For the past 15,000 years or so, dogs have been bred by humans to fill a number of perceived (human) needs: to aid in hunting by locating, flushing out, or retrieving game animals, to help herd domestic animals, to pull carts and sleds and to guard and protect humans and their livestock. Specialised breeds have been developed for other kinds of uses as well; consider the 'lapdog' - originally bred not merely for companionship, but to attract fleas away from its owner.
Before the animal welfare issue became popular in the 19th Century, most people would have considered the notion of a 'companion animal' to be a frivolous, slightly unsavoury concept. Dogs were expected to 'earn their keep' by providing food for the larder as hunters, protecting the homestead as watchdogs or eliminating vermin and other competitors for the food supply. During most of human history, the idea that dogs had a right to exist apart from the needs of their human owners would have been regarded as rather eccentric.
Dogs were often bred to perform tasks which humans either could not do or else found too irksome. One of the more unusual examples of this kind was the turnspit dog, a small, hardy animal once numerous, but allowed to pass into extinction as a breed once its services were no longer required.
During the approximately three centuries in which the turnspit dog was employed, the plight of this little worker, largely unpitied, became a byword for pointless drudgery and unrewarded effort.
