Our Oldest Companions: The Story of the First Dogs

By Pat Shipman

ISBN: 9780674971936

Pat Shipman’s Our Oldest Companions: The Story of the First Dogs is a delightful pre- or post-holiday read that digs into the history of the earliest relationships between humans and dogs. Shipman, an anthropologist by training, works to unravel a fairly convoluted evolutionary narrative that has been problematically oversimplified for centuries.

She acknowledges the predominantly Eurocentric influences on the generally accepted understanding of how our canine companions came to be “domesticated,” and sets out to break that down, starting with the issue of the word “domesticated.” Shipman declares in the preface that she does not like the word because it is used both too broadly and too narrowly, which results in an inaccurate general understanding of what the term truly means. “There is also a widespread assumption that domestication benefited humans but not the other species that were our partners in this endeavor—and that belief is wrong, too,” she claims.

Shipman cites the zebra as an example of an animal that was targeted for domestication—and given the domestication of the horse and the donkey, one might suspect successfully—which was in fact a failure. Despite photographic evidence of zebras leading carriages or with saddles, the historical record shows that they regularly rebelled—kicking any vehicle of transport attached to them to pieces, bucking under a saddle, and biting their so-called domesticators with great frequency. Dogs, like any animals that have been domesticated, have made an active choice to cooperate in the process with their human partners, Shipman explains. It is with this logical assumption in hand that Shipman digs in.

She starts with a chapter titled “Before Dogs,” where she delves into the most well-known ancestor of the modern dog—the wolf. The main point Shipman hammers home is that wolves are not dogs, and vice versa. There are distinct biological and behavioral differences, and the oversimplified narrative that modern dogs are simply descendants of domesticated wolves is one Shipman works to replace with a more reasonable and well-explained theory of modern dog domestication in the following chapters.

The next few chapters have question-based titles: “Why a Dog? And Why a Human?”, “What is Dogginess?”, “One Place or Two?”, “What is Domestication?”, and “Where Did the First Dog Come From?” In each of these chapters, Shipman concisely and concretely answers the titular question, laying the groundwork for the foundational knowledge the reader will need to better understand future chapters as they dive even deeper into the development of the relationship between humans and dogs. You’ll have to pick up the book to find out the true history of the domesticated dog for yourself.

Our Oldest Companions is decidedly well-written and engaging. Shipman does an excellent job writing such that any reader with little or no prior knowledge or understanding of the subject—or any related subjects—should be able to easily comprehend her work. Whether you are a dog-lover or a casual anthropology enthusiast, Our Oldest Companions is sure to be a pleasant read.

Jeanette S. Ferrara, MFA