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The emergence and diversification of dog morphology

science.org

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Re: The emergence and diversification of dog morphology

#21

Post by phito »

block_dagger wrote: post #8
litoE wrote: post #4

Every child should have a dog. It gives them valuable life lessons about responsibility, fidelity, unconditional love and to always turn around three times before you lie down.

Alternative viewpoint: separating a dog from its natural social life and forcing its integration into a human world, even if done out of a concept of affection, is morally wrong. I suspect future generations will liken the domination of many species, such as dogs and cats, to slavery.

What do you mean its natural social life? Dogs are not wolves. Their natural social life is being with humans.

Re: The emergence and diversification of dog morphology

#22

Post by Doxin »

gregfjohnson wrote: post #6
tomcam wrote: post #3

The dogs that win prizes often disturb me. I feel like there must be a bunch of inbreeding going on, and maybe for features that look interesting but aren't necessarily good for them. Is this concern misplaced? Not a dog show expert so maybe I'm just revealing my ignorance.

There are bitter and heartstrong arguments on this topic. Brachycephalic breeds with flat faces or short snouts (for example pugs, bulldogs, boxers, Boston terriers) cause anger among some and devotion among others. (We are a three-pug family.) Pugs have an average lifespan of 12 to 15 years, as compared with the overall average dog lifespan of 10 to 13 years. We have also had (and loved) boxers, which have an averag…

I think the reason take so much offense at e.g. pugs is because they don't need to be bred that way. Where I'm at a law was passed making it illegal to breed dogs with congenital conditions. As a result basically all the pugs you see here have a bit of a snout as do all the boxers. Crucially this didn't change the breeds personality perceptibly, and it only changes the look the tiniest of bit. In trade you get dogs that are visibly happier and have more energy.

A neighbor in particular previously had two french bulldogs with no snout. They'd spend all day panting and snoring. Once they passed away they got new ones, now with snout. They spend all day running and jumping instead.

Re: The emergence and diversification of dog morphology

#23

Post by Cosi1125 »

litoE wrote: post #4

Every child should have a dog. It gives them valuable life lessons about responsibility, fidelity, unconditional love and to always turn around three times before you lie down.

> turn around three times before you lie down.

It's not a laughing matter. How else will you repel bugs from your bed?

Re: The emergence and diversification of dog morphology

#24

Post by graemep »

block_dagger wrote: post #8
litoE wrote: post #4

Every child should have a dog. It gives them valuable life lessons about responsibility, fidelity, unconditional love and to always turn around three times before you lie down.

Alternative viewpoint: separating a dog from its natural social life and forcing its integration into a human world, even if done out of a concept of affection, is morally wrong. I suspect future generations will liken the domination of many species, such as dogs and cats, to slavery.

Not at all like slavery and I very much doubt that anyone will ever think so.

Slaves can state they want to be free, and often rebelled and resisted. Spartacus, the Zanj rebellion, the Haitian Revolution, and many more.

It requires constant indoctrination and denial of access to ideas and brutal suppression to even try to keep the resistance down even to those levels. No one censors what dogs can read (unlike, say, The Slaves Bible).

Dogs are demonstrably significantly intellectually inferior to human beings. other humans beings are not.

I do think it is lucky for them that other human species have not survived as they are demonstrably biologically different (at least not counting those we can interbreed with), probably unable to resist anything like as effectively, and would be far better slaves than humans and better experimental subjects than animals.

Re: The emergence and diversification of dog morphology

#25

Post by Mumps »

gregfjohnson wrote: post #6
tomcam wrote: post #3

The dogs that win prizes often disturb me. I feel like there must be a bunch of inbreeding going on, and maybe for features that look interesting but aren't necessarily good for them. Is this concern misplaced? Not a dog show expert so maybe I'm just revealing my ignorance.

There are bitter and heartstrong arguments on this topic. Brachycephalic breeds with flat faces or short snouts (for example pugs, bulldogs, boxers, Boston terriers) cause anger among some and devotion among others. (We are a three-pug family.) Pugs have an average lifespan of 12 to 15 years, as compared with the overall average dog lifespan of 10 to 13 years. We have also had (and loved) boxers, which have an averag…

If I'm reading your meaning correctly, about lifespans, I think the comparison isn't quite correct?

lifespan seems to be more strongly correlated by size, not squashed-nosed-ness.

Consider chihuahua, shitzu's (and crosses: bichon-shitzu, ...), poodle crosses, heck lagotto (lagotti?). All can live well past 15.

Versus GSPs, great danes, Irish wolfhounds, and so on, coming in closer to say 6-10 years.

I've never really heard argument on lifespan of pugs et al versus other dogs, though. More around (perceived) ugliness/prettiness, and their breathing issues.

Re: The emergence and diversification of dog morphology

#26

Post by [deleted] »

ch4s3 wrote: post #14
litoE wrote: post #4

Every child should have a dog. It gives them valuable life lessons about responsibility, fidelity, unconditional love and to always turn around three times before you lie down.

I grew up around dog show people and breeders and can confidently say that I learned a lot more about negative qualities in people than positive ones in dogs. Moreover some types of dogs are just by disposition, awful.

[deleted]

Re: The emergence and diversification of dog morphology

#27

Post by block_dagger »

HeinzStuckeIt wrote: post #12
block_dagger wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alternative viewpoint: separating a dog from its natural social life and forcing its integration into a human world, even if done out of a concept of affection, is morally wrong. I suspect future generations will liken the domination of many species, such as dogs and cats, to slavery.

> separating a dog from its natural social life You’re thinking of the wolf pack that dogs came from millennia ago to be its “natural social life”. But the dogs around today are the result of myriad generations bred to be social with humans.

The eugenics involved in the breeding of modern dogs is an even larger moral issue than dominating individuals of the species.

Re: The emergence and diversification of dog morphology

#28

Post by block_dagger »

phito wrote: post #21
block_dagger wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alternative viewpoint: separating a dog from its natural social life and forcing its integration into a human world, even if done out of a concept of affection, is morally wrong. I suspect future generations will liken the domination of many species, such as dogs and cats, to slavery.

What do you mean its natural social life? Dogs are not wolves. Their natural social life is being with humans.

> Their natural social life is being with humans.

If this were true (which it is not), it would be because we have made it so through generations of forced eugenics and domination.

Re: The emergence and diversification of dog morphology

#29

Post by block_dagger »

dboreham wrote: post #16
block_dagger wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alternative viewpoint: separating a dog from its natural social life and forcing its integration into a human world, even if done out of a concept of affection, is morally wrong. I suspect future generations will liken the domination of many species, such as dogs and cats, to slavery.

Hmm. Not one single bit of information about "natural dog/cat life" is encoded into a shelter kitten's brain. All the data used to train their brain came from humans and their human environment. Cats even learn to talk human (as best as their vocal apparatus and GPU allows). Whether they're better off or worse off I don't know, but any given cat only knows it's historical environment. They're not "taken" from some ot…

Concerning cats, I'm specifically talking about imprisonment and mutilation. Cats are social roaming animals and many are kept staring out windows of small apartments and run for the door every time it's opened hoping for escape. Mutilation occurs regularly to keep them from procreating. All of this is socially accepted by humans. If a cat is running around free and being fed and sheltered by humans, no problem, but obviously this can lead to issues with feral populations that don't mix well with civic engineered spaces.

Re: The emergence and diversification of dog morphology

#30

Post by observationist »

block_dagger wrote: post #8
litoE wrote: post #4

Every child should have a dog. It gives them valuable life lessons about responsibility, fidelity, unconditional love and to always turn around three times before you lie down.

Alternative viewpoint: separating a dog from its natural social life and forcing its integration into a human world, even if done out of a concept of affection, is morally wrong. I suspect future generations will liken the domination of many species, such as dogs and cats, to slavery.

Dogs evolved over the last 45k years to be integrated with humans at a higher level than any other species. They need us, in the sense that they've offloaded the cognition needed for optimal living to the human species.

They gave up pack hunting, optimized cooperative socialization, amplified gentle and nurturing behaviors. Not only should all dogs be included in human lives, we have a moral responsibility to the species to provide for them the best possible existence.

This is not in support of fur-babies or dogs in strollers, to be clear. Dogs need function, stimulation, purpose, and relationships.

Cognitive studies, and the ongoing research with buttons, now in the tens of thousands of dogs and other pets, demonstrate that they're capable of understanding and using language, complex abstract thought, nuanced emotion, dreaming, strategizing, planning, and more. They'll never get to the point of writing books, but they can tell lies and play jokes, be sad, scared, brave, loving, goofy, and kind.

The idea that dogs should be wild is morally abhorrent - they are inextricably interwoven with the story of humanity, and dependent on us for their best lives. It's got nothing to do with affection, and everything to do with many tens of thousands of years of accelerated evolution resulting in specific complementary adaptations to humanity.

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