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A gorilla who was brought up as a boy in an English village

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Re: A gorilla who was brought up as a boy in an English village

#31

Post by etempleton »

ramblerman wrote: post #25
wolfhumble wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without knowing anything about the owner and the dog, I would rather meet an unleashed Golden Retriever than unleashed Pitbull. Am I wrong thinking like that?

Of course not, and this age-old argument in defence of pit-bulls comes up again and again, with the same point being missed. Pitbulls could be the sweetest breed in the world, the point is that "when" they attack, it ends up much much worse than your super aggressive chihuaha. And in some cases 1 to 1 a man can not win the fight. There a few breeds like that (e.g. mastiffs) but pitbulls are one of the most popularly…

I will agree with this. I don’t think Pit Bull types are inherently more likely to bite. I just think that they cause a lot more damage when they do bite. Most minor bites are probably unreported. House cats bite and claw all the time and no one reports it because the damage is minor.

Re: A gorilla who was brought up as a boy in an English village

#32

Post by ajxs »

chmod775 wrote: post #18
ptsneves wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cordially disagree. I counter argue that anthropomorphizing of animals is fundamentally flawed. What understanding are you talking about? That with understanding the wild animal will not kill and maim randomly? As per other comments it seems evidence is against this reasoning. Highly experienced trainers who understand very well their animals end up dead. I think it is quite a high grounded statement to call profes…

>Highly experienced trainers who understand very well their animals end up dead. Humans who understand other humans also get killed by humans - at rates other animals will never match. In the ballpark of ~20,000 murders are committed every year in the US, yet even though there are 90 million dogs in that same country, only about 30 to 50 people are killed by dogs. It would be pointless comparing the number of fatal b…

> "...at rates other animals will never match."

This is because we make the right decision to not live in close proximity to lions, tigers, bears, apes and all the other menagerie of dangerous creatures we share Earth with.

> "...only about 30 to 50 people are killed by dogs"

It's not a coincidence that this number is low. We keep domestic cats and dogs as pets precisely because their propensity and - in some cases - ability to kill us is low. If bears were as commonly kept as household pets as dogs you would see a completely different result.

Re: A gorilla who was brought up as a boy in an English village

#33

Post by slothtrop »

krageon wrote: post #6
chmod775 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. Though you could make a similar argument for domesticated animals like dogs. Especially larger dogs. Or humans! There are a lot of things that can be dangerous to humans, especially children, when they fly off the handle. There is always a risk. Most animals function emotionally like humans, but have no good way of communicating emotions like frustration and anger except through aggression. But locking up an…

This is exactly it. The argumentation "it is still a wild animal" is fundamentally lazy and seeks to banish a random class of organism to a space where it is okay to be needlessly cruel because understanding how it works is too hard.

That is not what it "seeks" at all.

Re: A gorilla who was brought up as a boy in an English village

#35

Post by etempleton »

secondcoming wrote: post #8
ofrzeta wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting that the vast majority of them are pit bulls. That might suggest that neither domesticated dogs nor wild animals are as likely to attack as are animals specifically bred to attack.

I wince when I read about pit bull owners proclaiming how their dog is harmless and 'one of the family'. They've clearly not watched the videos I have. And I don't accept that when a pit bull it's the 'fault of the owner'. There's something inherent in them that causes their brain to switch into attack mode for any reason. And once they do attack it's very difficult to get them to stop.

Nuture over nature in my opinion.

Dogs are like people in that childhood trauma never really goes away. If a dog was mistreated at any point in their life. Even before you owned the dog years ago, it could manifest in aggression.

We had a dog growing up, medium sized poodle mix, that we had adopted at one year and were told had been abused by the husband. Not typically an aggressive dog. However certain unfamiliar men, not all men, but some skinny, white men it seemed were liable to be met with aggression and family guarding behavior.

Every dog I have raised since puppyhood, including a 115 pound mixed breed and a 100 pound husky have had zero aggression issues. That is not to say one can be careless. There is always the chance, and you have to have the space and be able to handle any dog you own.

Re: A gorilla who was brought up as a boy in an English village

#36

Post by malloryerik »

ignoramous wrote: post #3

Good call sending the Gorilla away (though it didn't end well for the Gorilla), because there is no controlling a 200-pound angry wild animal when its upset: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travis_(chimpanzee) And Bears, too: > Even though it may appear that the bear attacked for no reason, there was a reason. "You can train them and use as many safety precautions as you can, but you're still taking a chance. It's stil…

I'm not sure it's fair to call a gorilla a "wild animal" when they've been so socialized that they live in a human home, use the light switch and the bathroom, go on walks with the local kids and have deep familial relationships with humans, the only other animals they know. That's not to claim that I have any idea how dangerous or not the situation might have been but "wild" really sounds like the wrong word here. Human culture was all the poor fellow knew, despite not being human.

Re: A gorilla who was brought up as a boy in an English village

#37

Post by DyslexicAtheist »

malloryerik wrote: post #36
ignoramous wrote: post #3

Good call sending the Gorilla away (though it didn't end well for the Gorilla), because there is no controlling a 200-pound angry wild animal when its upset: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travis_(chimpanzee) And Bears, too: > Even though it may appear that the bear attacked for no reason, there was a reason. "You can train them and use as many safety precautions as you can, but you're still taking a chance. It's stil…

I'm not sure it's fair to call a gorilla a "wild animal" when they've been so socialized that they live in a human home, use the light switch and the bathroom, go on walks with the local kids and have deep familial relationships with humans, the only other animals they know. That's not to claim that I have any idea how dangerous or not the situation might have been but "wild" really sounds like the wrong word here. H…

further, if one has the opportunity to talk to people working in a forensic psychology unit, they might discover the presence of the "wild animal" in the human and that all of us are still a lot closer to that wild animal than we like to admit.

Re: A gorilla who was brought up as a boy in an English village

#38

Post by InitialLastName »

etempleton wrote: post #31
ramblerman wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course not, and this age-old argument in defence of pit-bulls comes up again and again, with the same point being missed. Pitbulls could be the sweetest breed in the world, the point is that "when" they attack, it ends up much much worse than your super aggressive chihuaha. And in some cases 1 to 1 a man can not win the fight. There a few breeds like that (e.g. mastiffs) but pitbulls are one of the most popularly…

I will agree with this. I don’t think Pit Bull types are inherently more likely to bite. I just think that they cause a lot more damage when they do bite. Most minor bites are probably unreported. House cats bite and claw all the time and no one reports it because the damage is minor.

> House cats bite and claw all the time and no one reports it because the damage is minor.

Just jumping in here to say that if your house cat bites you and draws blood you should absolutely go to a doctor ASAP because cat mouths are nasty and cat bites often get very seriously infected (like, "lose your hand" infected) very quickly.

Re: A gorilla who was brought up as a boy in an English village

#40

Post by sbmthakur »

ignoramous wrote: post #3

Good call sending the Gorilla away (though it didn't end well for the Gorilla), because there is no controlling a 200-pound angry wild animal when its upset: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travis_(chimpanzee) And Bears, too: > Even though it may appear that the bear attacked for no reason, there was a reason. "You can train them and use as many safety precautions as you can, but you're still taking a chance. It's stil…

Reminded me of a story from Bangladesh where a person took in a tiger cub as "pet" after killing its mother. Years later the tiger, now considerably grown, escaped from captivity and killed the owner(the same person). So the warning applies for Tigers too.
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