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The domestic dog, Canis familiaris, is a member of the Canidae family, genus Canis, which also includes wolves, coyotes, and jackals. Canis lupus, the present‐day gray wolf, is the domestic dog’s closest living ancestor (Vilà et al. 1997), and the divergence began more than 10,000 years ago, possibly with early hunter‐gatherers and then in association with early agriculture (vonHoldt and Driscoll 2017). The dog is the only domesticated species of the genus: that is to say, the only canid for whom artificial selection (selective breeding) by humans has usurped natural selection as a major mover of the species.

Considering dog behavior in the context of their wild cousins can at times clarify some common dog behavior. Wolves living among family members approach and greet those returning from hunting by licking—“kissing”—their faces. Licks are prompts for the wolf to regurgitate some of the kill just ingested. Similarly, a dog's “kiss” is a greeting, but it is also a vestigial interest in whatever it was an owner might have consumed since leaving the house (Horowitz 2009b). A dog's propensity to sniff peoples’ genital area could be viewed as intrusive or “impolite,” yet it is analogous to canids' olfactory investigations of the genital and anal areas of conspecifics, which contain information about the identification, and perhaps recent activities and health, of that individual (Sommerville and Broom 1998). At the same time, there are numerous differences between dogs and wolves, particularly regarding ecological niche and social organization (Marshall‐Pescini et al. 2017), and analogies between the two should be made with caution. Instead, dogs’ intimate association with humans has had a seminal impact on every aspect of their being.