Tucked away in Siberia, there are furry, four-legged creatures with wagging tails and floppy ears that are as docile and friendly as any lapdog. But despite appearances, these are not dogs-they are foxes. They are the result of the most astonishing experiment in breeding ever undertaken-imagine speeding up thousands of years of evolution into a few decades. In 1959, biologists Dmitri Belyaev and Lyudmila Trut set out to do just that, starting with...

Provides an overview of how various small mammals--including gerbils, hamsters, guinea pigs, mice, rabbits, rats, and ferrets--have evolved into animals that are kept as pets.

Draws on history, archaeology, anthropology, and twenty-first-century ideas in biology to explain domestication as an evolutionary process.

Teaches children about dogs, their descendance from the gray wolf, and their domestication.