5 ms·

> Or maybe cats will continue to defy domestication. They could carve out a place as one of the only animals to befriend humans without ever falling completely

> Or maybe cats will continue to defy domestication. They could carve out a place as one of the only animals to befriend humans without ever falling completely under our control. Let's hope so. It doesn't strike me as a very healthy relationship that one party controls the other's DNA... :P

tyingq 9y ago
I'm not convinced that ship hasn't already sailed. The hairless Sphynx cats seem like one good example.
- mgarfias 9y ago
  Hairlessness does pop up naturally. The Mexican hairless dogs (xoloitzcuintlis) appeared naturally in feral populations.
  - PhasmaFelis 9y ago
    Lots of unhealthy defects and deformities pop up naturally from time to time, but they don't dominate unless some human jerk decides they're cute and/or profitable.
ianai 9y ago
They must be fighting it well enough. I know they suggested it's "early in the domestication" but it seems doubtful much will change. Cats have apparently changed very little in the last 10k years. (Assuming away sophisticated genetic modification. That's probably likely at this rate though) guess what I'm saying is cats may otherwise stay pretty wild without something like actual genetic engineering. I, for one, hope they're never fully domesticated. I think their curiosity would be fast to go.
- jrimbault 9y ago
  I like that I can let the cat go out a few days, knowing he's a born hunter/killer and will be back when he decides a bed is more comfortable than a tree/bush.
- restalis 9y ago
  Curiosity is one of appreciated traits for a cat and I doubt it would be left to disappear. I actually think it would be a trait sought after. I expect first to go to be traits less appreciated in modern environment, like their hunting instincts.
  - Coincoin 9y ago
    What? I love how my cat can kill a fly I've been hunting for hours in just half a second. Spiders though, she sucks with spiders.
  - panglott 9y ago
    Our cats are not the best mousers, but since we have an old house and the mice try to move in in the fall, their hunting instincts definitely keep the house free of vermin. This is quite good. We keep them inside, so they don't bring in songbirds.
    - restalis 9y ago
      I understand that there still are legitimate uses for keeping a cat around for utilitarian prospective but these are becoming less and less common. Majority don't rely on cats to fight vermin, the majority employ chemicals and keep cats around solely as pets. I remember a family that actively trained their feline to stay away from rodents, especially from dead ones. They said it's in the cat's best interest, because most of the dead rodents must have been poisoned. I think now that there is also the family's interest to keep their cat as clean as possible so they won't worry when it interacts with children.
  - blacksmith_tb 9y ago
    I am not sure just how much I appreciate it - my Bengal kitten isn't even a year old, and has already figured out how to turn on the bathroom faucets, and even unscrew the stoppers from the sinks, along with a variety of other sneaky things. I am hoping he will spend more time napping once he's fully grown...
- gwern 9y ago
  I think cats are going to change more over the present+coming few centuries than in those 10k years. Dogs have been bred for millennia for a variety of tasks and because they live directly with humans; cats, on the other hand, have generally only been valued for pest control and have been left alone. But now that they are indoor pets (with cat litter! would the popularity of cats be what it is now if cat litter hadn't been invented just 70 years ago? think about the smell), the interest is huge and the number of breeds has been exploding. And you can think of many ways to improve cats: adaption to dry carb-rich kibble which is the cheapest and most convenient food, to reduce obesity; reducing scratching and urination impulses, the former of which is responsible for the perceived need for 'declawing'; better social skills for understanding humans, trainability, and getting along with other cats and pets; resistance to common domestic cat diseases like FIV, feline lukemia etc.; maintenance of juvenile curiosity/adaptability over loner parts of the lifespan (old cats getting fixed in their ways is a serious behavioral problem)... A breeder's job is never done.
  - gwern 9y ago
    Or here's an obvious improvement: catnip response. It's good for the owner and good for the cat - fun, energizing, cheap, and safe. But around a third of cats are catnip-resistant ( https://www.gwern.net/Catnip https://www.gwern.net/Catnip ). It's autosomal dominant at high frequency, so it would be easy to increase all the way to fixation with a little selective breeding (and that also implies, along with the widespreadness of catnip response in the Felidae family, that catnip response isn't harmful). Just, no one has.
LambdaComplex 9y ago
"It doesn't strike me as a very healthy relationship that one party controls the other's DNA" Oh, it definitely isn't: http://healthypets.mercola.com/sites/healthypets/archive/2015/04/02/dog-breeds-1915-vs-2015.aspx http://healthypets.mercola.com/sites/healthypets/archive/201... (And look up an x-ray of a pug's skull, while you're at it)
- mgarfias 9y ago
  I have a hard time taking anything published by mercola seriously. Dude is whacked. That said, the wife breeds Berger blanc suisse dogs and I've had a front row seat to lots of things. it's sad how bad some breeders are.
  - LambdaComplex 9y ago
    If it's worth anything, that's apparently just pictures from someone else's article[0] with different (yet similar) captions on the pictures 0. https://dogbehaviorscience.wordpress.com/2012/09/29/100-years-of-breed-improvement/ https://dogbehaviorscience.wordpress.com/2012/09/29/100-year...
panglott 9y ago
It's interesting that cat breeding happened among colonies of wild or feral cats, and it wasn't until the Middle Ages that cat fancy began developing breeds. There are large colonies of self-sustaining feral cat populations in nearly every city—at least in the U.S. and surely outside it as well. Certainly cat breeders supply a number of pets, but these feral cat populations are a major source of house cats. Certainly all our pets are rescues or were originally born outside.

tyingq 9y ago

I'm not convinced that ship hasn't already sailed. The hairless Sphynx cats seem like one good example.

mgarfias 9y ago
Hairlessness does pop up naturally. The Mexican hairless dogs (xoloitzcuintlis) appeared naturally in feral populations.
- PhasmaFelis 9y ago
  Lots of unhealthy defects and deformities pop up naturally from time to time, but they don't dominate unless some human jerk decides they're cute and/or profitable.

ianai 9y ago

They must be fighting it well enough. I know they suggested it's "early in the domestication" but it seems doubtful much will change. Cats have apparently changed very little in the last 10k years. (Assuming away sophisticated genetic modification. That's probably likely at this rate though) guess what I'm saying is cats may otherwise stay pretty wild without something like actual genetic engineering. I, for one, hope they're never fully domesticated. I think their curiosity would be fast to go.

jrimbault 9y ago
I like that I can let the cat go out a few days, knowing he's a born hunter/killer and will be back when he decides a bed is more comfortable than a tree/bush.
restalis 9y ago
Curiosity is one of appreciated traits for a cat and I doubt it would be left to disappear. I actually think it would be a trait sought after. I expect first to go to be traits less appreciated in modern environment, like their hunting instincts.
- Coincoin 9y ago
  What? I love how my cat can kill a fly I've been hunting for hours in just half a second. Spiders though, she sucks with spiders.
- panglott 9y ago
  Our cats are not the best mousers, but since we have an old house and the mice try to move in in the fall, their hunting instincts definitely keep the house free of vermin. This is quite good. We keep them inside, so they don't bring in songbirds.
  - restalis 9y ago
    I understand that there still are legitimate uses for keeping a cat around for utilitarian prospective but these are becoming less and less common. Majority don't rely on cats to fight vermin, the majority employ chemicals and keep cats around solely as pets. I remember a family that actively trained their feline to stay away from rodents, especially from dead ones. They said it's in the cat's best interest, because most of the dead rodents must have been poisoned. I think now that there is also the family's interest to keep their cat as clean as possible so they won't worry when it interacts with children.
- blacksmith_tb 9y ago
  I am not sure just how much I appreciate it - my Bengal kitten isn't even a year old, and has already figured out how to turn on the bathroom faucets, and even unscrew the stoppers from the sinks, along with a variety of other sneaky things. I am hoping he will spend more time napping once he's fully grown...
gwern 9y ago
I think cats are going to change more over the present+coming few centuries than in those 10k years. Dogs have been bred for millennia for a variety of tasks and because they live directly with humans; cats, on the other hand, have generally only been valued for pest control and have been left alone. But now that they are indoor pets (with cat litter! would the popularity of cats be what it is now if cat litter hadn't been invented just 70 years ago? think about the smell), the interest is huge and the number of breeds has been exploding. And you can think of many ways to improve cats: adaption to dry carb-rich kibble which is the cheapest and most convenient food, to reduce obesity; reducing scratching and urination impulses, the former of which is responsible for the perceived need for 'declawing'; better social skills for understanding humans, trainability, and getting along with other cats and pets; resistance to common domestic cat diseases like FIV, feline lukemia etc.; maintenance of juvenile curiosity/adaptability over loner parts of the lifespan (old cats getting fixed in their ways is a serious behavioral problem)... A breeder's job is never done.
- gwern 9y ago
  Or here's an obvious improvement: catnip response. It's good for the owner and good for the cat - fun, energizing, cheap, and safe. But around a third of cats are catnip-resistant ( https://www.gwern.net/Catnip https://www.gwern.net/Catnip ). It's autosomal dominant at high frequency, so it would be easy to increase all the way to fixation with a little selective breeding (and that also implies, along with the widespreadness of catnip response in the Felidae family, that catnip response isn't harmful). Just, no one has.

LambdaComplex 9y ago

"It doesn't strike me as a very healthy relationship that one party controls the other's DNA" Oh, it definitely isn't: http://healthypets.mercola.com/sites/healthypets/archive/2015/04/02/dog-breeds-1915-vs-2015.aspx http://healthypets.mercola.com/sites/healthypets/archive/201... (And look up an x-ray of a pug's skull, while you're at it)

mgarfias 9y ago
I have a hard time taking anything published by mercola seriously. Dude is whacked. That said, the wife breeds Berger blanc suisse dogs and I've had a front row seat to lots of things. it's sad how bad some breeders are.
- LambdaComplex 9y ago
  If it's worth anything, that's apparently just pictures from someone else's article[0] with different (yet similar) captions on the pictures 0. https://dogbehaviorscience.wordpress.com/2012/09/29/100-years-of-breed-improvement/ https://dogbehaviorscience.wordpress.com/2012/09/29/100-year...

panglott 9y ago

It's interesting that cat breeding happened among colonies of wild or feral cats, and it wasn't until the Middle Ages that cat fancy began developing breeds. There are large colonies of self-sustaining feral cat populations in nearly every city—at least in the U.S. and surely outside it as well. Certainly cat breeders supply a number of pets, but these feral cat populations are a major source of house cats. Certainly all our pets are rescues or were originally born outside.