While dog was the first animal domesticated and has been co-living with humans in some capacity for tens of thousands of years, dogs have very different “roles” in different societies.
In middle/upper class white (and to a lesser extent black/asian/hispanic) households, the dog is largely a companion figure, let into the house, and doted upon. I have noticed in general that black Americans and immigrants to America from non-European countries seem more likely to be afraid around other people’s pet dogs (not that there aren’t tons of black and immigrant families who have dogs as pets and treat them just like your average white family, it just seems in general this is less likely to happen).
I have spent quite a bit of time in India in a large city and there dogs are seen mostly as urban pests, particularly for the poor and middle class: they live outdoors and eat from trash cans and bark all the time. They don’t belong to one particular family, for the most part. I have also spent a small amount of time in rural India, on a tea plantation. There the family had a dog which never came inside the house and wasn’t petted but hung around constantly outside the house, went on walks with the family outside, and was sort of “their dog.” He acted like he was part of the farm household. As far as I know, however, the family never actually deliberately brought this dog to the farm, he just showed up there. However, he was not considered a pest or an annoyance.
I have many friends from urban parts of different developing countries and most of them expressed some fear of dogs when they first moved here and seemed very avoidant of pet dogs in the homes of others.
My friend is Australian and his family owns and lives on a farm. They have always had a dog, brought there deliberately, to protect their plants and chase away wild dogs, intruders, etc. Their dogs are petted but generally not let inside the house and not pampered to the same extent your average middle-class American pampers his dog.
Finally, I have noticed on some shows/books that take place in England in the early 20th and late 19th century, there are dogs that are companions and pets that are let inside the house, and then there are hounds for hunting that are all together different (eg Downton Abbey).
My theory is that when humans live more agricultural lives, dogs are useful as working dogs: guarding, hunting, herding, sometimes warmth. When societies urbanize, those uses of dogs fall by the wayside but as a whole dogs are poor hunters and generally need humans to survive, so they become something of a parasite on societies. Finally, as societies urbanize more and people become more wealthy, have fewer kids and possibly become more isolated from family/friends, they feel they need companionship in animal form and dogs become a part of the family.
I’m sorry if this was tl;dr. Anyone else have any other theories about the relationship between dogs and man, or other data points to contribute to this discussion?