Last night we were switching through channels and came across National Geographic’s newest documentary “And Man Created Dog”. This was a great documentation of the journey of dogs from wolf to domesticated dog through the last 100,000 years. Doing what only National Geographic can, the film brought historical events of man and genetic facts of the dog together to show how man’s (and women’s ) need for companionship, hunting assistant, herder, and warrior have brought the dog to our side. The film also addressed man’s need to have a protector and his ability to systematically select dogs that fit his needs by keeping those dogs that were more docile and also had those characteristics valuable for the needs of man. Two sequences that were fun and exciting to watch were the clips of the dog herders (Great Pyrenees and Border Collies) that enjoyed living with the livestock even more than living with the ranch hands. It was wonderful to see them doing the jobs they were bread to do and to learn of their genetic relationship to the wolf. Likewise the film highlighted man’s need for working dogs that assisted in water rescue. The relationship of the wolf in its tenacious ability to pursue its prey into the water has been selected into the hunter dogs like the retrievers and the Newfoundland (oh yea!). The film showed an Italian water rescue group that used owners and their Newfs to rescue people in the water, but the best part was the clip of the training and the testing of the rescue pairs (owners and Newfs). They showed the sequence of training all the way to the final test of jumping out of helicopters. Yes, the Newfs jumped out of helicopters after their owners into water to assist in the rescue of water victims! It was raining Newfs. If you get a chance to see this documentary do see it. It was fun and well done with clips of many breeds and very informative. As you can see by the picture, Beeks loved it as well. Next showing is on NATGO at 10:00 AM on the 15th (tomorrow).
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