Peer-Reviewed Papers on Dog Ethology

Taking a step away from the articles, what caused our ancestors to select the wolves/wolf-like canines with neotenous features? I can understand that the canines that submitted to people or were friendly were desirable, but why the neotenous features? Or did neoteny and friendliness in canines go hand-in-hand genetically? I know we think of neoteny in dogs as "cute" - but was that really a factor in early domestication of canines...

I know we think of neoteny in dogs as "cute" - but was that really a factor in early domestication of canines...

 
It probably had something to do with it. The beast is friendly and seems to scare away other critters that we don't want. It would be interesting to note if the neoteny is part and parcel of being attuned to human gestures. Did the early dogs understand "instinctively" a recall gesture?
 

Scout, I believe we didn't necessarily select the neotenous individuals so much as we selected the friendly ones, and the bizarre side-effect of that was neoteny. I've read about this a little lately and I know from the Arctic fox study that after just a couple of generations selecting ONLY for friendliness, they had a lot of foxes that were barking and playing well into adulthood, as well as weird colours coming out in coats and eyes. I believe it's due to elevated levels of happy hormones that come from lots of calming cuddles and a less stressful existance. I've noticed neoteny also occurs in domestic rabbits. My 18 month old domestic rabbit still loves to play with things, but my 2 year old wild hare is not interested in play. I suspect it's a side-effect of domestication, rather than something we especially tried to encourage. I may be wrong, though. 

In electronics, specifically radio wave generation a circuit, sometimes referred to as a mixer will combine two frequencies, one from a local oscillator and one from an input device such as a cd player, mic, whatever. The joining of two frequencies will creat two more frequencies. One is the result of addition and the other of subtraction and these additional frequencies are harmonics. The whole effect is called heterodyning. I think man and dog together heterodyne. I do think the neoteny at once makes the beast more attractive to us and our acceptance of the animal helps create its neotenous behavior, i.e., it is evolutionarily rewarded with greater survival rates. I doubt much +R would work on an actual wolf but a neotenous dog would respond, as they, as a species, are used to getting food from humans and are more likely to respond to human demands in order to get this. Yet, there are still wolf-like behaviors, even in domesticated dogs. While I don't think the dog descended directly from the grey wolf as we know it today, I do think there was a somewhat common ancestor. At some point along the way, some neotenous behavior took place which brought the canid closer to humans. And may be this gets rewarded by greater survival. Or maybe early humans cull the pups that won't train. Never underestimate Man's desire and ability to kill prolifically.
 
sidenote: perhaps man is a prolific killer because we have no more predators. There has to be some population control. Canids have multiple births because a number of pups die at birth or during puppyhood. So, 2 might make it to progenate. That is, is it the way of nature for man to be so murderous and contentious. We are so good at killing that we kill each other, which thereby, eases the population pressure. The only other thing that controls our population is natural disaster but those don't happen often enough to provide a serious control.
 And perhaps there is a direct causal affect between domestication and neoteny.
 
 Is Man a domesticated animal? I'm not exactly sure. I know we are the most vicious species, more prolific at killing and dominating than any other. The only populations that exceed us are roaches and rats. They have the advantage of fast development and and prolific reproduction.

I've read about this a little lately and I know from the Arctic fox study that after just a couple of generations selecting ONLY for friendliness, they had a lot of foxes that were barking and playing well into adulthood, as well as weird colours coming out in coats and eyes

 
That's really interesting. In addition to the hormonal effects you mentioned, I really think juvenile features might be related genetically to friendly behaviour. After all, what we see in wolves as friendly behaviour IS juvenile - they are less territorial, they roll around and like attention, etc. So perhaps the individuals selected for were the ones who retained an overall immaturity.