Their long association with humans has led canines to be distinctively attuned to human behavior and they are able to flourish on a starch-rich diet that might be insufficient for other canid types. Dogs vary widely in shape, colours and size. Dogs perform many roles for people, such as hunting, herding, pulling loads, protection, assisting police and military, companionship and, more recently, aiding handicapped individuals. This effect on human contemporary society has given them the sobriquet "man's closest friend".
The word "domestic dog" is normally used for both domesticated and feral types. The English term dog comes from Middle English dogge, from Old English docga, a "powerful dog". The term may derive from Proto-Germanic *dukk?n, represented in Old English finger-docce ("finger-muscle"). The term also shows the familiar petname diminutive -ga also seen in frogga "frog", picga "pig", stagga "stag", wicga "beetle, worm", among others. The term dog may derive from the earliest layer of Proto-Indo-European vocabulary ultimately.In 14th-century England, hound (from Old British: hund) was the general word for all those local canines, and dog described a subtype of hound, a mixed group like the mastiff. It is believed this "dog" type was so common, it eventually became the prototype of the category "hound". By 16th hundred years, dog had end up being the general word, and hound experienced begun to send only to types used for hunting.[ The term "hound" is eventually produced from the Proto-Indo-European term *kwon-, "dog". This semantic change may be in comparison to in German, where the equivalent words Dogge and Hund placed their original meanings.A male canine is known as a dog, while a lady is named a bitch. The daddy of a litter is named the sire, and the mother is called the dam. (Midsection British bicche, from Old English bicce, finally from Old Norse bikkja) The process of labor and birth is whelping, from the Old English word hwelp; the present day English phrase "whelp" is an different term for pup. A litter refers to the multiple offspring at one labor and birth which can be called young puppies or pups from the French poup?e, "doll", which includes largely replaced the older term "whelp".Your dog is categorized as Canis lupus familiaris under the Biological Types Concept and Canis familiaris under the Evolutionary Kinds Concept.In 1758, the taxonomist Linnaeus shared in Systema Naturae a categorization of types which included the Canis varieties. Canis is a Latin word interpretation dog, and the list included the dog-like carnivores: the local dog, wolves, jackals and foxes. The dog was classified as Canis familiaris, this means "Dog-family" or the family dog. On the next webpage the wolf was saved by him as Canis lupus, this means "Dog-wolf". In 1978, an assessment aimed at reducing the amount of recognized Canis varieties suggested that "Canis dingo is now generally regarded as a distinctive feral local dog. Canis familiaris is employed for domestic pups, although taxonomically it will probably be synonymous with Canis lupus." In 1982, the first edition of Mammal Species of the planet listed Canis familiaris under Canis lupus with the comment: "Probably ancestor of and conspecific with the domestic dog, familiaris. Canis familiaris has site top priority over Canis lupus, but both were printed together in Linnaeus (1758), and Canis lupus has been universally used because of this species", which prevented classifying the wolf as the grouped family dog. The dog is currently listed among the countless other Latin-named subspecies of Canis lupus as Canis lupus familiaris.In 2003, the ICZN ruled in its Impression 2027 that if wildlife and their domesticated derivatives are regarded as one species, then the scientific name of this types is the methodical name of the outdoors dog. In 2005, the third model of Mammal Types of the planet upheld Judgment 2027 with the name Lupus and the be aware: "Includes the home dog as a subspecies, with the dingo different - manufactured variations created by domestication and selective breeding" provisionally. However, Canis familiaris is sometimes used due to an ongoing nomenclature debate because wild and domestic animals are separately recognizable entities and that the ICZN allowed users a choice as to which name they could use, and a number of accepted experts choose to use Canis familiaris internationally.