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Mutual Changlings

Introduction:

Evolution occurs due to changes in the environment such as the introduction of new

species of organisms or the development of a relationship between two species which

could lead to a symbiotic relationship where both species evolve together. This is called

co-evolution or in other words, as one species changes, the other species will also in

order to adapt. There are a diverse amount of examples of co-evolution between many

different species; however, the most interesting, in my opinion, and well known co-

evolutionary affiliation is through the relationship between dogs and humans. Australian

Aborigines once said dogs make us human which could be literally true, and vice

versa. An argument backed by Edward R.B. McCabe in his 2009 presidential addressfor the Evolution, Co-evolution, and the American Society of Human Genetics

summarizes that dogs and humans coevolved. As dogs evolved from wolves, they

changed genetically. Humans showed changes at approximately the same time that are

similar to those seen in domesticated animals. Briefly, as Mark Derr, a popular

American author and journalist noted for his books on dogs, likes to say, when dogs and

humans met, they immediately began walking down the same path. Although it is true

that the coevolution of dogs and humans involved more the dogs evolving genetically

and phenotypically, over a course of centuries humans have deeply interwove dogs into

their culture and economy. During his recent lecture during the UCLA Center for

Society and Genetics: Dog + Human Co-Evolution program, Derr retold an old Native

American folktale of the dog children. To paraphrase the story, there had once a dog

who could turn into a man. One night, he lay with a girl and months later she gave birth

to eleven pups, five male and six female. Now, these pups akin to their father could

change into human children also. One night when they had removed their canine skins

and were dancing and singing around the fire, their mother tossed all of their skins into

the fire save for one. Thus, ten of the pups remained human children and one remained

as a dog. Even though this would be an interesting explanation for the co-evolution

between humans and dogs, in reality, this partnership probably has been evolving over

millions of years. An example of one of the co-evolutionary benefits dogs provide

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humans is a more distinguished sense of smell, which the Dog Nose Knows project

allowed humans to experience via a clever card game.

The Umwelt of Dogs:

On February 2011, UCLAs Institue for Society and Genetics held a workshop

beautifully demonstrating the different perceptual worlds (or umwelt) of dogs and

humans. The Dog Nose Knows (DKN) project was conceptualized by the UCLA

DesignMedia Arts Professor Victoria Vesna and Columbia neuroscientist Siddharth

Ramakrishnan and was designed by Adeline Said Drucker. Drucker created a sniffing

booth game that allowed players to become canine as they experienced real aspects of

a dogs life (i.e. obedience, territorialism, and social hierarchy) by using their nose to

sniff out hazardous scents, urinate on spots to mark them as territory, and challengeother players to duels, also known as rock-paper-scissor mini-matches. The DKN

project creates the scent-based world of a dog for humans to experience. Close your

eyes and imagine, said Columbia University, New York dog-cognition researcher,

Alexandra Horowitz, imagine the scent-based world of a doglook around and imagine

that everything you see has its own individual scent. And not just each object different

parts of the same object may hold different types of information. (Reference). For

instance, picture a flower, where each petal has a different scent. Each scent tells the

dog which insects it has been visited by, which individuals have touched it, and so on.

The dogs nose even allows for the dog to understand the passage of time by the

change in strength and character of the scent. One recent study, from 2005, showed

that dogs may be able to detect subtle differences in odor from one footstep to the next

as they follow a humans scent trail (Hepper & Wells). The DKN project offers humans a

glimpse into the highly detailed world of a dog, revealing the dogs acute sense of smell

that benefits humans in the human-canine co-evolutionary relationship.

Dogs Primary Sense:

They havent got no noses,

The fallen sons of Eve;

Even the smell of roses

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Is not what they supposes;

But more than mind discloses

And more than men believe.

-- from The Song of the Quoodle, G.K. Chesterton

Humans are predominantly visual creatures with their short noses, the cone and rod

receptors in the retina of their eyes that allow them to see in both color and black/white

vision, and the highly developed complexity of their brains that allow them to analyze

distance, depth, shape, texture, etc. Dogs, on the other hand, experience much of their

world through their nose. Although we are still not able to fully understand exactly how

they experience the world around us (Ramakrishnan), examination of the large surface

area of the canine nasal passages lends higher efficacy in heat, moisture, and odor

transfer, allowing for higher sensitivity to smell compared to humans. In addition,

accordion-like passages inside the dogs head provides more time for the odor to be

computed (identified); note that this phenomenon also allows for some dogs to track or

find objects or people. In a task called the ageing crime scene identification

(Ramakrishnan), dogs were asked to identify certain people after varying lengths of

time. Correct identification occurred in up to sixty percent success rates for eight-week-

old scents. In some cases, researchers even used seven-year-old scents that also lead

to positive identification. Dogs have 220 million olfactory receptors in their nose versus

the five million in humans; thus, making their smell about a thousand times better than

humans. Also, dogs noses function quite differently from our own. When we inhale, we

smell and breath through the same airways within our nose, however when dogs inhale,

a fold of tissue just inside their nostril helps to separate their olfaction and respiration

leading to a higher concentration of odor in the nasal passages. Since dogs can wiggle

their noses independently and that the reach of each of their nostrils is smaller than thedistance between the nostrils they can decide which nostril an odor arrived in. This then

allows them to locate the source of the smell.

In conjunction to the above, dogs also have a secondary olfactory capability made

possible by their vomeronasal organ, Jacobsons organ, is located in the bottom of a

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dogs nasal passage. This particular organ picks up pheromones, the chemical unique

to each animal species that advertises mating readiness and other sex-related details,

and other scents. Scents are a very integral piece of information in memories,

relationships (such as our human-dog co-evolution), and life in general. For instance:

Smell and memory have a strong link. In two synapses, one triggers a memory

that was stored in the subconscious. We breath up to 24,000 times per day; we

move 12.7 meters of air. With every breath, we inhale smell molecules

information about our surroundings. Even when we sleep, we smell. Our

kidneys smell, our skin smells (Tolaas).

Obviously, the sense of smell is an important part of our daily lives. Sissel Tolaas,

scent curator, researcher, and professional provocateur (NOWNESS) currentlyexplores the aromatic potential of bacteria in her ongoing investigation into the most

mysterious and evocative of our senses. She believes in both enhancing and

manipulating our personal perfumes and that the scents of the future will evolve from

present scents which are too much caught up in a perfume craze. Since she became

immersed in the study and research of scents, Tolaas has created an archive of over

7,000 smells including the smell of her daughter at different ages, animal feces,

aromatic socks, and so on. Using her discoveries and knowledge on the complexities of

smells, she has worked on projects such as educating children about pollution, a

conceptual fragrance project with leading fashion photographer Nick Knight, and using

scent aides in the recollection of traumatic memories in patients undergoing therapy.

Tolaas is trying to create awareness about the essential part scents play in our

livelihoods.

The Working Dog:

Through their highly evolved sense of smell, dogs have helped humans with hunting,

keeping vermin and pests away, serving the military and police, assisting the disabled,

finding injured people in natural accidents, and provided companionship. Dogs and

humans have partnered in order to achieve harrowing feats. Dogs are used to detect

landmines in war zones, truffles, track game and criminalsfind humans trapped under

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snow or landslides and cadavers buried below the surface (Dog Nose Knows). One

such dog-human partnership occurred between former Secret Service agent Ed

Hawkinson and his explosive-sniffing dogs. Hawkinson trained his dogs to protect the

President and presently he trains Labradors to detect weapons in schools. Search and

rescue (SAR) dogs have been widely used and even written about as in Nora Roberts

lovely novel called The Search. Search and rescue dogs are trained to search out the

odor given off by humans trapped beneath collapsed structures of natural debris. The

dog barks at the site to alert their handlers where the victim lies and, depending on the

reaction of the dogs, handlers can understand even from a distance whether the victim

is alive or dead, or even whether the victim is uninjured or severely injured. The hours of

training that dedicated handlers and hardworking dogs undergo when becoming a SAR

team creates an extremely close bond between handler and dog, a unique and powerfulexample of co-evolution.

The co-evolution between dogs and humans provide for both the comfort and prosperity

of each. While dogs provide humans with an exceptional sense of smell for rescue

endeavors, pest control, safety, and companionship, humans have enhanced the social

support, communication, and socialization skills of dogs. So far, both seem to have

benefited from their mutual relationship and both have changed genetically,

phenotipically, and culturally to accommodate and advance the survival of the other

species. As it is often said, dogs can be a humans best friend. Hopefully humans are

also dogs faithful allies.

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