Then the Woman picked up a roasted mutton-bone and threw it to Wild Dog, and said, "Wild Thing out of Wild Woods, taste and try." Wild Dog gnawed the bone, and it was more delicious than anything he had ever tasted, and he said, "O my Enemy and Wife of my Enemy, give me another."

The Woman said, "Wild Thing out of the Wild Woods, help my Man to hunt through the day and guard this Cave at night, and I will give you as many roast bones as you need...."
Wild Dog crawled into the Cave and laid his head on the Woman's lap, and said, "O my Friend and Wife of my Friend, I will help your Man to hunt through the day, and at night I will guard your Cave."
Rudyard Kipling, Just So Stories (1912)

It was the members of the genus Canis - grey wolves, red wolves, and the coyote - that brought us our dogs (Canis familiaris). Upon living with humans, like yipping, tail-wagging weeds that thrived in environments that were disturbed by people, dogs became domesticated.

Puppies are the earliest and best example of an animal whose fun loving nature was ready for domestication. It is thought that the grey wolf was first, as it's the most social of all canids. Wolves have a society, a form of strict hierarchy, engage in hunting cooperation, and feature complex communication skills. Humans bred for the puppy-like behaviour in wolf pups. Playful adult wolves might be expelled from a wolf pack, but in human society a playful wolf might get adopted. Wolves have a great need to be part of a group, and some scholars have suggested that the maternal instinct of women coupled with the universal appeal of orphaned puppies was the evolutionary path to how dogs adapted to the human lifestyle.

from A History of Dogs in the Early Americas By MARION SCHWARTZ (C) 1997 Yale University

Women seem to have an almost mystical bond with animals. Can science truly account for the affinity that women have with dogs, horses and cats? If the game industry can appeal to a woman's innate sensibilities, then she might be more willing to adopt their robotic babies. It is true that women like things that are small and cute. We can't help that - it is hard wired. Cute does apply to technology too don't forget; we'll go for more than just fancy, well made make-up compacts. Crafty cell phones, iPods and hand held game consoles can be designed so they are desirably adoptable.

What is it that draws girls and women to pet sims? Nintendo DS sales are reported by many sources to have skyrocketed due to Nintendogs. Nearly half the buyers of the game were women. Several magazines and websites are talking about the Nintendogs phenomenon. "The Gaming Industry has Gone to the Dogs" fills the top ten or more slots on a Google search. Why is this game particularly appealing to women? When the holy grail of the industry is to reach an elusive market among women gamers, how is it that Nintendo has done what so few of its competitors can?