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Dogs and More Dogs
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Program Overview
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NOVA presents the story of dogs and how they evolved into the most
diverse mammals on the planet.
The program:
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discusses the evolution and remarkable diversity of dogs.
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notes that there are currently more than 400 different breeds of
dogs worldwide.
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relates two competing theories about how dogs were domesticated:
Stone Age humans adopted and selectively bred wolves for
tameness; wolves essentially "chose" domestication when they
began to forage for food near prehistoric dumps. There, tameness
was an advantage.
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considers why dogs have tails that stick up, droopy ears, and
other traits that are not found in the wolf gene pool.
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recounts an experiment in which foxes bred for tameness produced
dog-like traits, leading to speculation that the new traits were
due to different levels of hormones created as a byproduct of
tameness.
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explores how dominance hierarchies in wolf society have
contributed to making dogs well suited to be pets.
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suggests that dogs specialized in specific
behaviors—hunting, tracking, pointing,
retrieving—and that over thousands of years humans used
food to reward the dogs best at these behaviors. These
better-fed dogs then had an improved chance at surviving and
passing on their genes.
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proposes a theory that the diversity found in dogs is due to
subtle changes in the regulatory DNA that instructs when a gene
turns on and off.
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suggests that dogs' remarkable ability to adapt to different
environments is due to an extended critical period of social
development.
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reviews the problem of genetic diseases due to extensive
inbreeding.
Taping Rights: Can be used up to one year after the program
is taped off the air.
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