Dogs! Sara and Maria delve into canine prehistory, discuss dogs as pets, dogs as food, dogs as working animals and more. Maria's deepest fear is revealed.

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Correction — the man who ran poodles in the Iditarod in the 1980s was named John Suter, not Sutton.

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Wikipedia 2025. “Domestication of the dog.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestication_of_the_dog and its references

Range et al., 2019. “Wolves lead and dogs follow, but they both cooperate with humans.” https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-40468-y

Marshall-Pescini et al., 2017. “Importance of a species’ socioecology: wolves outperform dogs in a conspecific cooperation task.” https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1709027114

Stingray 2023. “Domestic dog gene causes black-coated wolves, gives competitive advantage.” https://buckrail.com/domestic-dog-gene-causes-black-coated-wolves-gives-competitive-advantage/

Yamnuska Wolfdog Sanctuary 2025. https://www.yamnuskawolfdogsanctuary.com/

Lahtinen et al., 2021. “Excess protein enabled dog domestication during severe Ice Age winters.” https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-78214-4

Janssens et al., 2018. “A new look at an old dog: Bonn-Oberkassel reconsidered.” https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0305440318300049

Grimm 2017. “These may be the world's first images of dogs—and they're wearing leashes.” https://www.science.org/content/article/these-may-be-world-s-first-images-dogs-and-they-re-wearing-leashes

Fedje et al., 2021. “Karst caves in Haida Gwaii: archaeology and palaeontology at the Pleistocene-Holocene transition.” https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0277379121004285

Range and Marshall-Pescini 2022. "Comparing wolves and dogs: current status and implications for human ‘self-domestication’.” https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364661322000183

Cook et al., 2016. "Awake canine fMRI predicts dogs' preference for praise vs food.” https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27521302/

Axelsson et al., 2013. "The genomic signature of dog domestication reveals adaptation to a starch-rich diet.” https://www.nature.com/articles/nature11837

Vonholdt et al., 2017. "Structural variants in genes associated with human Williams-Beuren syndrome underlie stereotypical hypersociability in domestic dogs.” https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.1700398

Guo et al., 2009. "Left gaze bias in humans, rhesus monkeys and domestic dogs.” https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10071-008-0199-3

Waller et al., 2013. “Paedomorphic facial expressions give dogs a selective advantage.” https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0082686

Kiviranta et al., 2021. “Persistent fontanelles in chihuahuas. Part I. Distribution and clinical relevance.” https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jvim.16151

Jasiński 2020. “Dog in ancient Rome.” https://imperiumromanum.pl/en/article/dog-in-ancient-rome/

MacKinnon and Belanger 2006. “In sickness and in health: care for an arthritic Maltese dog from the Roman cemetery of Yasmina, Carthage, Tunisia.” https://books.google.ca/books?hl=en&lr=&id=8u4mDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA38&ots=y_uvJo2FEZ&sig=e2Aa9ET8ycDWaJbwutWFjS7GwcQ&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false

Johnston 2019. “The world of medieval dogs.” https://www.historytoday.com/miscellanies/world-medieval-dogdom

Wikipedia 2025. Guinefort. https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guinefort

Watson and Coombe 2019. "How the Victorians engineered the dog breeds we love today." https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-04-18/history-of-modern-dog-breeds-invented-in-victorian-era/11019320

Walsh 1878. “Dogs of the British Islands.” https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/78797#page/7/mode/1up

Gorvett et al., 2021. “The eccentric dog breeds that vanished.” https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20211105-the-bizarre-dog-breeds-time-forgot

Wikipedia 2025. Chiengora. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiengora

Coren 2002. “The pawprints of history: dogs and the course of human events.” https://books.google.ca/books?id=ndYgity6bNwC&pg=PT246&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=church&f=false pp. 246-247

Wikipedia 2025. “Hawaiian poi dog.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaiian_Poi_Dog

Wikipedia 2025. “Dog meat.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_meat

BBC 2016. “Yulin dog meat festival begins in China amid widespread criticism.” https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-36583400

H.R.6720 — 115th Congress (2017-2018). “Dog and cat meat trade prohibition act of 2018.” https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/6720

Pitulko and Kasparov 2017. “Archaeological dogs from the Early Holocene Zhokhov site in the Easter Siberian Arctic.” https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2352409X16303157

Berington and Berington 2025. “All about the dogs. Frequently asked questions.” https://www.seeingdoublesleddogracing.com/dog-faqs.html

Reamer 2022. “Here’s what happened to John Suter, the musher who rand poodles in the Iditarod.” https://www.adn.com/outdoors-adventure/iditarod/2022/03/06/heres-what-happened-to-john-suter-the-musher-who-ran-poodles-in-the-iditarod/

Wikipedia 2025. “Pekingese.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pekingese

Stoeckel et al., 2014. “Patterns of brain activation when mothers view their own child and dog: an fMRI study.” https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0107205

Wikipedia 2025. “Dogs in warfare.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogs_in_warfare

Williamson 2019. “Dogs of the conquistadors.” https://warhistory.org/@msw/article/dogs-of-the-conquistadors

Reeve et al., 2021. “Dog owners’ survey reveals medical alert dogs can alert to multiple conditions and multiple people.” https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0249191

Nagasawa et al., 2015. "Oxytocin-gaze positive loop and the coevolution of human-dog bonds.” https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1261022

Kaminski et al., 2017. "Human attention affects facial expressions in domestic dogs." https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-12781-x

Ben-Aderet et al., 2017. "Dog-directed speech: why do we use it and do dogs pay attention to it?" https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2016.2429

Mood 2019. “Remembering Chaser, the ‘smartest dog in the world.’” https://www.akc.org/expert-advice/news/remembering-chaser-the-smartest-dog-in-the-world/

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Music used in this episode: Nashville Vibes by Andy Warner https://tunetank.com/track/6477-nashville-vibes/