Lives of the Monster Dogs by Ellen Bakis
Synopsis:
A group of talking monster dogs in top hats and tails become instant celebrities when they arrive in New York in the year 2008. Refugees from a Canadian town isolated for 100 years, the dogs retain the 19th-century Prussian culture of their creator. But a mysterious disease is wiping them out.
My dogs are evolving. They’re becoming human, as evidenced by their lack of body hair. 
(see website linked in my sig)
Grapes:
“John Mace: just what is artificial selection. Or would you say that humans are part of nature, there is nothing artificial about our selection process, and we shouldn’t make the distinction”
Yes, I would say we are part of nature. I think most people implicitely assume we are not. Lots of oraganisms evolve symbiotic relationships, not just humans. One might argue that evolution becomse “artificial” when we humans engineer DNA, but I’d even hold out on that and say it was just all part of “nature”. Our intellects are the products of nature, so there is nothing unnatural about the products of our intelligence.
John Mace, when we use the word artificial we mean that something is “made by humans.” So, while I appreciate and even agree with you that it is foolish to hold that the actions of humans are not in any sense “natural,” the distinction still seems valid. All things are natural but not all things are directly influenced by humanity.
“Artificial” of course has more loaded connotations, implying “not as good” or “fake.” Personally, I hate it when people try to conflate one meaning with the other. Just about as much as I hate it when people assume that because something is “natural” it is something good.
In regard to the OP.
Evolution is an ongoing process. It doesn’t take breaks. It has no direction. So yes, as long as some dogs die and some dogs live to pass on genetic material to new generations, dogs are evolving. Whether that evolution is primarily driven by human (“artificial”) selection or the selection of survival in the wild is immaterial. Dogs are still changing from generation to generation via the slow crawl of evolution.
Azael:
Yeah, this could be just a semantic issue, but the problem with seperating human actions from nature, is that you end up elevating humans above the rest of the world. I think this leads to many errors in assumptions. Of course, if you are religious, then it might make sense to do so.
I do agree with you, though, that there is value in making a distinction between Conscious manipulation of the genome of an animal and the purely random act of tradtional “natural” evolution. But it is incorrect to assume that one is good and the other is bad. To that extent that a distinction can be made w/o a value judgement, then I say OK.
An intersting side note: When a chimp strips the leaves off a branch to use it to fish for termites, is this a “natural” act or has the chimp created something artificial?
A definition:
Artificial Selection: Selection by humans of a consciously chosen trait or combination of traits in a (usually captive) population; differing from natural selection in that the criterion of survival and reproduction is the trait chosen, rather than fitness as determined by the entire genotype.
– Futuyma, Douglas, Evolutionary Biology, 1986
It’s not just a matter of semantics - artificial selection is a distinct process from natural selection. There is no inherent connotation about the process being “good” or “bad”, any more than such applies to natural selection. Note also that the distinction is not simply that “humans are doing the selecting”, but rather that individuals are selected based on a specific subset of traits, rather than the viability of the genome (and accompanying phenotype) as a whole.
As I mentioned previously, both natural and artificial selection are at work upon domestic dogs, but artificial selection plays a much greater role in their evolution. Domestic dogs are, generally speaking, not free to act as a discrete population, thus there is not a significant population-wide change in allele frequency (obviously, this does not apply to feral dogs - but then feral dogs, it might be argued, are no longer domsticated). Many otherwise “naturally” fit individuals are prevented from reproducing at all.
Another way to look at it is this: in a typical population, natural selection acts as both executioner and the primary creative force which drives evolution. With most domesticated organisms – and dogs specifically – natural selection still acts as the executioner, but artificial selection acts as the primary creative force.
Finch:
I can agree with you to an extent. There is nothing inherent in the word “artificial” to imply “bad”, but can you honestly say that in MOST peoples mind, thie connotation is NOT there? At the very least, artificial is taken to mean, if not bad, then contrary to nature, not just different from what occurs naturally.
Anyway, this is pretty arcane stuff. I’ll gladly admit that my disagreement with your post is extremely minor.