Proverbs 26:10-11
“As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly.”

Some people, they say, are dog people and others are cat people. I recall sharing the platform with a well-known apologist for a Q&A session, and the question asked was: Will our pets be in heaven?” His tongue-in-cheek reply was: “Well, obviously cats won’t!” This was a dog person!

One of the special attributes of our dogs is their expression of “puppy dog eyes”, which, when we anthropomorphize them, we interpret as them begging for treats or affection.

A recent article has suggested that the puppy dog eyes expression is caused by a muscle called the levator anguli oculi medialis or LAOM, and they maintain that wolves do not have this muscle. Therefore, the puppy dog eyes expression is an example of evolution.

There are several allowances we could make in this discussion. Wolves have a tendon where we find the LAOM in domestic dogs, and this tendon is attached to another muscle. We could allow that, over time, this muscle has been re-attached. We could also allow that this was caused by a mutation. We could even accept that this trait was preferentially selected by natural selection, as domestic dogs learned that this action got them more food. Yet, if all these suppositions were true, it would not be evolution. The dogs are still part of the wolf family – the same created kind or baramin. The argument that puppy dog eyes evolved is a misuse of terminology and an evolutionary clutching at straws.

Prayer: We are thankful, Lord God, for all the good gifts You have given us, such as our relationship with animals. Thank You for all that You have created, and we pray that we might be good stewards of the world in which You have placed us. Amen.

Author: Paul F. Taylor

Ref: Dogs evolved a special muscle that lets them make puppy dog eyes, < https://www.newscientist.com/article/2206696-dogs-evolved-a-special-muscle-that-lets-them-make-puppy-dog-eyes/ >, accessed 6/25/2019. Image: Ian Phillips, CC BY-SA 2.0 Generic.

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