5 ms·

Domestication is pretty poorly defined, but IMO it's more about a capacity rather than necessity. A domesticated dog isn't just instantly domesticated and raise

• epilys 2y ago
  You are mixing up two concepts here, that of the domesticated species and the domesticated individual animal. The article talks about the former. The latter means taming an individual of a species. Dogs are by definition domesticated wolves and depend on humans for survival in general.
  • aorloff 2y ago
    Plenty of dogs live wild mostly off the waste stream of humans, but they are not domesticated. Lets call them coyotes.
    • colechristensen 2y ago
      Let’s not. A feral dog is behaviorally very different than a coyote or a wolf. A wolf pup raised by humans won’t be anything like a tame dog. People whose animal experiences are limited to pets and zoos have many wrong ideas about how real wild animals are.
      • jajko 2y ago
        What about dingoes? The best guess is they were domesticated and then went feral some 5-8k years ago. These days, in places like Fraser island in Australia, you have big fences for campers to not get eaten by packs of those and you need to drive everywhere, they would not hesitate for a second if given a chance.
        • lukan 2y ago
          The aborigines (till they themself were domisticated) had dingos as dogs and my interactions with them on Fraser Island were in a way like with wild dogs who wanted to get BBQ. So definitely dangerous, but not in a Wolf way.
          • ffgjgf1 2y ago
            Wouldn’t wolves generally be significantly less dangerous because they are generally more skittish and avoid being near humans? One of the main issues with feral/wild dogs (or wolf hybrids) is that they are much less afraid of humans and therefore are more likely to attack livestock, pets or even actual people when given the opportunity. Under normal circumstances actual wolf attacks are (and probably were historically) and feral/hybrid dogs are just attributed to them.
            • lukan 2y ago
              In general yes. I meant when a wolf attacks, he will not toy around and show himself before the attack, like the dingos did.
            • inglor_cz 2y ago
              Hmmm. There used to be a huge population of stray dogs in Balkan cities after 1990. (Contraception and culling reduced the numbers quite a bit since then.) Most of the time, they just went out of people's way, individually or in loose packs. Attacks on humans did happen, but weren't a daily occurrence. That said, a stray dog in a big city will always find food, so they weren't hungry.
      • rightbyte 2y ago
        > People whose animal experiences are limited to pets and zoos have many wrong ideas about how real wild animals are. How are they? Really shy and prefer cermonial fights? I would guess a stray dog is a bigger threat than a wild wolf that have not got its instincts breed away to have the fur in a special way. (Note, I don't mean I'd rather be in room with a wolf than a stray dog. But that the wolf would bail 1 mile away from me.)
      • aorloff 2y ago
        Behaviorally very different. In other words, in just a few generations the distinctions we make ("dogs" "coyotes") are irrelevant.
      • Xeyz0r 2y ago
        It's really interesting topic to discuss
  • fuzzfactor 2y ago
    >Horses may have been domesticated twice When I read the title, I was thinking I like a horse that's been domesticated the whole time :) Former or latter, I don't want to actually participate in the full rodeo experience.
• the-dude 2y ago
  Dogs can not be trusted : never leave an infant/toddler alone with them.
  • vasco 2y ago
    If you read this and think "would be fine with my dog", I say the same, but remember the kid can mess with the dog and the dog will defend itself. Do you know for sure what the dog will do if the kid pokes it in the eye? The dangerous part is more what the kid will do.
    • the-dude 2y ago
      From what I understood the dog can go beserk like elephants do, no need to blame it on the victim. I mean, what can an infant do except make noise?
      • rightbyte 2y ago
        Infant scratches you. Sometimes in the eyes. Most animals seem to understand they are infants and not fighting, like puppets biting, but some dogs just have their head messed up.
        • the-dude 2y ago
          You don't have to take my word for it, just read this through. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatal_dog_attacks_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatal_dog_attacks_in_the_Unite... No need to blame the victims.
          • ffgjgf1 2y ago
            It’s still extremely unlikely under normal circumstances. Serious attacks by non feral/mistreated dogs are still a freak incident. You’re about as likely to be killed by a lightning.
            • 2y ago
• lukan 2y ago
  "By contrast cats are not really domesticated and cannot be, no matter how you treat them" Of course you can. A small tiger won't sleep on your couch and remembers not to make a mess in the house. And when a small tiger attacks you, it can still be dangerous. There are still wild cats around here (in europe) - and they would not get that tame so easily. (Also you can teach cats some commands, it is just way more work and the commands won't work all the time)
  • Sayrus 2y ago
    Pet tigers are actually a thing. Like cats they sometimes attack their owner. Unlike cats, the amount of force they can use can easily kill a human, even when playing.
    • lukan 2y ago
      I would argue, with tigers they wanted to kill, when they did. Humans don't die so easily. Cats can in general play without (seriously) hurting one another or a human. On the other hand, even a small cat could kill a human by going to the throat, which they could. But they don't. The house cat evolved to manipulate us instead to get what they want, instead of eating and killing us. Those cats that tried that, like tigers, got allmost extinct. And from what I know, there are bigger limits to what a tiger will do, instead of a house cat. And yes, they are bigger and any bad mood of them allways very dangerous.
      • somenameforme 2y ago
        I wouldn't anthropomorphize wild animals kept as pets. Such animals aren't thinking about killing, per se, nor are they attacking things because they're in a bad mood. They're driven by instincts and those instincts, which are generally involve killing anything they can, sometimes just inappropriately click on. For instance we were introducing one of our cats to a new stray kitten we found. We've done this plenty of times before and are used to the process including having them play footsie under the door for weeks, reading positive body language (tail posture, etc) and so on. It was all positive. So we let them see each other. Everything was going really well until the kitten decided to boldly just march up to the cat. Something just clicked in her at that point. The cat, the most docile and friendly cat imaginable, just pounced and decided she was going to wreck the kitten. After separating her we assumed it was her way of trying to roughly assert dominance, reminding the kitten she was being a bit too familiar. That was until we were treating the kitten and saw the bite marks were in the throat area - she would have 100% killed the kitten if we had acted half a second more slowly. After that she was all back to being nice and friendly outside the door, but we decided to find the kitten a new home instead of risking being a bit too slow the second time.
• bryanrasmussen 2y ago
  individual members of a species are individuals, that you can have individual cats that are aggressive does no invalidate the domestication of the entire species. also attacking in play is different than attacking, so that should be considered.
• gnulinux 2y ago
  I really wonder people who say these things ever owned a cat. I cannot see how cats are "less capable of living with humans albeit they're less dangerous". My anecdotes show: * Cats absolutely can be obedient with training. I've been clicker training my cat for years and he can do any trick a dog can do. He also understands his name. I tested this many many times by yelling random words, seeing him continue sleeping, then yelling his name, causing him to jump and run towards me. * Cats can be trained not to attack at hands like dogs. This is called "cat inhibition" and it's standard practice for cat owners, all good cat owners must know and practice inhibition training. * Cats clearly prefer sitting next to humans and sleep close to them. If you never experienced this you never lived with a cat long term. It's actually fascinating, when a cat is "sleeping" they're actually not sleeping in a human sense, it's a particularly light sleep. They're still ready to hunt. What most cat owners will see is that when your cat is sleeping next to you, and you suddenly change the room to clean dishes or use the bathroom, your cat will get up and sleep somewhere close to you. Although a human interprets this as cat being lazy, they're exhibiting hypersocial behavior for their species. * Cats are not weak. Have you ever fought a cat? I did. I'm a full sized human male who weight trains regularly and my cat can barely overpower me if he puts all his power. Go watch some feral cat vet videos, you'll see cats require a strongman sized vet to be fully seized (and rarely some still get away). An adult cat will have no problem overpowering a human female. If you think "cats are attacking their owners" you seriously have no idea how incredibly powerful these creatures are. When a cat slaps you or whatever they're merely warning you in a "polite" way (and, as explained before this is a sort of behavior that can usually be curbed with training)
• QuantumGood 2y ago
  I pay attention to my cats. They don't bite me without me knowing in advance. Even people who've had cats for decades get bit more than I do. I don't understand why people don't pay that much attention to other people or pets. There's a lot going on that you can be aware of if you make an effort.
  • vidarh 2y ago
    I find it easier to read cats than people most of the time. Cats are obvious. But I think a lot of people get surprises simply because they don't care about whether an animal consents to their treatment or not, and a cat has a short fuse if you overstep.
  • somenameforme 2y ago
    The countless people that have been mauled and killed by their pet chimps, big cats, and so on also felt the exact same, or obviously they would not have had those sorts of animals as pets.
    • QuantumGood 2y ago
      "people must have ... or else they would have" isn't usually an attempt at a statement of fact. It might be better to paraphrase to make your point. It's possible to know a lot in many situations, be fooled or harmed much less than others, be right most of the time, and still be fooled or harmed. Animals that can be dangerous to humans are a safety issue, not a statistics or awareness issues—you can only be badly wrong once to suffer serious harm.
      • somenameforme 2y ago
        It literally is a statement of fact, because it's directly causal logic. You don't pick up animals which are literally capable of killing/maiming you, unless you think you know better and are fully capable of, in your words, you "knowing in advance" or "being aware of" when they're going to attack. The only assumption I am making is that people don't want to be maimed or killed, which I think is reasonable. The whole risk and point of undomesticated animals is that you literally cannot know when they will strike. There are countless examples of people having raised all sorts of wild animals for many years with no incident, and then one day the animal simply kills them, or somebody else, for no reason.