Their long association with humans has led canines to be uniquely attuned to individuals behavior and they're able to prosper over a starch-rich diet that would be insufficient for other canid species. Dogs vary in form widely, colours and size. Dogs perform many roles for folks, such as hunting, herding, pulling loads, protection, assisting police and military, companionship and, recently, aiding handicapped individuals. This affect on human society has given them the sobriquet "man's best friend".
The term "domestic dog" is normally used for both domesticated and feral varieties. The English expression dog originates from Middle English dogge, from Old English docga, a "powerful dog breed". The term may derive from Proto-Germanic *dukk?n, represented in Old English finger-docce ("finger-muscle"). The word also shows the familiar petname diminutive -ga seen in frogga "frog" also, picga "pig", stagga "stag", wicga "beetle, worm", among others. The term dog may eventually derive from the earliest layer of Proto-Indo-European vocabulary.In 14th-century England, hound (from Old English: hund) was the general word for all local canines, and dog described a subtype of hound, a combined group like the mastiff. It is believed this "dog" type was so common, it eventually became the prototype of the category "hound". Because of the 16th century, dog had end up being the general phrase, and hound possessed begun to refer only to types used for hunting.[ The word "hound" is in the end derived from the Proto-Indo-European phrase *kwon-, "dog". This semantic move might be compared to in German, where the equivalent words Dogge and Hund stored their original meanings.A male canine is known as a puppy, while a female is called a bitch. The daddy of the litter is named the sire, and the mom is called the dam. (Midsection British bicche, from Old British bicce, ultimately from Old Norse bikkja) The process of delivery is whelping, from the Old English word hwelp; the present day English word "whelp" can be an alternate term for puppy. A litter identifies the multiple offspring at one beginning that happen to be called puppy dogs or pups from the French poup?e, "doll", which includes replaced the aged term "whelp" usually.The dog is classified as Canis lupus familiaris under the Biological Types Idea and Canis familiaris under the Evolutionary Types Concept.In 1758, the taxonomist Linnaeus published in Systema Naturae a categorization of types which included the Canis kinds. Canis is a Latin expression interpretation dog, and the list included the dog-like carnivores: the local dog, wolves, jackals and foxes. The dog was classified as Canis familiaris, which means "Dog-family" or the family dog. On another web page he registered the wolf as Canis lupus, this means "Dog-wolf". In 1978, a review aimed at minimizing the amount of recognized Canis types suggested that "Canis dingo is now generally regarded as a distinctive feral home dog. Canis familiaris is used for domestic canines, although taxonomically it should oftimes be associated with Canis lupus." In 1982, the first edition of Mammal Species of the globe listed Canis familiaris under Canis lupus with the comment: "Probably ancestor of and conspecific with the domestic dog, familiaris. Canis familiaris has web page priority over Canis lupus, but both were released concurrently in Linnaeus (1758), and Canis lupus has been universally used because of this species", which averted classifying the wolf as the 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 Opinion 2027 that if wildlife and their domesticated derivatives are thought to be one species, then the scientific name of this species is the scientific name of the untamed creature. In 2005, the third edition of Mammal Species of the World upheld Thoughts and opinions 2027 with the name Lupus and the note: "Includes the domestic dog as a subspecies, with the dingo provisionally individual - unnatural variants created by domestication and selective breeding". However, Canis familiaris may also be used due to an ongoing nomenclature debate because wild and domestic animals are separately recognizable entities and that the ICZN allowed users an option as to which name they could use, and a number of internationally recognized researchers want to use Canis familiaris.