Really fascinating, I love the implication that domestication is tied to juvenile characteristics (getting along in a group means acting more like a kid than an adult protecting your territory / breeding rights).
> "Are we domesticated in the sense of dogs? No. But I am comfortable saying that the first thing that has to happen to get a human from an apelike ancestor is a substantial increase in tolerance toward one another."
I recall reading many years ago how humans are fundamentally juvenile even when we reach adulthood, given our propensity to socialize and more importantly play.
It's interesting, though, because anyone who has ever owned a cat knows that they are only barely domesticated. It might be something in the canine brain that makes it easy to domesticate them.
Cats aren't as deeply domesticated as dogs but there's clearly been some breeding effect which you see when you compare a housecat against a true wildcat (felis silvestris). The main thing is that housecats are comfortable around humans as long as they're exposed to humans within a critical age window, even if they were born in the wild to a feral cat. In contrast, wildcats never become comfortable around humans and are effectively always feral.
Housecats also have a number of behaviors that seem only distantly related to things that would be useful in the wild, such as meowing for attention. Another weird behavior is when cats line up dead mice outside their owner's bedroom door like a present. There's clearly some relationship that they understand between themselves and their owner.
I don't think a lot of effort was put into actually intentionally breeding cats for domestication.
People seem to love them as semi wild animals and unlike dogs they aren't dangerous enough to be put down when they start biting people. On top of that a large percentage of the population are actually wild animals aka feral. Spend a lot of time with a kitten and it may become extremely affectionate, but we also habitually neuter them unlike the wild population. Go back 1,000 years and I suspect people acted similarly though without the neutering.
So the external evolutionary pressure for domestication doesn't seem nearly as strong as with those foxes, and might currently be going in the other direction.
> anyone who has ever owned a cat knows that they are only barely domesticated
just speculating, but wolves are "pack" animals, so they are already adapted to cooperating with each other and following a leader. perhaps that made them easier to train and domesticate. cats aren't like that except in the "lion pride" breeding sense which is perhaps a narrower skillset in terms of utility.
and of course, anybody who has owned a tiger will tell you that a cat is fairly domesticated :) I mention it because "domesticated" and "useful as a friend" might be two different things.
Whereas dogs were trained/bred/selected for specific purposes, I suspect cats were just kind of hanging out, following rodents which were were adjacent to human settlements.
It's easy to imagine humans simply tolerating them because they kept mice under control around grain and other food storage.
Intuitively that matches my perception of the cat-human relationship vs. the dog-human relationship.
I remember reading once that cats pretend domesticated themselves. Rather then changing themselves to be more docile and acceptable to humans they adapted traits that just make them seem more appealing to humans.
It's because dogs are wolf with the Williams Syndrome. A DNA deletion syndrome which reduces aggression and increases empathy. In humans the syndrome produces individuals with characteristic facial features, a big smile and friendly traits.
Edit: visibly dog lovers are not too keen on learning that their best friends have a genetic abnormality. But that doesn't make it less true, it's pretty well documented. It doesn't mean that dogs are lesser somehow, they are still perfectly viable it the wild (well not the races resulting from the most extreme genetic selections, but most of them)
Williams syndrome is only in humans. It's not even a particularly hereditary condition. If what you said was true, we would expect to see modern day wild Wolves with this same genetic abnormality. Or we would expect to see wolves (and other predators, too) domesticated many different times in many different places, whenever this animal version of "Williams Syndrome" naturally occurred. We don't see that.
There are plenty of other genetically similar canine species that aren't domesticated. There are plenty of related animal (seals, ferrets, skunks) that aren't been widely domesticated, but are completely capable of being domesticated on an individual level, and none of them possess genetic abnormalities
One thing that many of these animals have in common is that they are fairly comfortable and adaptable to living in very close proximity to humans. That's true of modern day coyotes, raccoons, etc.
Humans have 99.9% identical DNA. All the variation you see in humans is explained by just 0.1% genetic differences. There's no reason to believe that the same isn't true for dogs without having to resort to a rare genetic deformity.
Dogs have a few genes that are implicated in hyper-social tendencies of people with Williams Syndrome; they do not have Williams Syndrome. WS causes a lot of other mutations that dogs don't have.
It's more likely that the social phenotype that is present with many WS patients emerged in dogs due to evolutionary pressures (explicit and implicit breeding) than dogs emerging due to WS.
A few years ago someone was raising new questions about the validity of this study, it doesn't seem mentioned in the wikipedia page and I don't know how/if it was resolved or settled:
Ancient Romans and Greeks would write things about their dogs and have custom grave stones made, one of my favorites reads:
"My eyes were wet with tears, our little dog, when I bore thee (to the grave)... So, Patricus, never again shall thou give me a thousand kisses. Never canst thou be contentedly in my lap. In sadness have I buried thee, and thou deservist. In a resting place of marble, I have put thee for all time by the side of my shade. In thy qualities, sagacious thou wert like a human being. Ah, me! What a loved companion have we lost!"
I've made this argument many times and it always raises eyebrows and induces shrugs. We as a species co-evolved with some animals and not others. Our partnership with extends deep into the mists of pre-history. We and they have co-evolved to an extent to be better companions. Eating a dog is a profound betrayal unlike that of eating a horse. Come at me
I am OK with some cultures not eating some meats: pork for the muslims or jews, horse for some Western countries, sometimes rabbit. Where I'm from (Italy) we eat both horse and rabbits.
But I too draw the line at eating dogs and cats, except during extreme survival situations where it's eat your pet (or fellow human) to avoid starvation. I feel eating canids and felids as taboo as eating a primate, or eating a human.
Just as there are places where eating canids and felids is not taboo - so too are there places where eating a primate is not taboo. A larger geography by far as far as I know.
By this argument and amount of places (not people), eating a primate might be less taboo than eating a canid or felid?
As an American, I feel the same cultural taboos and they’ve kept me from eating some things but I’ve been reconsidering. Horse and rabbit were delicious.
What about coyote or mountain lion though? Those are still but seldom eaten in America mostly by hunters.
Some people draw the line at not eating predators not because of cultural taboo but because of bio accumulation issues.
Fascinating ethnobiology and moral boundary discussion.
I think the issue with predators is that they taste "bad" compared to herbivores. Maybe we have evolved not to like they because of bioaccumulation, i.e. its not just a cultural norm.
I cannot think of a land-dwelling meat-eating animal human routinely eat. We eat chicken, but they eat anything including rocks, and they're towards the bottom rank of good-tasting meats anyway.
You hear of people occasionally eating frog-legs, alligator, rattlesnake. But maybe these also taste "bad". And since frogs are insect eaters, maybe bioaccumulation isn't as much an issue.
And then you have a ton of people that eat beef all the time, vs a ton of people that revere cows; in certain places you can be imprisoned or lynched for slaughtering one, google "cow vigilantism".
It always interests me to consider just how relative taboos can be.
> But I too draw the line at eating dogs and cats, except during extreme survival situations where it's eat your pet (or fellow human) to avoid starvation. I feel eating canids and felids as taboo as eating a primate, or eating a human.
Really, dogs, primates, and humans should be the only animals that are okay to eat.
Otherwise you're saying that it's okay to kill and eat thinking, feeling creatures as long as they're sufficiently different from yourself.
Plus, only humans can consent to being eaten— In theory, anyway, though I wouldn't want to see any system that claims it can actually respect that honestly.
I would argue, the native american tribes, who also did eat their dogs, treated them better overall, than humanity does today on average. So many dogs bred for running around, are lucky today, if they get to walk around outside for more than 20 minutes. This I would call betrayal.
There are still many instances where this partnership is the case though. Search and rescue, avalanche rescue, herding, security and law enforcement, disability assistance, bomb/drug detection, hunting, etc. A lot of the companion dogs are useless for these roles, but many popular breeds could perform these tasks if given the training. On the west coast, people generally seem much more active with their dogs imo.
Yes I know, which is why I said "on average". Another big group of human-dog partnership, are with hippie/gypsy/punk people - but those dogs usually tend to be very annoying (and also dangerous) to everyone else.
> I would argue, the native american tribes, who also did eat their dogs, treated them better overall, than humanity does today on average. So many dogs bred for running around, are lucky today, if they get to walk around outside for more than 20 minutes. This I would call betrayal.
Do you relatively equate this to how we treat other animals right now, killing the planet's livable ecosystems while exclusively creating living spaces and amenities for these domestic pets and treating the nature they come from as second class? Tens to hundreds of thousands of unique species and subspecies go extinct at previously unrecorded rates, but selective breeding of vanity traits in pet animals remains a common past time. There's clearly an attachment to these animals and breeds that keeps them in our conscious above others to consider it worthwhile to hold them in public reverence in a way that can still be described as companionship.
We've flipped the needle on adapting them for survival companionship to (essentially) slaved ownership with the aftereffects like you've mentioned, but I think zooming in on the scale of an individual societies' treatment won't generally be favorable. We barely even treat our own species with a level of achievable compassion for anyone deemed undesirable or are a lower class, the betrayal starts earlier than our treatment towards dogs.
Yeah, it's a bit narrow minded to exclude the rest of the historical context while comparing two isolated points in time. Sure makes an entirely emotion-driven plea look initially more compelling and legitimate though! Good for you on sticking to your preferred form of discourse.
Do you really think it makes sense to always talk about everything? The topic was about dogs and humans and this is what I was talking about. Nothing more, even though surely I could. Topics are connected and I do not neceasarily disagree to what you said, but sorry, this is indeed not my preferred form of discourse.
Indeed, but the switch from long-standing to long-riding is a relatively recent innovation, by the Romans, Arabs et al. (by breeding horses large enough to ride on), after the Sea Peoples demonstrated how to defeat charioteers
Dogs co-evolved with such great benefit to humanity that it not only changed the nature of human civilization, but was foundational to the formation of the first human civilizations.
Show me evidence that co-evolution with rats and cockroaches is anything like this.
I wouldn't eat a horse either, but otherwise agree. Dogs have evolved the skills to fit in human social structures. They really do become part of families.
"Of note, it's unclear whether the dog died a natural death, or whether it was killed to be buried with its human. An analysis of its remains may reveal this mystery."
What are the odds that the dog died of natural causes at exactly the same time as the owner?
> Abuse of a dog or cat is a crime against civilization itself.
That logic doesn't follow. If dogs predate civilization, then how could it be a crime against civilization? Your article is about dogs in primitive hunter gatherer societies. Not civilizations. Besides, many civilizations have thrived abusing dogs and cats. You might want to read what the bible says about 'unclean' dogs. Or why we have the saying 'there is more than one way to skin a cat'.
Or how 'civilizations' dispatched of dogs not too long ago.
Not to mention the millions of cats/dogs that are 'euthanized' every year or the hundreds of million of cats and dogs that are castrated ( which people oddly don't consider to be abuse ). Heck, it's not hard to argue that imprisoning animals in your home as 'pets' is abuse.
If anything, civilization is an abuse against dogs and cats.
Humans and dogs were two borderline species until dogs were domesticated. But together the two were so complementary, that they never looked back. The dogs had the speed, teeth, smell and baby sitting while humans had the weapons, rock throwing, intelligence and cooking. It was and is a killer combination that rose to the top of the animal world on earth so far.
It's tricky for women to raise children in the wild. Especially once kids get to the ages between 2.5 and 8 when they'll want to explore their ever changing environment but mom still has to look for plants and berries and keep an eye any dangers and carnivores that are around. Dogs protect their own little ones in the wild and readily help to keep an eye on the human youngsters in the same way. Further more dogs will sound the alarm when needed. It's one more helping, important hand, that dogs bring to the bargain.
It's a bit of a fringe theory but there's a suggestion that the human 'alliance' with wolves gave us the edge over Neanderthals and other predators and ensured that it was us who ultimately survived as a species. It's a nice thought for a dog lover.
Why wouldn't neanderthals form an alliance with wolves too? Especially considering Neanderthals had a multi-hundred-thousand year head start in wolf range compared to homo sapiens.
It’s an interesting question. I don’t know if there’s any evidence of wolf domestication by Neanderthals. If they didn’t domesticate them, it would be interesting to try to work out why – maybe there’s a subtle difference in psychology between H. Sapiens and H. Neanderthalensis that enabled us to bridge that gap but not them?
There isn't a whole lot of evidence for how Neanderthals lived. We have only discovered remnants of 400 Neanderthals (about 30 mostly-complete skeletons).
Again we are in the realms of speculation upon speculation, but Neanderthals didn't have sclera (whites of the eyes) which according to the co-operative eye hypothesis as regards to domesticated hunting dogs allows them to follow our gaze. It does seem odd that Neanderthals didn't try to domesticate them too - surely the first reaction on seeing humans and dogs bring down a mammoth or corral large deer would be 'got to get us some of that', but as sibling comments say we don't know much about them really.
On this topic I saw this great documentary called "Man's first friend" from 2008.[1].
Also speaking of northern Italy, as a dog owner, I am fully behind this[2] proposal to DNA test dogs and punish anyone leaving dog poop on the streets.
I also enjoyed the probably not very historically accurate movie Alpha, about a prehistoric young man domesticating a wolf: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4244998/
I don't think a single parameter like that makes it "definitely" low-trust.
In Austria, people are required to deposit money to borrow a grocery cart while shopping for food. Not so anywhere I've been in the US -- ergo Austria is low-trust and US is high-trust? I think not.
The US has those, Aldi uses them. But isn't this because they don't have cart boys to bring the carts from corals throughout the parking lot back to the front of the store? It's just a different model of cart management, not indicative of trust or lack thereof. If somebody wanted to steal a cart, that quarter is a trivial price for it. It's not an anti-theft measure, just a little thing to encourage honest people to walk slightly further than normal.
Here's a rule of thumb I use to judge if a community is high trust or not. If I leave my bicycle unlocked and it gets stolen, will others be surprised or will they call me a moron for trusting other people? Obviously NYC is low trust, I would be mocked mercilessly if my unlocked bike got stolen there.
It's the difference between getting your bike stolen because of a random asshole and knowing your bike will be stolen by someone (also arguably an asshole).
Literally any city with good fare compliance. If it's got enough people in it to have a transit network, it's got enough bike thieves in it to steal your bike.
> It's the difference between getting your bike stolen because of a random asshole and knowing your bike will be stolen by someone (also arguably an asshole).
That's just a product of population density. If you live in the middle of nowhere, with 5 people total in a 15-mile radius, it's highly unlikely someone's going to steal your bike.
If you leave your bike on Main Street, where thousands of people walk by every hour, all it takes is one in a thousand.
Definitely a high trust city (Vienna), but note that a few times a year they do check for tickets.
Because the monthly pass rate is so low, most people have purchased the pass on their phone and that must be shown a couple of times a year or else you’ll be charged a fine at the checkpoint. I’m actually surprised that the evasion stats are so low, since the fine isn’t terribly large and you might come out ahead just never paying the fare and only paying fines.
I have to say though, that system of spot checks makes the day to day very low friction.
The first time I visited Vienna I noted the complete lack of fare control and thought "wow, it's great they've made public transport free!" My hostel was kind enough to disabuse me of this notion, though.
Hardly anyone in NYC would comply with such a law. They would just ignore it. The city could perhaps require DNA testing by animal shelters and legitimate breeders within it's borders. But many dogs come from elsewhere, or from backyard breeders who don't care about laws.
Dogs in NYC are already required to wear tags with their rabies vaccination statuses and IDs. That also isn't really checked, but it absolutely could be by simply stopping people walking their dogs and requesting to see their ID tag.
Don't shoot the messenger, but this is one of a number of quality-of-life improvements which is a non-starter because of the doctrine of disparate racial impact. The argument would be that poverty, undocumented status, etc, means it's harder for some ethnicities to comply with that sort of regulation, so the burden of police interaction would disproportionately fall on them. Probably not wrong in this case, getting a dog registered with all his shots is fairly expensive. My take is that a law worth having is a law worth enforcing, but unless that idea comes back into fashion, things like your suggestion won't happen.
Those laws aren't dog ownership requirements in New York City, though. Which is the topic I was replying to. It wasn't a statement about all laws everywhere.
They literally are: you are required to vaccinate and register your dog in NYC and your dog is required to wear proof of this vaccination at all times in public.
Ah, I didn't realize you were the person I was replying to, and assumed that the "airing of grievances" bit was directed at me. My reference to "those laws" was to the ones you said have disparate racial impact and are enforced. I still think that NYC is unlikely to start robustly enforcing the ones you are talking about.
Come on, you can't be serious. Police and code enforcement officers aren't going to stop random dog walkers on the street to demand DNA test results. Real Americans don't tolerate that kind of government overreach, and the authorities already didn't even have time to investigate actual crimes.
"Demand DNA test results" == "check that they have a specific tag on their collar"
I didn't say they are going to, and you didn't say they wouldn't. You said they couldn't (because people "would just ignore it") and I said they absolutely could. Which is true.
Isn’t solving trust issues with further mistrust leads to an even lower trust in the end? (genuinely interested because “low-trust/high-trust communities” concept is a topic I know nothing about.)
Good point. I really don't think a country can switch side (high to low and viceversa) within a short timespan, maybe not even within a generation.
So, if you want to solve the issue, you use the methods which work in the affected area.
In high trust, as long as the thing is seeing benefitting most, it is often followed. In low trust, breaking a rule is often seen as a sign of independence and generally being cool, so you need to put deterrents to make it uncool to get caught.
At least, this is coming from my own personal experience living in different countries. Might not be the same everywhere.
So you're saying that in the 70/80s people trusted each other much more?
I'm not sure specifically about kids and dogs but I'm not quite sure that was the case then, given the extremely huge heterogeneous society that was already back then. What do you think?
It is absolutely not good for the environment. Your dog does not eat a local, natural diet. There are more dogs than could be locally and naturally sustained.
That blows my mind. I had two dogs as a kid, and if we didn't pick up the poop fast it destroyed the grass underneath. Their corner of the yard was all dead grass.
Sorry, misspoke. I meant any animal that eats meat, including humans, dogs, chickens, etc. If they eat meat, there are toxins in the poop that make it inappropriate as a fertilizer, but you can compost it and kill off most of the bad stuff.
Dogs are little more than farm animals, in the sense that we're farming them for companionship. They might be our friends now that we have killed all the ones that would defy our commands.
Look at any wild animal, do they want to be owned, do they want to be put on a leash? Of course not. Animals want to be free like any other living being, but just like cows, dogs would not survive on their own because we have artificially selected them. Imagine aliens capturing humans, breeding them in captivity until they are docile little creatures that cannot survive on their own. It's easy to feel sorry for farm animals because we eat them, but in a way people who love pets are not any better than the farmer, despite the culture thinking otherwise.
> Animals want to be free like any other living being,
That's a nice thought, but in reality there are plenty of humans even that just get overwhelmed and scared at the thought of freedom, whether their own or other people's, and actively demand, seek, and create rigid and oppressive systems of rules and restrictions in order to trade freedom away for predictability. Otherwise… The entire human world would likely be shaped quite different from how it currently is.
Our morals don't map cleanly onto physical reality, and values like "freedom" are unfortunately still relatively inconsequential next to causalities like "death", "killing", "starvation", and "culling". Does a tapeworm "want to be free" from its host? How about a male anglerfish, which only has a nervous system complex enough to find a larger female anglerfish which it can latch onto while its entire body is subsumed away? Animals want whatever animals are neurologically wired to want, humans included, and only sometimes does that align with our higher ideals of life having intrinsic worth. The nature of things simply is, and in a lot of cases, I think the ways we try to assign moral judgements to it are projecting our own social instincts onto ecological and cognitive systems that do not share our values.
Certainly, the power dynamics, amount of control, and relative levels of awareness between humans and pets are… Would be rightfully horrifying, though, if the alternative were a relationship of equal peers.
Ok, sure, maybe not all animals would feel that way, but I think probably all mammals or at least the smarter ones (relatively speaking). If dogs "want" to be pets, it's for the same reasons cows "want" to be farm animals, but it would be far-fetched to say a cow wants to be slaughtered and eaten. Sure a pet dog is not food, but compared to their wolf ancestors, they are far from their ideal natural state (if they have one at this point, which I guess is arguable, just like with cows).
I guess I'm mostly pointing to a double standard between pets and farm animals. I eat meat, so I'm not advocating for any solution on either case here, just making an observation that potentially we are farming animals for more than food, and there aren't any movements advocating for the release of pets or alternatives to animal companionship.
> Look at any wild animal, do they want to be owned, do they want to be put on a leash?
Numerous wild animals can be held as pets, without going through domestication, so apparently they do. If you feed them, they may have no reason to mind the leash, life is hard in the wild.
I think we would need to make a distinction between holding a wild animal in captivity temporarily and owning one as a pet or as an exhibition at the zoo. When people help wild animals that is of course good for them, and it helps preserve wild life. Having them as pets on the other hand is a different matter, and I would be very skeptical even if the animal seems happy because ultimately it would not know or have awareness of what is really going on. That said, it's a complicated issue, so it's not like I'm saying no one should own pets.
Thank you for saying that, it's a bitter pill for a lot of people to swallow. I suspect most folks who struggle with squaring the facts just haven't spent much time around livestock.
i was walking my two dogs Sunday before last and was jumped by pitbulls roaming the neighborhood. A passing Dominos delivery driver pretty much saved the lives of both my dogs. I got him to role down his window and literally threw one of my dogs through it, then when the other one got separated for a min she literally jumped through the open window too. I jumped in and paid the driver $20 to take me home, the pits chased the car for maybe a block.
I have a pistol and was thinking about carrying it but that means every time i take my dogs for a walk i have to get it out of the safe and put it back in the safe. I have kids so can't just hang a holster with the leashes. Too much hassle and I know i'll eventually stop taking it with me. What i ended up doing was getting bear spray that can attach to the leashes. Now I can't forget to take protection with me when taking the dogs out because it's physically attached to the leash.
Open carry is legal in both states. But I want nothing to do with owning/carrying guns. And haven't ever felt the need - most dogs give up chase once you pass their property. And I've only had a dog get my back tire once, and never flesh (though it does happen).
> But I want nothing to do with owning/carrying guns.
I said "when in Rome" to signal distaste at the idea, for whatever that's worth. On the other hand, if bicycling leftists armed themselves and started blasting away every car and dog that made them feel threatened, it might move the needle on gun rights in a way that right-wing shooters fail to.
And, I've had several dogs escape their fences. They aren't just noisy.
I can't say cyclists are my best friends either. Just had two buzz me with with few mm to spare while walking to work. Yes, I was on the footpath, cyclists are not allowed to ride on footpaths here, there was a bicycle path right next to the footpath.
If I was a dog that would be even more disturbing - a huge fast monkey trying to kill you (and your owner) while you peacefully walk.
Pepper spray, knife etc are illegal here. I carry air horn for quick deployment, and petards (very small explosives). Saved my ass twice! Once I was surrounded by pack of four large dogs!
It is mostly South Europe, not wilderness but more like 10 km from nearest village of 2000 people. Injuring dog is a serious offense here ($20k fine, perhaps jail). I am also foreigner, not local citizen...
Lots of stray dogs around here in south of Spain. Also when I used to be a 12y old cycling in rural france that was pretty much the same, I was always prepared for a sprint whenever I would reach a farm.
In a sense it probably made me stronger but I can't say I build a friendship and a mutual sense of confidence with dogs.
But many bad behaviours are pretty easy to train out of most dogs (eg barking at passer-bys). Dogs are easy to train. Too many lazy owners blame their "nature" or "that's just how they are" as if they can't do anything.
My dogs bark at people on bike/motorcycles/scooters. I think they code as a big animal to them. Once we get up close and it's clear that it's a person on a machine they stop barking.
As a counter point to hunting, my dog seems to be afraid of almost anything on wheels. Even a skateboard without rider is a hard nope, and will send her tail tucked behind me.
She's a 90 lbs Mastiff/St Bernard/Lab cross. It's not like she's worried about being crushed or eaten. She could probably eat me.
Or maybe she doesn't realize she's big. I don't know.
Instincts? Wolves hunt animals much larger than themselves for a living, they run after, nibble their ankles and wait for them to make a mistake and then they go in.
The cyclist hate is really demoralizing sometimes. Like, I'm out here trying to enjoy life and be healthy and people think it's funny to joke about murdering me.
I have no hate towards them, what I said what tongue in cheeck. After relying on two wheels (motorbike mainly) for about 10 years, I get the cyclists viewpoint. It's certainly not cool to joke about murdering anyone, cyclist or not.
It's just that ... they do tend to flaunt the rules here in Brussels. It's partly clear why (losing momentum on a bicycle sucks) but also extremely stupid to throw yourself (and your two kids on the back) in front of 2000KG of metal moving at speed, expect that metal so accommodate you (something no sane motorbiker will do) and if not start screaming and punching the metal.
I get annoyed at cyclists who ride irresponsibly too - I also live in a place where people HATE cyclists beyond any and all reason, and in general I think we're all being failed by our infrastructure first and foremost.
You didn't joke about killing cyclists, but that's where the culture is where I'm from, so I'm touchy about it.
I've long believed that riding a bike should require a license and that cycling laws need to be part of getting licenses for both the cyclist and drivers. Part of the problem is, most people don't actually know the laws for operating a bicycle, including most cyclists. I know this is an unpopular opinion.
It's exactly that. The problems that exist with cyclists and people riding steps does not exist with people riding motorbikes for which you need a license.
I love that attitude - we have a safety issue, so let's victim blame and ignore the infrastructure issues, poorly trained HEAVY MACHINERY OPERATORS, safety-hostile vehicle design, and generally enormous subsidies for using cars everywhere.
It also leads to restrictions on walking "for safety". For instance, note attempts in Ireland to make it illegal to walk at night without high visibility gear.
Cars ruined cycling. The only way to avoid cars is to use a car yourself. The problem is then you need to do pointless supplementary exercise lest you become an incapable blob like they are. Driving to the gym it is then.
Maybe this is just me, but combining exercise with commute has never been practical for me. I still cycle to work, but I don't do it for exercise, only because it happens to be the fastest method in my present circumstances.
But still using it as an example, on my way to work I take the easiest, least hilly route to avoid any sweating as possible. On the way back, I take the most downhill route possible because I still want to wear the same pieces of clothing (say, a jacket) without having to wash it daily. In short, I don't go all out. Result - I don't lose weight at all nor has my physical fitness improved much.
Versus if I engaged in "pointless supplementary exercise", I do go all out, and after 30 minutes I'm all drenched in sweat.
My present circumstances don't allow it, but I imagine if I could drive the same distance to work, I would save about 30-60 minutes which I could in theory use to engage in an all-out workout.
First, I know a lot of people are very nice to their dogs, but...
I live in a large city, and based on the number of dogs locked away in apartments all day barking and bored to death with almost no stimulation, I figure dogs are certainly not the best friends of a lot of people. Instead, they are more like prisoners that illustrate the cruelness of humanity in general: these people use them as entertainment and care fairly little for their overall welfare.
I strongly agree and it's apparent not everybody shares this opinion.
I grew up in the countryside in the middle of nowhere, my dog used to have an enormous backyard to run in, and was cheeky enough to have made a hole in the fence when that time of the year came and he really wanted to leave for a couple days at a time, either to sire some puppies, or to roll around in horse dung. We used a leash whenever we took him amidst civilization, otherwise he was used to just walking unleashed, with us (mostly getting impatient at how slow humans are), sniffing anything he wanted and peeing on every pole that stood in his path.
I miss him every day (died at 15 years old a happy and free half golden retriever mutt). I'd love another dog, but I know they're a type of animal that enjoys a large territory, freedom, as well as a social hierarchy. I will have to suffer with this hole inside of me until I am able to leave the city and offer a dog not only love, but large enough space to run around and not get bored to death.
Cats on the other hand, as long as they have food and are left alone, can happily live holed up in a flat. Thrive, I'm not sure, but they have much simpler needs than dogs.
Some dogs really can handle modest exercise. I know a happy cocker spaniel who’s an apartment dweller. Gets a lot of human interaction with almost constant human companions, with about ten humans rotating in and out of the dogs life over a month. So, exercise wise, not too much except walks in the city and parks, but socially a very interesting life. I am sure a husky would go insane in the same circumstances. It also very much depends on the individual, so if you get a dog, find out as much as possible how it’s close relatives behave.
are much more like humans - cat's dig urbanism, can hang out at a cafe for hours, sit on a couch watching the tube all day, they happily adapt.. So that' why we say "there's a cool cat" but you never hear anything about "cool dogs". So your theory is correct in my opinion: dogs are good rural friends and cats are good urban friends. There is also the matter of dog poop. Has anyone every complained on cat poop on their stoop? Or getting bitten by the neighbor's cat? Or being annoyed at the neighbor's mewing cat?
Now a cat on a farm, don't know about that. Wonder how that would work.
I assume it was more like humans found cats in their winter grain storage, saw the cat ate rats and left the grain alone, so humans left the cat alone. Ten thousand years later and we are now in a closer relationship.
Me and my parents came to an agreement that we will not own a pet while we live in an apartment precisely because of this sentiment. I also disagree with the strawman the other comment presented: The alternative isn't to have the dog fight for survival on the streets as a stray. The alternative is to have the dog owned by a family that can actually provide it with the appropriate environment.
Dogs are very social and they love to be with their humans, your pet is not going to be happier being left alone in the back yard than lounging on the couch with you.
They didn't, I'm pointing out that the problem isn't the space (apartment), but that owners aren't providing adequate stimulation and companionship for the dogs.
Not always that simple. I have a giant doberman. I no-shit threw a frisbee for this doberman 72 times yesterday (and ran with her three miles). She gets more exercise than the sheltie I had as a kid that ran leash-free in the country. And if you dare leave her in the backyard her whine could emit high-pitch frequencies that shake glass. She's a city dog that would be lost in the country without a human to hang with.
I generally agree that cities and apartments aren't great places for dogs.
But a lot of dogs are rescues, and a lot of breeds are quite happy in apartments.
There are also a lot of mitigations possible. There are dog walkers and dog sitters who come by and walk the dogs during the daytime. You can have multiple dogs that keep each other company. Etc.
based on the number of dogs locked away in apartments
all day barking and bored to death with almost no
stimulation
Respectfully, it seems like you don't know a lot about dogs?
A barking dog isn't necessarily distressed. In fact, they're probably not distressed: there are a lot of other ways that dogs show that.
They also like to sleep during the daytime. They sleep a lot in general. They are pretty adaptable to our schedules.
While I generally don't think we should be breeding dogs at all, the reality is that there are a lot of dogs who need homes (as well as homes who need dogs!) and in the majority of situations I think that getting dogs into homes with a loving family is preferable to euthanizing them.
Right. I wasn't very clear. I perhaps made it sound like I didn't want any more dogs to be born.
To be clearer, my wish is that we could curtail breeding until supply matched demand. Rather than the current situation where lots of dogs are put down because there are more dogs than homes.
I can't speak for GP, but I personally find it kind of fucked up that we selectively breed a lot of dogs for certain asthetic traits at the expense of their health. I assume they meant this brand of artificial selection rather than letting dogs reproduce at all.
That’s an extremely harsh take considering those same owners likely do care a lot about their dogs and shower them with love and affection outside those 8 hours. You’re focusing on a single part of the experience in order to paint the whole thing in a negative light.
To put it another way, would they be better off being strays? I doubt it.
Extremely harsh? Many of these dogs are very smart. What about locking a human away for 8 hours with no internet, no books, no entertainment, nothing to do?
And it might be affection they give their dogs but it's not really love if they are so cruel. Besides, they wouldn't be strays if they were never bought, at least not a lot of them if the demand were lower, then so would the breeding and supply.
> What about locking a human away for 8 hours with no internet, no books, no entertainment, nothing to do
These arguments fall apart when the animal is anthropomorphized.
Dogs sleep a lot more than people do, needing around 12 hours. They will take about 4 hours of that sleep in the day regardless if a human is around.
It's very breed dependent but, the majority of dogs don't require a significant amount of mental stimulation. For most breeds, a half hour of mental stimulation is plenty.
Obviously locking a husky or a cattle dog in an apartment (and this unfortunately does happen), is another story. There are certain breeds you shouldn't go for if you live in an apartment. But there are a lot of breeds that do just fine, even some large ones, like greyhounds.
Exactly. My wife has been rescuing French Bulldogs for years. Even before they were this popular. The problem is they have all sorts of health issues that people don't account for, so they get turned in more than you think. But, their demeanor makes them great apartment dogs. They'll happily sleep 15 hours/day, and even when outside will lay down in the sun to sleep more.
Speaking of greyhounds, we fostered an Italian Greyhound one time...and I thought Frenchies were fragile.
Pre-pandemic, when my partner and I had to go to work and leave the dog alone, we made sure to leave multiple treat toys and puzzles for entertainment, and were never away for longer than 6 hours.
Now that we both work from home we can see that the dog mostly sleeps all day, occasionally getting up to bark at some squirrels or passers-by.
> To put it another way, would they be better off being strays? I doubt it.
Adopting a dog will probably do it good, but a lot of people are buying dogs from dog breeders (and then the mentioned behavior happens, dogs left alone to bark in apartments). Should dogs be purposefully bred as pets, only to be left alone for hours on end?
I am not a lover of dogs, which some people seem to find offensive? Yet, people who are cruel to dogs are, generally, dog owners and not people like me who just give them a wide berth.
Anyone who thinks an animal enjoys being locked indoors all day with no understanding of why, or for how long it will be, is a much lesser person than me.
Unfortunately, this pet-owner energy mismatch extends to those who live in all types of environments. People will often seek a companion putting plenty of research into their looks, size, and how much they shed - without paying mind to the breed's temperament. I work with high-drive waterfowl retrievers that have seemingly endless energy and they can really start to act up without proper frequent exercise. They require multiple 20+ minute sessions of training/running per day that would be equivalent to many miles of running each session.
Your funny comment actually has some deep insight I'd like to see researched more.
We know by now how we turned the grey wolf into the dog, but do we know what the relationship has done for us? What have wolves taught humans?
Some hypotheses to get you started: they might've taught us the power of collaboration. The power of social hierarchy. The empathy towards other life forms. Anthropomorphism (maybe that's why we have furries today). I don't know, but I very much doubt the domestication of wolves has been a one way endeavour.
On the evolutionary scale, we'd definitely have to say the change is more profound for the dogs. Every pet dog today is the result of selective breeding by humans, whereas most humans probably did not own dogs.
That said, on a personal scale:
My pets have definitely changed me and made me better.
Here's an idle thought - have we evolved to be pet lovers? Pets increase happiness and lower stress, which are going to have all sorts of relationship and career benefits.
Interesting - I'd never head of this. There seems to be some debate over whether these puppies/dogs might be considered as pets, but perhaps it was the same for early humans too - domesticating cats (egyptians) and dogs for their utility at controlling pests and guarding/warning against intruders, then later warming to their furry friends.
Not just that, but there's a very wide, gray area in our other domestication stories too.
You don't just rock up to a herd of wild bovines and say "hey, you're my cows now, let me milk you". Rather, one day a group of humans started following a herd around, killing one once in a while for meat; eventually perhaps they started protecting the cattle from other predators and guiding where the herd went, while also starting to find ways to continue lactation in females and get them to acquiesce to being milked.
The cows that were compliant to the slow changes were the most likely to reproduce; rinse and repeat until you get whatever we have now.
It's been observed by one television documentary that, among other things, included a dog with a collar in one of these shots (with no explanation for the context).
There's no peer-reviewed scientific research describing this phenomena. Or even any attempt at gathering any data with something resembling scientific rigor.
A simpler explanation is that these dogs and baboons are just... Living side-by-side in a garbage dump. And that the film-makers just didn't include any footage that didn't fit their narrative.
Yes - I remember Koko naming her kitten as "all ball" (kinda like "fur ball"?!).
I'm not sure if a wild animal has ever been observed to have a pet, but I guess many intelligent animals value playfulness and companionship, and have evolved to have tolerance and empathy, so judging by Twitter, etc, it doesn't seem that rare to have inter-species friendships even between animals that might be considered as predator and potential prey.
I mean, have you ever watched a working dog in action? I have two border collies and we never trained them to herd or anything but holy crap are they enthused to use their intellect and body to work for you in any way they possibly can, and solve whatever puzzles you give them. It obviously gives them insane pleasure to do so.
Watching a collie herding dog in action, or I presume a hunting dog, is quite amazing. Hard to believe humans wouldn't have watched and learned.
Also that 14,000 year domestication date mentioned in the article sounds remarkably similar to the dates humans began the processing of "domesticating" (settling) themselves, and is basically the marker for the end of the last ice age, too. Keeping crops and herds of animals and building permanent villages to guard and control definitely benefits from having canines (and felines for pest control, too).
Well first thing they do even before birth is starting sucking your energy out so there is that. Now that they are gently reaching teenager years, I call them roomies. They eat everything that is available in the fridge, don't want to help with cleaning, interact less and less with me, invite dubious people and listen to loud music in their room.
I'm reminded of that scene in House M.D. where he tells a patient she has a parasite, but she might learn to embrace it and dress it up in cute outfits.
I got 8 kids, and monkey guy and his wife delivered them and found them all good homes to live in. I see pictures of them regularly and I might be a grandmother next year.
I’d expect that this isn’t a typical story, do most dogs reproduce? I think if that were the case we’d quickly end up with too many dogs, their litters are so big.
Still seems like a pretty good deal for the species as a whole, though. Sort of like ants or bees, most of the members of the species end up as non-reproducing workers (except the work is to go be a friend to humans). Of course the ratio is not as extreme!
Um, you can't go anywhere unless you are on a leash. You can't hunt for your own food or have your own family on your own terms. You are literally owned by another species that has molded you according to their own criteria.
Imagine aliens captured humans and did the same to us.
You're getting downvotes for some reason, but that's more or less how Neil deGrasse Tyson humorously puts it in Cosmos 2 [1]:
"[...] This wolf has just discovered what a branch of his ancestors figured out some 15,000 years ago. An excellent survival strategy: the domestication of humans."
Interestingly, while they were selected purely for lack of aggression towards humans they started to develop dog-like physical traits.
Hasn't been replicated yet, and doubtfully will, but interesting.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domesticated_silver_fox