101–110 of 160 posts
When wolves got reintroduced to Idaho, a few hillbillies went up into the primitive area and stole some pups, and they circulated around as pets. My buddy had one, and it scared the shit out of me. It was 130lbs of killing machine. They could tell it to kill anything, and it would do it. Their neighbor's dog had been biting them, so it was the first to go. Then they'd set it on foxes, which is could run down with eas…
When wolves got reintroduced to Idaho, a few hillbillies went up into the primitive area and stole some pups, and they circulated around as pets. My buddy had one, and it scared the shit out of me. It was 130lbs of killing machine. They could tell it to kill anything, and it would do it. Their neighbor's dog had been biting them, so it was the first to go. Then they'd set it on foxes, which is could run down with eas…
You can do some google searches about wolves as pets and it's fascinating. Domesticated dogs adjust quite readily to a pack pecking order. Wolves will with a lot of training, but they never stop trying for the top spot. It's a constant battle. Also, if their pack leader looks sick or injured, the wolf will take that a signal to make a move for top spot. I've heard of owners twisting an ankle and hobbling around and t…
Is it just me, because everything you've just said seems to suggest that wolves can't be pets.
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We've never prized docility in horses the way we do in other "pets"; in most cases, we've either bred them to be easily-spooked speed monsters (race horses; courier horses), or angry muscular bulls (war horses.) And there has never really been any kind of long-term eugenics project for cats; they mostly domesticated themselves, which had different results. There are no "work cats" that we've selectively bred with oth…
Of course there are "work cats". Most large barns will have a few, for rodent control. You want them big and tough enough to take on a rat. Working cats should be fed about half what they need, so they stick around but have to hunt. Once they've cleared the barn area of rodents, they'll expand their hunting territory to find food. (The problem is keeping cat fans from feeding the working cats. The cat people got out…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
We've never prized docility in horses the way we do in other "pets"; in most cases, we've either bred them to be easily-spooked speed monsters (race horses; courier horses), or angry muscular bulls (war horses.) And there has never really been any kind of long-term eugenics project for cats; they mostly domesticated themselves, which had different results. There are no "work cats" that we've selectively bred with oth…
>We've never prized docility in horses the way we do in other "pets"; in most cases, we've either bred them to be easily-spooked speed monsters (race horses; courier horses), or angry muscular bulls (war horses.) Draft horses and other working horses beg to differ. They're generally calm and docile, and don't spook easily. Especially draft horses working in cities, they're gentle giants, because they have to be when…
> something is deeply different in dog genes, or in how and when those genes become active, and scientists are trying to determine exactly what it is Darwin famously observed in the first chapter of On the Origin of Species that not one of our domestic animals can be named which has not in some country drooping ears . Darwin himself attributed it to "muscle misuse", the rationale being that domestic animals are not f…
Not one of our domestic animals can be named which has not in some country drooping ears. Neither cats nor horses have drooping ears, except for ones that have serious birth defects or mutations.
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Your story clearly indicates this has nothing to do with it being a wolf. It happened to have a body that was capable of killing, yes. But the owner picked it up and slammed it whenever it misbehaved, and the owner actively encouraged it to kill things. If your parents did that, you would do the same thing. You see this kind of prejudice against pitbulls too. They're some of the sweetest dogs.
>Your story clearly indicates this has nothing to do with it being a wolf How do you figure that? The entire article basically talked about how you can never domesticate a wolf.
People live with tigers. You'd never say that they were domesticated. The majority of the time, this works fine. you only hear about cases where they turn on their owner, which is rare.
I've spent a long time thinking about this question, and it seems like the ultimate truth is that we humans are uncomfortable with anything that can possibly threaten us. If we can't win in a fistfight, we classify it as subhuman.
We don't really classify dogs as subhuman. We treat them like family. We love them. They love us.
If you think back to when gay people were oppressed, and are still being oppressed in Uganda (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2W41pvvZs0), the rhetoric against them is pretty similar to the type of thing you'd say to convince you that wolves are randomly and uncontrollably violent. It's at least an interesting coincidence.
It's not fair to label them. "Only get a wolf if you can stomach putting a bullet in its head after it brutalizes your kids." Are you sure it makes no difference in how you raise them? The article seems to support this.
Again, the specific wolf matters. But there are certainly wolves that don't have a high adrenaline response, meaning they are genetically predisposed to being nicer. They're not dogs, but they're not mindlessly violent.
It's important to realize that the comments in this post suffer from selection bias. Obviously, if you make a post about how wolves become nasty, you're going to get ten thousand stories about all the wolves anyone has ever seen that were remotely nasty.
I have no experience with wolves. I don't know one way or the other. Maybe you're right, and literally all of them will bite your kids. But almost no one here is speaking from first-hand experience, except this top comment. And that wolf owner was more interested in having a killing machine than having a new member of their family. It's important to be actively skeptical in that context.
So, there you go. I've tried to be thorough and intellectually gratifying. I will say that I've been teetering on leaving HN lately because no one seems to be willing to engage with controversial ideas anymore -- they want to shout them down. I try not to generalize like that, because HN isn't a single entity, but there are a variety of ways to stomp on intellectual curiosity without breaking the rules. Maybe if I just attach that disclaimer to the bottom of all my long comments, things will turn out differently.
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Not one of our domestic animals can be named which has not in some country drooping ears. Neither cats nor horses have drooping ears, except for ones that have serious birth defects or mutations.
AFAIK cats aren't domesticated. It's more that we have a deal with them. They moved in on their own when they realised humans provide shelter if you hunt their pests.
Interesting, but they are missing half the genetic story. Being around us changed wolf genes to turn them into dogs. But being around wolves also changed our genes. The humans that could best interact with wolves/dogs had an evolutionary advantage. We dont think wolf pups are cute because they look like our own babies. We protect them becausd at a primal level we know them a valuable survival tool. The ability to loo…
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/12/science/skin-color-race.h...
TLDR: This just in, wolves != dogs
"Wolf," "dog," and "coyote" are just social constructs.