We love playing we dogs, right? And them with us, right? And we play a lot, and it makes us and them happy.

Now, this is the point: domestication is such a fascinating topic. That is especially true when we are foolish enough to believe that domestication relates to humans influencing the evolution of dogs and dogs affecting the evolution of humans. The topic gets particularly interesting when it comes down to playing.

What about domestication?

Dogs’ enthusiasm to play with humans may have played a crucial role in their domestication. Maybe humans too may have learned a lot about playing by having free-ranging dogs around, or wolves, in the early stage of what we call domestication.

An ancient breed of wolves-protodogs-canines likely started to roam around human settlements at a certain point in time, back in the millennia, sometime between 15000 and 40000 years ago. Somewhere in Siberia or Germany, or elsewhere, this remains unclear too. But for sure we know that something happened, and some canines and humans have begun to be more proximate to each other. And guess what? With time they interacted and played.

And then what?

Well, according to a new study published in the journal Biology Letters, play may have been a pillar in human-dog interaction, leading to the canine breeding process in more recent times. What for? For specific functions, of course, and for our convenience.

This remarkable study comes again from the extraordinary researchers at Eötvös Loránd University of Budapest, Hungary – I had the chance to collaborate with on other occasions, and colleagues at the University of Stockholm University, Sweden. They investigate whether more curious and fun-loving wolves carried these traits into the new species of domestic dog, and therefore, much later, people deliberately bred dogs with those characteristics. Previous research already has found that some wolf puppies know intrinsically how to play ball with people.

Play is so important for it can be one major factor that allowed domestication first, dog breeding later, and has been the ticket for dogs and humans to ride across time, in a parallel and shared evolution.

Cheers, and stay playful. Houf!