Every so often, one finds a book written for an adult audience that upon reading, the thought at some point enters the mind “This has the makings of a very worthwhile book for children in it as well.” Such was not the case when I first read the fascinating “How to Tame a Fox (and Build a Dog)” by Dr. Lee Alan Dugatkin and Dr. Lyudmila Trut. But then, of course, as I’m the first to admit, I’m not always the most perceptive in such matters.
I was particularly pleased to discover that the 2 June 2017 issue of the Times Literary Supplement contained a review by Tom Holland of not just one but two recent books on foxes; Lucy Jones’ Foxes Unearthed: A Story of Love and Loathing in Modern Britain. from Elliott & Thompson, and How to Tame a […]
Not so very long after I entered Lyudmila Trut and Lee Dugatkin’s recently published book “How to Tame a Fox (and Build a Dog): Visionary Scientists and a Siberian Tale of Jump-Started Evolution” into the “Newly Noted” section, whom did I discover Steve Mirsky interviewing about this very book on the Scientific American Science Talk podcast than Lee Dugatkin himself!
It has likely been a year or so since I first heard of Dmitri Belyaev’s and Lyudmila Trut’s project to determine if foxes could be domesticated. Begun in 1959, their research has since brought to light a host of discoveries about the process and effects of domestication, and as well has yielded fifty-six generations of domesticated Silver Fox.