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When did dogs become our best friends?

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Re: When did dogs become our best friends?

#151

Post by klyrs »

alistairSH wrote: post #106
klyrs wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When in Rome... open/constitutional carry, stand your ground?

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.

Re: When did dogs become our best friends?

#152

Post by consf »

sph wrote: post #22
lordnacho wrote: post #6

[flagged]

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 w…

[dead]

Re: When did dogs become our best friends?

#153

Post by ethanbond »

samatman wrote: post #148
llamaimperative wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Yet obviously there are many laws that are enforced and do have disparate racial impacts... So this is just an airing of grievances.

Re: When did dogs become our best friends?

#154

Post by InitialLastName »

HarHarVeryFunny wrote: post #115
IncreasePosts wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Baboons have been observed to capture puppies from feral dogs and integrate them into their troop.

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.

Re: When did dogs become our best friends?

#155

Post by lukan »

pmart123 wrote: post #124
lukan wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compagnions and friends? Maybe when we were nomads and the dogs roamed around freely around the tribe. But most dogs today are locked in, most of the time and when they get outside, they are on a leash. Totally dependant on their human masters. I don't think I would describe that relationship as a partnership. Then there is the concept of breeding them, to establish certain "cute" traits, but cause great pain and mis…

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.

Re: When did dogs become our best friends?

#156

Post by stef25 »

empyrrhicist wrote: post #75
stef25 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

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.

Re: When did dogs become our best friends?

#157

Post by stef25 »

imzadi wrote: post #131
CalRobert wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly it's OK to kill bicyclists in the US. I moved to the Netherlands to avoid jokes about murdering me and my children at standups. https://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/10/opinion/sunday/is-it-ok-t...

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.

Re: When did dogs become our best friends?

#158

Post by lukan »

zen928 wrote: post #120
lukan wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compagnions and friends? Maybe when we were nomads and the dogs roamed around freely around the tribe. But most dogs today are locked in, most of the time and when they get outside, they are on a leash. Totally dependant on their human masters. I don't think I would describe that relationship as a partnership. Then there is the concept of breeding them, to establish certain "cute" traits, but cause great pain and mis…

> 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 creatin…

"Do you relatively equate this to how we treat other animals right now"

I only talked about dogs and humans.

Re: When did dogs become our best friends?

#159

Post by satellite2 »

imzadi wrote: post #127
magicalhippo wrote: post #89

Reminded me of the experiment to domesticate silver foxes[1]. Apparently they got quite tame foxes in just 30 generations. 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

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.

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)

Re: When did dogs become our best friends?

#160

Post by hasty_pudding »

nervousvarun wrote: post #66
hasty_pudding wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The founding fathers would think that allowing the government to have a database on ANYTHING is a bad idea. Plus dog poop is ecologically good for the environment and fertilizes nature.

Apparently, dog poop is not an effective fertilizer and is considered harmful for grass? Was news to me as a dog owner who allows our dog to do her business in the back yard (but would never allow it on a public walkway/area). https://lawnlove.com/blog/is-dog-poop-bad-for-grass/

Using an A.I. article from lawnlove.com as a source....okayyyy

This country has really gone downhill with education

My teachers would have yelled at me for having a source like that.

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