Press
How a 1940s US experiment tried, and failed, to create a ‘super dog’
4 days ago, by Laurie Clarke
BBC/ Serenity Strull/ The University of Chicago Press
In 1940s Maine, a group of scientists built the School for Dogs, a massive facility to breed a “super-dog”. Things didn’t go as planned.
Humans have been a little bit obsessed with dogs for millennia. In the late 1940s, though, an enormous experiment took that obsession to a level never seen before or since. The findings would help close one of the darkest chapters in scientific history.
Unfolding at a giant, specially built facility on a farm in Maine, US, it involved studying more than 500 puppies – cocker spaniels, beagles, Shetland sheep dogs, basenjis and wire‐haired fox terriers – over 13 years. From birth, each puppy’s development was recorded in exhaustive detail: its first startle response, its first attempt at consuming solid food, its first playfight with a sibling, its first tail wag. At five weeks old, the puppies began a battery of tests assessing everything from intelligence and dominance to emotional reactivity and aptitude for training.
“When a litter of pups was born, I knew exactly where I would be for each day of the next 12 months,” wrote one of the lead investigators, John Fuller, in 1985.The researchers set out to answer a host of questions. Are some dog breeds smarter than others? Do different breeds have different personalities?
How important is canine parenting? If you disrupt a puppy’s normal development, what happens? And might it be possible to breed a hyper-intelligent “super dog”?From decoding doggie genetics to discovering the best way to socialise puppies, the findings from this mega experiment would change our understanding of dogs forever – as well as landing a final blow against eugenics.
A canine megaproject
World War Two had just ended, and a golden age for science in the US was beginning, with sizeable chunks of money funnelled into research. Scientists were free to think big, and large wads of cash were signed over without too many questions.
Source: How a 1940s US experiment tried, and failed, to create a ‘super dog’
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