The death of Steven Ambrose made me realize I wasn't familiar with his work, so I began filling that gap - started out with his history of D-Day; last week I finished his book on Merriwether Lewis and the Corps of Discovery, Undaunted Courage.

Once west of Continental Divide and out of buffalo country, the expedition found of necessity that dog was not only tasty and nutritious but readily available, purchased from the natives they camped near while wintering at the mouth of the Columbia. Ambrose relates that all but Lewis came to prefer it to the other meat they could obtain by hunting (mostly elk) or by culling their pack horses.

Humans brought dogs to the American continents from Asia, having lived with them as hunters and trackers, beasts of burden and food source for thousands of years already. It may be more ironic to look at the situation the other way: Southeast Asia, where dogs and the human/canine symbiosis evolved in tandem, is the last place for Western sentimentality about dogs as companions to supplant the more complete use of the first domesticated animal (and, incidentally, to keep the population controlled).