Canine Mystery: How Dogs Became Man's Best Friend  Jan 25, 2013
Originally published on January 25, 2013 1:03 pm    This is
SCIENCE FRIDAY, I'm Ira Flatow. We all know the phrase a dog is
a man's best friend. But how did they become such loyal
companions? Scientists agree that dogs descended from wolves,
eventually evolving into the first domesticated animals, but
that's where the consensus ends.  Researchers have been using
archaeological records and genetic studies to tease out clues
about how dogs and humans came to live together, but they seem
to tell different stories of how it happened.  Did dogs become
domesticated 30,000 years ago, or was it a lot more recent? Did
humans adopt wolf puppies into their lives, or was it the other
way around? Did wolves simply become more tolerant of us? That's
what we'll be talking about this hour. Our number
1-800-989-8255. You can also tweet us @scifri.  Mark Derr is
author of the book "How the Dog Became the Dog: From Wolves to
Our Best Friends." He joins us from Miam