Book Proposal
The Urban Sextipede –
Why it is ok to talk to your dog
By David Paxton and Lisa Beck
Dog stories are popular topics for books and essays. From All Creatures Great and Small
to Marley and Me, stories about the partnership between humans and animals are endlessly
fascinating. In this book, we propose that our partnership with dogs created the evolutionary
environment that made it possible to tell stories – to speak – in the first place.
H. sapiens could not have begun telling stories unless it was in a biological association
which allowed the species to survive while it was developing the specialization which is
language — especially the ability to speak in clipped, intelligible words rather than in tongues.
The vocal apparatus of H. sapiens evolved into a physical configuration that permitted
enunciation. Our tongue is a short blunt piston and our lips and teeth are the means by which
vocal ejaculations become words. Neanderthal are but one of all the other species which could
not do this. They became extinct, most probably because they were in direct competition with us,
even though they were arguably more obviously adapted to their environment.
The dropped face of H. sapiens, that makes speech possible, militated against traits such
as a keen sense of smell. It does not make evolutionary sense that such an important trait should
dwindle in importance, unless there were commensurate benefits. These benefits outweighed
disadvantages, as the evidence shows, at least for the time being. In our cousins, the Neanderthal,
change was conservative and premised on retaining faculties obviously critical to survival, such
as a highly developed sense of smell. The result, however, was a physiognomy that permitted
only poor enunciation and so set a fatal limit on their potential for organization. The Neanderthal
did not leap, hand in paw, into the future, as we did.
In many animals (say the blind mole), change can be so radical that a biological function
such as vision is lost altogether. Such an animal specializes for survival and, in doing so,
becomes a prisoner of its environment. It will be argued here that human evolution is just as
radical but different. Homo sapiens became liberated from its environment, to a certain extent,
through an unconscious sharing of survival functions with associated animals. It is suggested that
Homo sapiens and its associates co–evolved. As human capacity for organization developed, so
did the capacity for associated animals to fit into that organization. They adapted and their
progeny survived. Human organizations became evolutionary niches into which the ancestors of
other urban animals gradually fitted. These animals were not created by human beings. Over
time, they simply became. It is an urban myth that dogs were created by H. sapiens through
domestication. In many ways they became part of us and we of them, for it must be seen as
another urban myth that H. sapiens is a species standing alone. It is sensible instead to regard H.
sapiens as part of a dynamic urban complex of species that is internally cooperative and
externally competitive.
Co-evolution between dogs and humans is not a new idea, yet approaches to coevolution
focus almost exclusively on how the dog adapted to the human environment. Considerations of
how human evolution was affected by the presence of the dog are all but nonexistent. The Urban
Sextipede seeks to correct this oversight by offering a provocative theory: humans owe their
powers of speech to dogs.
Chapter 1 - Introduction
Would you die for your dog? During Hurricane Katrina, a number of people refused
rescue and died because pets were not allowed on rescue boats. Examples of the bonds between
modern humans and dogs set the stage for an exploration of how the association was formed.
PART 1: In the beginning was the Word
Chapter 2 - Out of Eden – a description of human evolution, from arboreal primates to cavedwellers. The brain, the foot, the neck as survival tools.
“Clearly, for a zebra, having the ability to imagine the approaching night would be so stressful as
to compromise its own survival. The ability to imagine would be selected against. What must
those nights long ago have been like for the australopithecine, our diminutive ancestors,
involuntarily included in an evolutionary process which involved developing a brain capable of
imagination? How desperate must have been the race to organize protective strategies, or perish!
In the dark, weapons would have been of little value. What was likely to be of much more
importance for survival was capacity for rational thought, perhaps resulting in a device as simple
as log across the mouth of a cave, which then could be defended better by hominids with
rudimentary weapons. Such simple technology would leave little trace in the archaeological
record, imperfect as it is.”
Chapter 3 - Original din: melting together
An alternative to the model whereby a wolf is tamed for human purposes relatively recently and
somehow converted into a dog, is to view the pariah as a wolf which evolved to fit the novel
ecological niche of human home bases, which became available many tens of thousands of years
ago. An appropriate candidate would be the small southern wolf.
Chapter 4 - Too brutish for words: Spitting it out
In our cousins, the Neanderthal, change was conservative and premised on retaining
faculties obviously critical to survival, such as a highly developed sense of smell. The result,
however, was a physiognomy that permitted only poor enunciation and so set a fatal limit on
their potential for organization. The Neanderthal did not leap, hand in paw, into the future, as we
did.
Chapter 5 - Cavemen think big
As the cranium expanded and turned forwards to accommodate the developing
convolutions of the brain, there would be a tendency for those Homo with flatter faces to survive
since they had better stereoscopic vision to enhance the use of tools and because their mouths
became smaller, and their bite rounder, such that the tongue was under better control, even if it
meant impacted teeth (there is likely to have been sufficient variation to permit natural selection
because gracile as well as robust forms of Homo existed). Such would not be the case with
Neanderthal, say, which apparently 'retained' a muzzle and widely spaced eyes to see around it.
Their developed sense of smell was thus probably retained. Homo sapiens does not have a
muzzle, which suggests that our ability to smell was reduced in comparison with Neanderthal.
Chapter 6 - Why it’s ok to talk to your dog
Because H. sapiens evolved in a human home base in which the evolving dog also was
present, H. sapiens could develop its natural potential for speech instead of being deleted from
the scene by natural selection because of H. sapien's lack of sensorial fitness. The senses of the
evolving dog were a safety net for the human leap into Gould's second tier of evolution.
Part 2: The Urban Sextipede
Chapter 7 - The other end of the leash: the unique psychology of the modern dog
The dog is not just a tame wolf. Dogs are unique among all other animals in their ability
to interpret human communication, and to make themselves understood – and welcomed - by
humans. This chapter reviews recent findings on dog behavior and cognition showing that dogs’
natural habitat is the human community.
The remarkable success of dogs in the human social world makes it easy to overlook the
fact that dogs inhabit a sensory world that is quite different from our own. Coevolution caused
us to “melt together” socially, but also depended on a division of labor, preserving the
remarkable perceptual abilities in the dog. Dogs literally do not see the world as we see it.
Chapter 8 - The invisible paw: How dogs affect human experience
As they were throughout human evolution, dogs remain our eyes, ears, and legs. In the
modern world, dogs are invaluable as drug-sniffers, police partners, guide and assist the disabled,
as well as the traditional roles of hunting, herding, and guarding property. The presence of a dog
helps strangers to communicate with each other, and sometimes provides a catalyst for
communication in people with autism and dementia. Dogs console the traumatized, cheer those
who are “merely” sad, and teach us to laugh and forgive. Further, dogs give their keepers a
sense of control by providing loyal affection and cheerful acceptance of the many decisions we
make for them. The unique properties of interactions with dogs lead to short-term reductions in
indicators of stress, and long-term benefits to health.
Chapter 9 - Parallel universes: sharing the future
Striding off together, independent and interdependent into the future.
How can we live better with our canine colleagues? Based on the theory of evolutionary
interdependence, we propose some practical ideas for making life easier for both halves of the
urban sextipede. Suggestions encompass public policy on open space, new initiatives for dog
breeding, and interacting with the family dog at home.