Reflections on the evolution of the dog

I write these lines after a long conversation with Dr. Alberto Palleroni, an expert in psychology and animal neurology at Harvard University. To give you an idea. On the day of Felix Rodríguez de la Fuente’s tragic accident on his trip to Alaska, Alberto was traveling with him in another helicopter. The dog and human being have been sharing paths for a long time. These have not always been in favor of the company, but rather of the need of both. The wolf shared the carrion that the human left of the large prey and the human shared the hunt for the small pieces hunted by the wolf. Little by little our species have adapted in a surprising way. Together we chased prey for 160 kilometers to hunt them down. Biomechanically we were practically the only ones who could be prepared. We evolve with them and thanks to them. We conquered the Arctic and the Middle East thanks to your help. Even Muhammad introduced into the Qur’an a note about the importance of the Salukis, an ancestral breed of dog without which there was no way to survive on the Great Plains. Against the low image that the dog enjoyed, they realized that they had to be taken care of and respected. The Saluki is the most evolved dog. Our survival depended on its purity. They can run at 80 kilometers per hour for about 16 kilometers which no dam was able to withstand no matter how fast it was. Over the past 200 years, our endeavor to create artificial breeds tailored solely to our contemporary needs has not been a fair deal for such an old friend. Most of the pathologies in the hip of current dog breeds is due to artificial variation of the knee angle. What is known by a companion of Alberto Palleroni, Dr. Donald B. Slocum, world-renowned leader in orthopedics and one of the fathers of sports medicine as a subspecialty of Orthopedics. One of its legacies are the well-known Slocum plates used in veterinary orthopedic surgery globally. The angle of the knee has come to vary, in relation to the ancient Saluki race, up to 30 degrees. Biomechanically that variation is what is wreaking havoc on the hips of today’s races. Hopefully we will find together, a way to redirect the deep wound we have made in the DNA of our millenary companions.

Toni Fernandez

Founder of Ortocanis