In Taming Dogs, Humans May Have Sought a Meal

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The dog has so many fine qualities it is hard to know which it was prized and bred for by the early people who first domesticated its noble ancestor, the wolf. Was it the dog’s valor in the hunt, perhaps, or its role as night watchman, or its strength in pulling a sled, or its companionable warmth on cold nights?

A new study of dogs worldwide, the largest of its kind, suggests a different answer, one that any dog owner is bound to find repulsive: wolves may have first been domesticated for their meat. That is the proposal of a team of geneticists led by Peter Savolainen of the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/08/science/08dogs.html?th&emc=th