The Behavior and Evolution of Dogs

The Behavior and Evolution of Dogs is a Cognitive Science class taught by Kathryn Lord.

This course satisfies Division I requirements.

Course Description
Where did dogs come from? Did humans domesticate dogs or did dogs domesticate themselves? How different are they from wolves? In this course we will investigate the evolution of dogs and their lives with humans from a variety of perspectives including ethology, behavioral ecology, comparative psychology, cognitive psychology, evolutionary development, applied animal behavior, and conservation biology. The main text for this class will be Coppinger and Coppinger?s ?Dogs,? but the class will also include regular supplemental readings from primary literature. Students will be evaluated on participation in class discussions, a number of short written responses, a critical review of primary literature, and a final project.

Learning Goals

 * Project-based
 * Reading
 * Writing