2015考研英语阅读人类与狗狗_大学英语阅读

2015考研英语阅读人类与狗狗

　　The first proto-dogs probably remained fairly isolated from each other for several thousandyears. As they became progressively more domesticated they moved with people onlarge-scale migrations, mixing their genes with other similarly domesticated creatures andbecoming increasingly dog-like in the process. For John Bradshaw, abiologist who founded the anthrozoology department at the University of Bristol, having someidea about how dogs got to be dogs is the first stage towards gaining a better understandingof what dogs and people mean to each other. Part of his agenda is to explode the manymyths about the closeness of dogs to wolves and the mistakes that this has led to, especiallyin the training of dogs over the past century or so.

　　始祖狗最初都是独来独往的，这一状况维持了数千年。但当它们被逐渐驯化后，跟随人类进行大规模迁徙，使得它们的基因与其它相似的家饲动物的基因发生了融合，渐渐的它们看上去更像狗而非狼了。作为Bristol 大学的人类与动物关系学系的创始人，生物学家Mr. John Bradshaw认为，要想更好的理解狗狗与人类的关系，首先得具备一些关于狗狗进化的知识。他的一部分工作是探究很多有关狗与狼之间传说中的亲缘关系，及由此产生的各种误解。特别是过去一个世纪以来的狗狗驯化的过程。

　　One idea has governed dog training for far too long, Mr Bradshaw says. Wolf packs aresupposedly despotic hierarchies dominated by alpha wolves. Dogs are believed to behave inthe same way in their dealings with humans. Thus training a dog effectively becomes acontest for dominance in which there can be only one winner. To achieve this the trainermust use a variety of punishment techniques to gain the dog s submission to his mastery.Just letting a dog pass through a door before you or stand on the stairs above you is to riskencouraging it to believe that it is getting the upper hand over you and the rest of thehousehold. Mr Bradshaw argues that the theory behind this approach is based on bad andoutdated science.