Zitat:
Das Wedeln mit dem Schwanz bedeutet immer eine Konfliktsituation, auch beim Begrüßen, bei dem der Hund auch Freude zeigt.
Grundlage hierfür ist das große Abhängigkeitsverhältniss des Hundes zum Menschen in Hinsicht auf Futter, Unterkunft und Zuneigung.
Der Hund befindet sich im Konflikt zwischen der Befreidigung seiner Triebe (z. B. fressen) und der Ungewissheit, dies auch zu bekommen.
Hunde, die unter Gehegebedingungen leben und auf den Menschen angewiesen sind, weil er ihnen Futter bringt – wedeln zur Begrüßung mit den Schwänzen.
Hunde unter Gehegebedingungen, die sich “selbst versorgen” (sie bekommen täglich Futter – ohne, dass sie den Menschen damit in Verbindung bringen), freuen sich auch über Bezugspersonen, aber wedeln nicht bzw. kaum mit dem Schwanz.
Zitat:
In the late 1950s, a Russian geneticist called Dmitry K. Belyaev attempted to create a tame fox population.
[...]
If the cubs continued to show aggressive or evasive responses, even after significant human contact, they were discarded from the population – meaning they were made into fur coats. In each selection, less than 10% of tame individuals were used as parents of the next generation.
"As a result of such rigorous selection, the offspring exhibiting the aggressive and fear avoidance responses were eliminated from the experimental population in just two to three generations of selection," Trut wrote in a study published in 2009.
The foxes at the fox-farm were never trained to become tame. They lived in cages and had minimal contact with humans. Belyaev's aim was to create a genetically-distinct population, so he simply selected for particular behavioural traits.
"Belyaev had one main goal at the beginning of experiment: to reproduce the process of historical domestication at the experiment, during a short time," says Trut. "This goal didn't change. But during the experiment the understanding of evolutionary process changed."
[...]
"The fox farm experiment was crucial, in that it told us that domestication can happen relatively quickly in the right circumstances," he says. "The fact that in fifty generations, they were wagging their tails and barking, this is really incredible."
The key point is that the experiment offers a hint as to the stages by which domestication takes place.
"Before, we knew that dogs and wolves were descended from the same ancestor, but we didn't know how," says Hare. "What came first? The fox experiment showed that just by selecting for friendliness, all these other changes, including an increase in social skills, happened by accident."
[...]
The physical traits Belyaev and Trut found, like the floppy ears, were those you would expect in a juvenile. But the domestic foxes carried them through into adulthood, suggesting the selection process had slowed down aspects of their development.
This might have something to do with chemicals in their bodies.
Belyaev reasoned that selecting for tameability changed the mix of hormones and neurotransmitters the foxes' bodies made. He believed behavioural responses were "regulated by a fine balance between neurotransmitters and hormones at the level of the whole organism".