Darwin's Dogs

As I was walking the little animal (dog) today, I thought about a question that I realize has occupied my consciousness on more than one occasion: how would Darwin explain the evolution of modern day pets, particularly dogs? Darwin used terms like natural selection to explain his theory, which basically says that nature "selects" organisms better suited to surviving their local conditions. Or more comprehensively, if you have variation, differential reproduction (this is key), and heredity, you will have evolution by natural selection as an outcome. And back to simply this: nature picks out the traits that increase the chance of survival and releases the ones that do not.

So how did dogs survive, and what is their purpose for existing in our ecosystem? Now I'm not about to write a boring post about evolutionary biology (too late?), but it's an interesting question because my little dog has no survival instincts whatsoever. It's not fast enough to catch any prey or outrun its predators, or strong enough to kill anything bigger than a pigeon. It does, however, raise its leg once in a while and squirt urine in a remarkably straight line. This, however, does not count as a particularly effective survival tactic. OK, so I'm being a little facetious - the urine marks their territory, which I suppose is a warning to territorial rivals, and also allows them to remember where they have been (a lá Hansel and Gretel and their ingenious use of pebbles...). Point of fact, without humans my little dog would not survive. So how did dogs survive until humans "figured out" that they might be cute little animals to have around the house?

OK, it's late. I might start up this issue again in a little while. Then again, maybe not. Am I the only one who thinks about this?

cheers.