And now for something completely different

Time for a bit of evolution. I’ve observed what I think is a very interesting evolutionary phenomenon while I’ve been down here in Palolem, regarding the packs of dogs that run around here so freely. There are hundreds of them here and life isn’t very easy for most of them; the ones that are considered the oldest (as in ‘she’s an old dog’) are generally no more than seven or eight.

That, of course, is a perfect situation for evolution to occur (even if it is a bit sad for the dogs). As in, surviving is difficult and there’s a lot of competition for limited resources; that means that there’s a real evolutionary pressure on the population. Those that live longer and procreate more will have more off-spring, which means that those dogs’ genes will be in more of the next generation’s dogs, which in turn means that they will get more genes into the next generation.

The interesting thing is that the environment that the dogs are competing in isn’t a completely natural one, with the unnatural aspect being us humans; specifically, the tourists that come and visit. What is so unnatural about the tourists? Well, they are one of the best sources of food available in the area.

No, they don’t eat the tourist, but rather the tourists feed them.

So why is that any different from anywhere else in the world where there are people about? Well, tourists are different in a lot of respects to people that stay in a place long term, especially in India. The thing is that the Indian people here are not great dog lover and do not take very good care of them, the tourist – on the other hand – are mainly westerners and many really like animals.

So, dogs are confronted with a group of people who can potentially feed them well, but who generally don’t stick around for a long time. The result of that is that those dogs that manage to latch on to kind foreigners frequently are more likely to survive longer (as they are better fed) which means they have more chances to have babies and (as said before) spread their genes.

So what are the things about dogs that are going to win tourists hearts? Well, in one word, cuteness. Cute dogs get taken better care of by the foreigners, so cute dogs are more likely to do well.

Of course, different people find different dogs cute and some people will feed dogs that aren’t that cute, because they feel sorry for them, but overall some dogs will be considered cuter by more people and get more food.

The result of that is, of course, that cute dogs have an evolutionary advantage over non-cute dogs. In other words, cuteness is being bred into the dogs of Palolem (and many other holiday destinations) through natural selection (there is no conscious decision by all tourists to feed specific dogs, it’s a naturally occurring phenomenon).

Over time, the dogs of Palolem will act and look cuter; until their cuteness starts to interfere with some other aspect of their survival (i.e. their ability to fight off other dogs).

I personally think that is absolutely fascinating.