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It's always mindblowing to me that we've been able to encode such complex behaviors into instincts just by selective breeding over a few hundred generations. R

by ot 5y ago

It's always mindblowing to me that we've been able to encode such complex behaviors into instincts just by selective breeding over a few hundred generations. Related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domesticated_silver_fox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domesticated_silver_fox

sambroner 5y ago
Seriously... there's nature vs nurture, but the nature of this dog is clearly to herd sheep.
- LanceH 5y ago
  I believe the herding instinct was already there for the purpose of hunting. The hunting and kill has been bred out of them and the herding/separating remains.
  - PaulAJ 5y ago
    Actually its been bred out with extreme prejudice. Any sheepdog that bites a sheep gets shot. No second chances. Its a part of the job that shepherds absolutely hate because these dogs are really close and highly valued family members. But its the only way.
    - alistairSH 5y ago
      *But its the only way." Are these dogs unsuitable as pets (for non-farming households)?
      - dreamcompiler 5y ago
        Sometimes. Border collies will happily herd your children if no sheep are available. You wouldn't want one that had bitten a sheep.
      - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
        >Are these dogs unsuitable as pets (for non-farming households)? Does the household have any toddlers to herd? Working dogs that are not elderly to the point where they prefer to sit on their butts all day generally make terrible pets. Ones that are bred to herd animals and have been kicked out for biting them even more so.
        ryan-allen 5y ago
        I think it depends if you have the time and energy to exercise them. Kelpies, Border Collies and Australian Cattle Dogs are popular pets here in Australia, you just need to exercise them. They are very intelligent, alert and loyal. We adopted a Cattle Dog and just had to be careful around toddlers due to herding, but otherwise he's very well adjusted. He will follow you up the stairs and nip at your heels as you go, but he never bites hard and does it for attention/affection.
    - Goronmon 5y ago
      Why is killing the dog necessary, rather than just spay/neuter and then letting it do something other than herd sheep?
      - 1123581321 5y ago
        The dog would need to leave the farm, and couldn’t go to another farm or a home with children. That mostly leaves rescues as the option, and they often don’t have much space, and the farmer or rancher may not be able to safely pen the dog until such space can be found or may not be able to afford feeding more dogs than needed to operate.
kache_ 5y ago
We're doing it to ourselves too.
- HenryKissinger 5y ago
  Software engineer ejected from self driving car during Sunday crash found in server farm, herding sheep?
  - Xpletivedeleted 5y ago
    ... found in server room, dreaming of electric sheep?
  - meowface 5y ago
    *cats
    - catherd 5y ago
      Exited self-driving car project to make hardware and herd cats, which turns out to be the same thing.
  - goodcanadian 5y ago
    Patching software.
    - xbar 5y ago
      Failing to write documentation.
  - zoomablemind 5y ago
    ...browsing HN, as if nothing happened. Tons of good stuff, need to know!
- wizzwizz4 5y ago
  Not via selective breeding. At least, not very successfully; there have been attempts, but fortunately most eugenicists let their “I wanna hurt the Inferior People™ – err, Not-People™” rule over actually doing eugenics properly, so we merely got atrocities. And even if they had, you can't get much eugenics done in a handful of generations; I'm not aware of any eugenics campaign longer than ten generations, and even the longest of those are mostly just slow-motion genocides. In fact, we've mostly neutered evolutionary pressures on ourselves. In ten thousand years, this might be a minor problem, but we'll probably have figured out a way of doing genetic modification without being monsters by then.
Sharlin 5y ago
To a large extent the instincts were already there; we’ve just adapted and selected for various sub-patterns of the ancestral pack hunting behavior. Herding livestock is very similar to chasing and driving prey to where you want it.
- ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
  Dogs are very smart. The wild ones, even more so. Some of us may remember this episode of Sir David Attenborough's Planet Earth: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0036vfk https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0036vfk The dogs look like a trained commando squad. This gives you an idea why everyone on the savannah is scared of a Wild Dog pack.
  - btilly 5y ago
    Per https://www.discoverwildlife.com/animal-facts/mammals/hunting-success-rates-how-predators-compare/ https://www.discoverwildlife.com/animal-facts/mammals/huntin... wild dogs have an astonishing 85% success rate in making a kill. However they lose nearly half their kills to other predators such as hyenas and lions. Even so their chase to meal ratio is still better than most predators.
  - samatman 5y ago
    Worth pointing out (maybe?) that dogs-the-domesticated-animal are less closely related to the African wild dogs than they are to wolves and coyotes. All of which are pack hunters and smart ones to boot. It's just that your first paragraph gives the impression to me that "wild dogs" are the same creatures as domesticated ones, just wild, when that is more true of the wolf than it is of the African wild dog. For instance, the African wild dog and the domestic dog can't interbreed.
    - ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
      Maybe. There was a particular dog breed that I saw all over the place, and it looked a lot like them. Big suckers. Nasty teethies… You didn’t want one of them biting you. In any case, I’m sure that wolf packs behave in quite a similar manner.
nradov 5y ago
It helps that dogs have 39 pairs of chromosomes, which is more than most other mammals (humans have only 23). So it's relatively easy to selectively breed for certain desirable phenotypes without getting too many undesirable ones. Although the process isn't perfect so we still see a lot of inbreeding and genetic diseases in some purebreds.
- onychomys 5y ago
  Chromosome number is pretty meaningless. Indian muntjacs have just 7 chromosomes (females actually only have 6!), while their close cousins on the other side of the Himalayas have 46 [0]. Chromosomes are, after all, kind of arbitrary divisions of the genome. It's not like all your brain genes are on chromosome 1, your liver ones on c2, etc, the genome is much more spread out than that. [0] https://academic.oup.com/mbe/article/17/9/1326/994705 https://academic.oup.com/mbe/article/17/9/1326/994705
  - nradov 5y ago
    You're missing the point. A higher number of chromosomes makes it easier to do targeted selective breeding because it's less likely that a desirable characteristic will be on the same chromosome as an undesirable characteristic.
    - onychomys 5y ago
      But linkage is a function of distance from one gene to another, so all you really care about is whether your desirable gene is physically close to your undesirable one. Having things broken up into many chromosomes helps only a little bit, if the break happens to be between the good and bad genes.
    - cjensen 5y ago
      During reproduction, chromosomes are "mixed" together [1]. You don't get a straight copy of the parent chromosome. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromosomal_crossover https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromosomal_crossover
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

by ot 5y ago

sambroner 5y ago

Seriously... there's nature vs nurture, but the nature of this dog is clearly to herd sheep.

LanceH 5y ago
I believe the herding instinct was already there for the purpose of hunting. The hunting and kill has been bred out of them and the herding/separating remains.
- PaulAJ 5y ago
  Actually its been bred out with extreme prejudice. Any sheepdog that bites a sheep gets shot. No second chances. Its a part of the job that shepherds absolutely hate because these dogs are really close and highly valued family members. But its the only way.
  - alistairSH 5y ago
    *But its the only way." Are these dogs unsuitable as pets (for non-farming households)?
    - dreamcompiler 5y ago
      Sometimes. Border collies will happily herd your children if no sheep are available. You wouldn't want one that had bitten a sheep.
    - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
      >Are these dogs unsuitable as pets (for non-farming households)? Does the household have any toddlers to herd? Working dogs that are not elderly to the point where they prefer to sit on their butts all day generally make terrible pets. Ones that are bred to herd animals and have been kicked out for biting them even more so.
      - ryan-allen 5y ago
        I think it depends if you have the time and energy to exercise them. Kelpies, Border Collies and Australian Cattle Dogs are popular pets here in Australia, you just need to exercise them. They are very intelligent, alert and loyal. We adopted a Cattle Dog and just had to be careful around toddlers due to herding, but otherwise he's very well adjusted. He will follow you up the stairs and nip at your heels as you go, but he never bites hard and does it for attention/affection.
  - Goronmon 5y ago
    Why is killing the dog necessary, rather than just spay/neuter and then letting it do something other than herd sheep?
    - 1123581321 5y ago
      The dog would need to leave the farm, and couldn’t go to another farm or a home with children. That mostly leaves rescues as the option, and they often don’t have much space, and the farmer or rancher may not be able to safely pen the dog until such space can be found or may not be able to afford feeding more dogs than needed to operate.

kache_ 5y ago

We're doing it to ourselves too.

HenryKissinger 5y ago
Software engineer ejected from self driving car during Sunday crash found in server farm, herding sheep?
- Xpletivedeleted 5y ago
  ... found in server room, dreaming of electric sheep?
- meowface 5y ago
  *cats
  - catherd 5y ago
    Exited self-driving car project to make hardware and herd cats, which turns out to be the same thing.
- goodcanadian 5y ago
  Patching software.
  - xbar 5y ago
    Failing to write documentation.
- zoomablemind 5y ago
  ...browsing HN, as if nothing happened. Tons of good stuff, need to know!
wizzwizz4 5y ago
Not via selective breeding. At least, not very successfully; there have been attempts, but fortunately most eugenicists let their “I wanna hurt the Inferior People™ – err, Not-People™” rule over actually doing eugenics properly, so we merely got atrocities. And even if they had, you can't get much eugenics done in a handful of generations; I'm not aware of any eugenics campaign longer than ten generations, and even the longest of those are mostly just slow-motion genocides. In fact, we've mostly neutered evolutionary pressures on ourselves. In ten thousand years, this might be a minor problem, but we'll probably have figured out a way of doing genetic modification without being monsters by then.

Sharlin 5y ago

To a large extent the instincts were already there; we’ve just adapted and selected for various sub-patterns of the ancestral pack hunting behavior. Herding livestock is very similar to chasing and driving prey to where you want it.

ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
Dogs are very smart. The wild ones, even more so. Some of us may remember this episode of Sir David Attenborough's Planet Earth: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0036vfk https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0036vfk The dogs look like a trained commando squad. This gives you an idea why everyone on the savannah is scared of a Wild Dog pack.
- btilly 5y ago
  Per https://www.discoverwildlife.com/animal-facts/mammals/hunting-success-rates-how-predators-compare/ https://www.discoverwildlife.com/animal-facts/mammals/huntin... wild dogs have an astonishing 85% success rate in making a kill. However they lose nearly half their kills to other predators such as hyenas and lions. Even so their chase to meal ratio is still better than most predators.
- samatman 5y ago
  Worth pointing out (maybe?) that dogs-the-domesticated-animal are less closely related to the African wild dogs than they are to wolves and coyotes. All of which are pack hunters and smart ones to boot. It's just that your first paragraph gives the impression to me that "wild dogs" are the same creatures as domesticated ones, just wild, when that is more true of the wolf than it is of the African wild dog. For instance, the African wild dog and the domestic dog can't interbreed.
  - ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
    Maybe. There was a particular dog breed that I saw all over the place, and it looked a lot like them. Big suckers. Nasty teethies… You didn’t want one of them biting you. In any case, I’m sure that wolf packs behave in quite a similar manner.

nradov 5y ago

It helps that dogs have 39 pairs of chromosomes, which is more than most other mammals (humans have only 23). So it's relatively easy to selectively breed for certain desirable phenotypes without getting too many undesirable ones. Although the process isn't perfect so we still see a lot of inbreeding and genetic diseases in some purebreds.

onychomys 5y ago
Chromosome number is pretty meaningless. Indian muntjacs have just 7 chromosomes (females actually only have 6!), while their close cousins on the other side of the Himalayas have 46 [0]. Chromosomes are, after all, kind of arbitrary divisions of the genome. It's not like all your brain genes are on chromosome 1, your liver ones on c2, etc, the genome is much more spread out than that. [0] https://academic.oup.com/mbe/article/17/9/1326/994705 https://academic.oup.com/mbe/article/17/9/1326/994705
- nradov 5y ago
  You're missing the point. A higher number of chromosomes makes it easier to do targeted selective breeding because it's less likely that a desirable characteristic will be on the same chromosome as an undesirable characteristic.
  - onychomys 5y ago
    But linkage is a function of distance from one gene to another, so all you really care about is whether your desirable gene is physically close to your undesirable one. Having things broken up into many chromosomes helps only a little bit, if the break happens to be between the good and bad genes.
  - cjensen 5y ago
    During reproduction, chromosomes are "mixed" together [1]. You don't get a straight copy of the parent chromosome. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromosomal_crossover https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromosomal_crossover

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]