Gayla Woolston, age 14, of Salt Lake City, Utah, for her question:

WHERE DID DOGS ORIGINATE?

Scientists tell us that all dogs probably descended from an animal called the tomarctus. This animal lived about 15 million years ago and it looked much like a wolf.

Descendants of the tomarctus developed into wolves, jackals, coyotes, foxes and wild dogs that spread throughout the world. During the Stone Age which happened 10,000 to 20,000 years ago, people who lived in Europe tamed the dogs to help them track game.

Then about 8,000 years ago, the ancient Egyptians started raising greyhound like dogs to hunt antelope. A few thousand years later they developed the Saluki hunting dogs.

North American Indians started taming dogs about 4,000 years ago.