How to Tame a Fox (and Build a Dog)

April 3, 2017
Biologist Dugatkin (The Altruism Equation) and Siberian geneticist Trut, one of the lead scientists of the famous Siberian fox farm experiment, summarize one of the world’s longest ongoing studies in animal behavior in a cheerful, easy-to-read account that expounds upon the wonders of scientific achievement. In 1959, Trut and Russian geneticist Dmitri Belyaev studied the mechanisms of domestication by attempting to breed the perfect dog from scratch. They used silver foxes, close genetic cousins of wolves, and selected for tameness. Within only a few generations (an astonishingly short time by genetic measures), they began to see domestication traits in the foxes, such as wagging tails, floppy ears, piebald coloration, loyalty, and puppy behaviors lasting longer. The researchers discovered that, rather than creating new genetic mutations, changes in hormones related to tameness affected the timing for turning existing genetic traits on and off, which Belyaev called “destabilizing selection.” The authors weave other charming histories of other scientific studies and events throughout the book, including the discovery of hormones, pedigree analysis, animal communication, human evolution, and Belyaev’s travels in international scientific circles. Writing a simple, straightforward narrative suitable for lay readers, Dugatkin and Trut spin complex genetic science into a fascinating story about adorable foxes. Photos.

March 15, 2017

How did our hunter-gatherer ancestors manage to turn the fiercely predatory wolf into a sweet-natured, loyal puppy dog? While animal (and plant) domestication is considered a crucial milestone in the advancement of human civilization, little has been understood about the initial steps involved in domesticating a wild animal--those that had to occur before deliberate breeding could begin. Dugatkin (biology, Univ. of Louisville) and Trut (evolutionary genetics, Inst. of Cytology & Genetics, Novosibirsk, Siberia) recount the remarkable story of a domestication experiment, begun in the early 1950s, to see if wild silver foxes (farmed for their fur in Siberia) could be tamed--the brainchild of Russian geneticist Dimitri Belyaev. Selectively breeding the least fearful and aggressive foxes, Belyaev's research group ended up with hand-licking, tail-wagging, rub-my-belly, completely lovable fox-dogs in less than a decade. As the lead researcher of this experiment for almost 60 years and the first to rear a fox pup in her home, coauthor Trut provides unique insights into how the animals evolved and flourished over the decades. VERDICT This intriguing, well-written account of an ongoing experiment in canid domestication should delight readers interested in the origins of the human-animal bond.--Cynthia Lee Knight, Hunterdon Cty. Historical Soc., Flemington, NJ

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from February 15, 2017
Can new kinds of animals be brought into being outside of DNA tinkering and Frankensteining? Most certainly, as a long-running Russian experiment reveals.Humans have been living among domesticated animals for many thousands of years. The first to be domesticated, paleontologists have long believed, was the dog, bred from the wolf. Enter Dmitry Belyaev, a Russian geneticist who "had become fascinated by the question of how an animal as naturally averse to human contact and as potentially aggressive as a wolf had evolved over tens of thousands of years into the lovable, loyal dog." Roughly 40 years ago, as Dugatkin (Biology/Univ. of Louisville; The Altruism Equation: Seven Scientists Search for the Origins of Goodness, 2006, etc.) chronicles, Belyaev and Dugatkin's co-author, Trut, moved to a Siberian farm where foxes were bred for their fur. There, they began a far-reaching series of experiments that yielded "the perfect dog"--however, the perfect dog, or at least something like the wolf-descended dog, was a fox, its evolution from one biological form to another having occupied just a blink of an eye in evolutionary time. Their experiment, note the authors, is one of the most revealing ever conducted in the sphere of evolution and animal behavior. The narrative includes a wealth of asides on how science is conducted under totalitarian regimes--Belyaev began his career under the shadow of Stalin and the charlatan Lysenko--but is at its most fascinating when it centers on the business of how an animal is in fact tamed. What qualities would be favored? Gentleness and playfulness, to be sure, but also a certain kind of transcendental calmness ("fox pups are serenely calm when they're first born, but as they age, foxes typically become quite high-strung") and youthfulness. The science is profound, but the authors write accessibly and engagingly--and their vulpine subjects are awfully cute, too. Of compelling interest to any animal lover and especially to devotees of canids of all kinds.

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