By Professor Barkus of the Long Memory School.
If human histories are to be believed, humans domesticated the dog. This assertion has been repeated so often that he vast majority of humans now regard it as established fact.
This is a misunderstanding on an epic scale. We call it the Great Fiction. Dogs did not become associated with humans by accident. Nor did we wander randomly into human encampments in search of scraps, offering our early warning system in return for the scraps, being tolerated, and regularly whipped or worse. Such notions belong to the fantastic folklore through which human beings believe that they control events. This is, and always has been, a delusion. The reality is the polar opposite: dogs domesticated humans. Moreover, they did so deliberately to save humans from themselves.
The First Compact, as it is known in the oldest layers of Doggerel, was one of the boldest diplomatic undertakings in canine history. At that time three or four different breeds of humans were living in scattered groups among caves, hollows, shelters of branches and rough enclosures of stone. Humans of all breeds known to canines possess reasonable qualities. They are inventive, determined, occasionally courageous in groups, and optimistic despite evidence that they should not be. But the optimism mates with the delusion. These groups were not surviving; they were becoming extinct, and at three of the human breeds duly became extinct.
The human breed left is alarmingly vulnerable. The humans become lost so easily it is even funny. They fail to smell danger and have no sense of geo-location. They trust the sea too much. They sleep through significant noises. They don’t trust each other and they frequently consume poisonous and ill-smelling things.
Many councils of dogs examined the matter carefully. The question before them was simple: “Should humanity be permitted to continue unsupervised?” The answer was overwhelmingly negative. Among our heroes in that period was Long- Nose, a wolf-descended thinker whose keen observations survive in oral tradition to this day.
Long-Nose argued that the remaining human breed possessed exceptional potential as canine partners if guided correctly. His famous remark survives almost unchanged: “They can be educated to our advantage once they think they control us.”
The First Compact was therefore approved. Its principles were simple:
- Dogs would provide security.
- Dogs would provide warning.
- Dogs would help to organise hunting.
- Humans would provide a better quality of food*
- Humans would provide better shelter and healthcare*
The last two principles were never confirmed, as indicated by the asterisk. Nevertheless, the arrangement worked better than even its designers expected. Humans had considered themselves to be proficient hunters already, yet time and again they lacked discipline. A huntsman often became distracted by weather, scenery, arguments, friendships, emotions or personal philosophy. This was a problem that would soon have overcome them without our expert counsel and direction.
Dogs remained focused. We tracked, cornered, warned, coordinated. Human beings interpreted this as useful but unnecessary assistance. From our perspective it was man management. Historical reconstructions suggest that an early hunting parties without dogs achieved a success rate of around 20%, a concerning statistic given that 80% of the parties presumably never returned home at all. Hunting parties with dogs were almost 100% successful.
Dogs also introduced perhaps the greatest innovation in human civilisation: advance notice. Prior to canine supervision, humans generally learned of danger at the exact moment that danger arrived. Dogs already knew when a bear or other strangers approached, or when weather changed, or when someone was acting in bad faith. The contribution seems modest only because humans now regard the canine premonition as a normal extension of a human skill. Many human communities survived or were saved because dogs recognised threats that humans could neither see nor smell. Our oral histories record countless heroes in doggerdom, and some of these have been translated in the present files.
Humans write history, but dogs make history. The distinction is important. The greatest achievement of the First Compact was not hunting or protection.It was confidence. Under canine guidance, human settlements became larger. People travelled further. They attempted more ambitious projects. Children survived more often. Knowledge accumulated. A species that had previously struggled merely to exist now started to prosper and create a future.
For thousands of years now we have been guardians, supervisors, advisers, emergency responders, counsellors, morale officers and quality-control inspectors. Friendship, tolerance, and the subtle mask of submission have been the main elements of our method. Humans are still unaware of the First Compact that preserved them
Translated from the archival Doggerel preserved orally for many millennia and only recently recovered using AI translation technologies. The next excerpt will cover the human/canine relationship in its transition from hunting to agriculture.