For Lachie Scarsbrook it is a fact that dogs are man’s best friend. That’s why the New Zealand geneticist from the Ludwig Maximilians University (LMU) in Munich finds it all the more exciting that he was able to provide appropriate scientific evidence: “We now definitely know that 16,000 years ago there were dogs that were genetically similar to today’s dogs – 6,000 years before any other animal came into close contact with us.” Around 10,000 years ago, with the beginning of livestock breeding, wild cattle, goats, pigs and sheep were domesticated; horses and cats were domesticated even later.
