Saudi Arabia and Israel may not have formal diplomatic relations today, but some 9,000 years ago there was evidently an open border policy — at least for Israel’s national breed, the Canaan dog.
Hundreds of massive petroglyphs were recently found on huge ruddy rocks in Saudi Arabia’s arid Shuwaymis and Jubbah regions that depict what appear to be Canaan dogs. The earliest depictions of dogs in the archaeological record, they show detailed snapshots of the canines — sometimes leashed — in vivid hunting scenes.
"Complex hunting strategies?” wondered Shiboleth, the author of “The Israel Canaan Dog,” quoting the recent study in an email to The Times of Israel this week. “I don’t think they had any idea of complex dog training. [The hunters] made use of the natural instincts of the dogs to hunt, and turned them loose to hunt and catch game or to track and find game, and they followed.”
Shiboleth concurred that the use of leashes would have increased the hunters’ control over their four-legged hunting friends.
“Dogs are not robots, they are dogs. Just as you can’t depend on a small child to always listen to what you tell him, the same is true of a dog, and if you want to keep him from interfering at some point in the hunt or whatever, you would keep him leashed,” she wrote.
All of the hundreds of etched dogs found in the two Saudi sites, write the study’s authors, “display characteristic pricked ears, short snouts, deeply-angled chests, and a curled tail, appearing to be of the same ‘type.'” … We suggest these canids bear a close resemblance to the modern Canaan dog,” write the authors.
In previous conversations with The Times of Israel, Shiboleth has described the Canaan breed as being more in a partnership with humans, rather than in a typical master-servant relationship.
“Put it this way: If you go to the edge of a cliff with a German shepherd and tell it to jump, it’ll jump. If you go to the edge of a cliff with a Canaan dog and tell it to jump, it’ll turn to you and say, ‘You first,'” she said.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/were-israels-canaan-dogs-hunting-mans-best-friends-9000-years-ago/
Gallery of the ancient dog
The Canaan dog has changed little since the time of Moses and Jesus, but nowadays few remain in the wild because of rabies eradication programs, loss of habitat and crossbreeding.
Between 2,000 and 3,000 Canaan dogs are living in households across the world, but only a few hundred subsist in Israel's wilderness.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/life...raeli-dogs/2012/03/27/gIQAe2A7eS_gallery.html
Extended history of the Canaan dog by the American Kennel Club
"One day in 1938, soon after Nazi Germany annexed Austria, Adolf Hitler sent a car to his hometown of Linz to pick up Rudolphina and Rudolph Menzel.
The Jewish couple – a psychologist and physician, respectively, who were also internationally known dog trainers – knew what their destination would be if they complied.
It would not be a concentration camp, the all-too-final fate of so many of their fellow Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe. Instead, it would be a Germany Army camp, where the Menzels would move into a luxury cabin designed for military officers, and join the senior staff to study and train war dogs – the same dogs that would be used to hunt down and help exterminate people like themselves.
With the help of a senior member of the S.S. who was also a family friend, the Menzels escaped to safety across the border with a few dogs in tow. They boarded a ship, and on the eve of Rosh Hashanah reached Palestine.
There, they began the work of rebuilding a homeland for the Jewish people. And in the process, Dr. Rudolphina Menzel gave them back something that they did not even know they were missing: a hardy, desert-dwelling canine that she named the Canaan Dog."
https://www.akc.org/expert-advice/dog-breeds/canaan-dog-history-behind-israels-native-dogs/
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