The Forever Dog — Dog breeds were created by human beings. The village dog created itself
While a postdoc at Cornell University a few years ago, Adam Boyko became curious about the little-studied village vagrants. Though dogs were first domesticated 20,000 to 15,000 years ago, most breeds go back only a few hundred years.
Perhaps village dog DNA might shed light on the long, early history of domestication, when canines were hanging around humans yet not under our domain. But how to get samples?As it happened, around the same time Boyko’s brother Ryan had married, and he and wife Corin were looking for a cheap honeymoon off the beaten track. The three Boykos decided to merge their two quests.
Adam — now at Cornell’s College of Veterinary Medicine — obtained a grant, then enlisted Ryan and Corin to spend their honeymoon traveling around Egypt, Uganda, and Namibia, befriending villagers and local vets.










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