The domestication of the dog is one of the greatest achievements of selective breeding. Generations of selecting the most preferable, friendly members of the pack have culminated in what we collectively, and appropriately, call “Man’s best friend”.

The old saying “Old habits die hard”, happens to echo really strongly in this situation.

After all, we are all only who our genes tell us we are. House cats are still hunters. Although they are pint-sized hunters now, limited to chasing mice and birds.

Many canine instincts are still persistent in the dog’s blood as this man learns first-hand. It hasn’t been that long, in terms of evolution, since we domesticated dogs. They might not all look the part, but much of the wolf still persists in the genes of our canine companions.

In case the smell, panting, and digging didn’t make it obvious enough.

This video below isn’t exactly THE BEST case study or demonstration of this. It is so adorable so we’ll just go with it. That’s fair, right?

The puppies are released as the gates open. They all rush to meet the man. He shouts “PUPPIES PUPPIES PUPPIES PUPPIES”, to call them. Then they surround him like a pack of really small, adorable, friendly wolves.

And in a split second, he’s completely buried by them. Every part of his body is covered in paws, licks and every delightful thing a Retriever puppy can give you. Is this what heaven looks like?

The screen is filled with wagging tails, and the man is quickly buried underneath a pile of fur and paws. Honestly, it’s pretty selfish of him not to share with us if you ask me.

With this overwhelming, uncoordinated mass of puppies all over him, the guy can’t help but laugh. He’s pretty content letting them swarm him while he lays down, unsurprisingly.

For 20 whole seconds, he gets taken away to puppy paradise. It’s almost hard to believe their DNA is over 99% wolf, but it is.

If there’s one thing a lot of us really want to experience before we die, it’s this. I mean, I could use a swarm of puppies drowning me in paws and kisses right now.

Domesticating dogs is one of the greatest decisions we made tens of thousands of years ago. A chance encounter with wolves countless ages ago eventually gave us these! And we owe it all to the few curious wolves who decided to stick around us.

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Photo by @argonautphoto | A wolf from the Nenana River pack races its shadow across ice-crusted snow in the early-morning light near #DenaliNationalPark in Alaska. The pack is crossing through an area with several traplines just outside the edge of the park, where there are no buffer zones to protect the animals from hunters. For more images of Denali and our national parks and monuments follow @argonautphoto. #Wolf #Alaska

A post shared by National Geographic (@natgeo) on Dec 4, 2018 at 12:15pm PST

Though these very first domestic dogs were nothing like Golden Retrievers, or German Shepherds or bulldogs. It would still be another several thousand years before we got those. Instead, these earliest domesticated dogs would probably have looked like downsized wolves with shorter snoots.

How early though? Try late-Pleistocene, which is over 14,000 years ago! The mandible of a domesticated dog, known as the Bonn-Oberkassel dog, was found buried alongside two humans from this time.

I’m an archaeologist that studies dogs.

This ancient doggo had a deadly canine distemper. The fact that it survived to the age it died means that it was being looked after by humans. Remarkably, we’d already made dogs our best friends since before we even invented agriculture.

Dog selective breeding guide from coolguides

The very first domesticated dogs would have looked a lot like wolves, maybe just smaller and with broader faces. They’d stick around us for tens of thousands of years too, getting friendlier and not as wolf-like.

The floppy ears, big ol’ snoot, and soft coat of breeds like the Golden Retriever would come around in Victorian times when selective breeding was all the rage. Most of your recognizable dog breeds came about this time.

Now we get to enjoy having friendly dogs with floppy ears, big heckin’ paws, and soft coats with waggy tails who’d gladly bury us in love and affection at a moment’s notice, much like these Golden Retriever puppies.

You can see this age-old friendliness in the full clip below. Just close any windows and doors, or else you might get a noise complaint from shouting “AWWWWWW”. And the next time you gush over an adorable dog, take a moment and remember the spectacular story of how we got them.

Watch the video below!

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Source: [Kim Wurster/YouTube]