In many ways, 2021 was a year for the dogs. As the pandemic dragged into its second year, WSU research that grabbed the most media attention either provided some comfort and hope or warned of more dangers ahead.
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Man’s best friend? Not quite
Women have a dog sleep alongside, think of them as having souls By Erik Lacitis, The Seattle Times
Published: February 26, 2021, 6:00am
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It should be “woman’s best friend.”
Anthropologists at Washington State University analyzed 8,000 descriptions of dogs interacting with humans in 144 societies of all sorts from the Toraja in Indonesia to the Tiwi in Australia to the Northwest Coast people. They examined writings mostly from the late 1800s and early 1900s, although one reached back to Imperial Rome in 79 CE.
Dogs weren’t mentioned as being in the company of the elderly men of the Ainu indigenous culture in Japan, a researcher wrote in 1892. Rather, in small, tent-like structures, “the aged women of the village sleep in them and have dogs for companions,” wrote Smithsonian curator Romyn Hitchcock.