-like that is no longer around today. Catherine says wolves became dogs because of humans, because of us. So figuring out exactly how this happened could teach us how other animals might be able to survive in a world that we're drastically changing.

Dogs were the first domesticated animal in history, emerging from wolves some 20,000 years ago. But how did wolves become dogs? To find the answer, scientists have to play with a lot of puppies.

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