Reddit reviews Domesticated: Evolution in a Man-Made World

There's quite a few books on zooarchaeology and paleoarch that you might find useful.

Starting off, there's more of a trade-appeal book that might lack more academic, research upmh but should get the overall job done - Domesticated: Evolution in a Man-Made World by Richard Francis.

However, more in the same vein but seems to be a bit more researched is Dogs: Their Fossil Relatives and Evolutionary History by a two experts in the field who have spent almost three decades researching canine evolution. Rather than link wolves to domestic dogs, it traces back for the common ancestor through genetics and fossilized remains.

Then I suggest Dogs: History, Myth, Art, if only because it's pretty and I read it over a break once. Has a lot of illustrations and material evidence of humans depicting dogs throughout the ages. Just kind of fun and relevant.

Now if you want academic papers edited into one volume, there's Dogs and People in Social, Working, Economic or Symbolic Interaction but that doesn't just look at the evolution of dogs through genetics like the first two. Rather, it examines the social place dogs have in human society, and how those roles have shifted depending on culture, location, time, and religious influences. In the same vein as Dogs (above) but not as fun? Definitely more dense and I've only read a few of the selected papers for reference.

Lastly, definitely more broad and applicable to more animals than JUST dogs, there's Care or Neglect? that seems just to be archaeological research into how people cared for animals, nursing them through diseases and injuries. It predominantly features dogs (and horses) though because of their importance to humans.

Steady reading, hope this helps that novel!

Edit: Oh! And if you want even more reads, I know there's quite a bit in Egyptology fields about animal care and remains, some of which focus on dogs and others more on myths. Not quite evolutionary track, like you seem to be asking for, but still of fringe relevance.

Unfortunately so. It's also unfortunate that we domesticated the species to the point where the Holstein cow can't even survive on its own, without us. Or any of the toy dogs. Actually, a lot of animals would die without us, we've bred them to the point where they're completely dependent on us.

While eating meat is terrible, we've already screwed over so many species its almost beyond belief. Even the dogs of 100 years ago were a lot better off, because we've been inbreeding them like crazy. Dogs didn't used to get all the health problems they do today.

Humans are smart, but we can also be terrible creatures.

Domesticated