This morning’s random object from the Randomogrifier was a husky. So that’s what I drew while we talked about dogs, wolves, and what separates them. How did we make the jump from wolves circling your camp, ready to eat your baby, to curling up with a husky to keep the kid warm?
Sketch & Coffee, Live! is streamed daily at 5:30am, Texas Time, over at the YouTubes
Dogs began domestication from wolves some 30,000 years ago. There’s evidence of dogs/wolves living with humans in caves, tents, or whatever passed for shelter. The breed that came to be known as Husky was developed by the Chukchi people around 9000 years ago. Huskies were bred for speed, pulling light sleds, endurance, low food needs, and, in -70°F weather, to SLEEP WITH THE CHILDREN FOR WARMTH!
That’s not a smooth leap. You don’t just go, “Hey, let’s put the baby down next to Balto and see what happens.” No. Wolves don’t show up to cuddle. They show up to eat the baby. It makes no sense until you look at it differently, until you think maybe the wolves picked us.
Like cats did later, wolves may have domesticated themselves. They started hanging around, looking for scraps. Maybe someone in the tribe threw over some seal fat. Maybe some young hippie said, “They’re hungry too.” And maybe the elders said, “Don’t feed them, they’ll never leave.”
And maybe, one time, the adult wolves were killed for trying to eat the kids, but pups were found. That’s what Jean Auel wrote in Clan of the Cave Bear, and it tracks. The pups needed a pack, and they imprinted. That’s how you get dogs. Eliminate the ones that bite you, keep the ones that don’t. And 30,000 years later, you get a dog sleeping on the bed, stealing your butter, and shedding all over your house. Pure huskies have DNA closer to that of their ancestral wolves than any other dog breed.
The world didn’t recognize them as a real breed until 1925 when the dogs were able to get diptheria serum to Nome, Alaska, over the ice shelf in a storm. The dog Togo ran with the sled for 260 miles non stop. The dog named Fox died along the way, and Balto made the finishing miles providing the town with the much needed medication.
Even so, the AKC didn’t recognize huskies until the 1930s, and the other kennel clubs followed suit. Kennel clubs have tendency to focus on appearance and show status. For that reason, many of the AKC register Huskies aren’t capable of performing the duties they were bred for. There’s also a problem with limited genetic diversity causing health problems non-existent in the original Chukchi breed.
The Chukchi didn’t name the breed. The name Husky was shortened from Huskema, which was another term for the “Eskimo” peoples. To the Chukchi, all other dogs are weak, lazy, or soft “house dogs” or “show dogs.”
They call the Husky breed “Real Dog”.