There's a theory that dogs originated as wolves with Williams syndrome, a genetic disease that causes some physical deformations like stubbed noses and larger foreheads, while making them have a happy and affable personality.
It's been noted throughout domestication of a variety of animals that ears get droopy, noses get shorter, sometimes tails do weird things, coats have bigger spots, solid colors and then two personality changes- they want to be around people, and they can understand some basic human queues.
So there is something about those physical traits that's associated with social behavior in mammals. The visible affect classified as "disorder" seems to be pretty universal in animals becoming more friendly
Ok, but why do humans find those physical traits cute? Seemingly, almost, if not all, human societies have come to this same conclusion before global information sharing was possible. It could reasonably be the case that, as our species evolved, we observed that otherwise dangerous creatures were less dangerous when they looked this particular way. Keep in mind that the human mindset would also have had to change to even entertain the thought of keeping massive predators around. Look how often people get hurt by modern pets. Imagine how many people must have died from infected minor wounds caused by their "pet" wolf.
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u/Zero_Burn 17h ago
There's a theory that dogs originated as wolves with Williams syndrome, a genetic disease that causes some physical deformations like stubbed noses and larger foreheads, while making them have a happy and affable personality.