Domesticating animals

[bugmankeith]

I remember watching The Dog Whisperer and a woman had a full breed Wolf as a pet. She had a huge yard and the wolf wore a collar and was allowed in and out of her house and even went for walks. It bonded to her, but only her, it hated other people. It also chewed it's way through a huge metal outdoor dog pen in minutes, it did not like to be confined!

Yes, it was domesticated, but it was not as tame and needed much extra care.


Yet some animals are easy to tame, or just as easily go feral. Take chicken,cats,pigeons, and pigs. Easy to tame, but let them loose, and they quickly become feral and still thrive. Some animals just adapt better than others.

 

[Bigboy]

There seems to still be some confusion between the use of the words "tame" and "domestic" in this context.

Domestication refers to the expression of a specific phenotype, or traits, governed by polygenic genes.

Tame is a behavioral term describing habituation or acclimatization to a specific lifestyle.

Example 1. Don't worry, he is very tame, after all he is a domestic dog.

Example 2. Oh he is quite tame but he is still a wild animal, after all he is a wolf.

"Tame" can be used to describe the character of either animal, However in the above examples, only one is truly a domestic animal.

 

[pitbulllady]

I remember watching The Dog Whisperer and a woman had a full breed Wolf as a pet. She had a huge yard and the wolf wore a collar and was allowed in and out of her house and even went for walks. It bonded to her, but only her, it hated other people. It also chewed it's way through a huge metal outdoor dog pen in minutes, it did not like to be confined!

Yes, it was domesticated, but it was not as tame and needed much extra care.


Yet some animals are easy to tame, or just as easily go feral. Take chicken,cats,pigeons, and pigs. Easy to tame, but let them loose, and they quickly become feral and still thrive. Some animals just adapt better than others.

You've still got the whole "domesticated" vs. "tame" thing backwards, BMK. The wolf was TAME, which was why the woman could handle him. He was socialized to people, to her, anyway, and wolves typically do bond with one person and are usually terrified of everyone else, unlike the typical dog. If it had not been tame, it would have been afraid of everyone and reacted just like a fully wild wolf to an approaching human. It was NOT "domesticated", however. It was still basically acting like a wild wolf, just having formed a bond with one human rather than a four-legged pack member. Its behavior that allowed it to live in the house and be petted, etc., by this woman, was the result of training/conditioning, NOT its genes. As I've said, domestication is a process that occurs over many successive generations, NOT with one individual animal.

pitbulllady

 

[SandDeku]

There seems to still be some confusion between the use of the words "tame" and "domestic" in this context.

Domestication refers to the expression of a specific phenotype, or traits, governed by polygenic genes.

Tame is a behavioral term describing habituation or acclimatization to a specific lifestyle.

Example 1. Don't worry, he is very tame, after all he is a domestic dog.

Example 2. Oh he is quite tame but he is still a wild animal, after all he is a wolf.

"Tame" can be used to describe the character of either animal, However in the above examples, only one is truly a domestic animal.

Ahh just like how all toads are frogs; yet not all frogs are toads. Or is it the other way around? Remember someone saying that... Forgot who it was. lol I think I get it though.

---------- Post added at 01:31 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:25 AM ----------

You've still got the whole "domesticated" vs. "tame" thing backwards, BMK. The wolf was TAME, which was why the woman could handle him. He was socialized to people, to her, anyway, and wolves typically do bond with one person and are usually terrified of everyone else, unlike the typical dog. If it had not been tame, it would have been afraid of everyone and reacted just like a fully wild wolf to an approaching human. It was NOT "domesticated", however. It was still basically acting like a wild wolf, just having formed a bond with one human rather than a four-legged pack member. Its behavior that allowed it to live in the house and be petted, etc., by this woman, was the result of training/conditioning, NOT its genes. As I've said, domestication is a process that occurs over many successive generations, NOT with one individual animal.

pitbulllady

So that's like say.... if I go out there and hypothetically speaking say I go out there and take a baby owl or heck even a baby vole or whatever. I took it to my house and reared it because for whatever reason(this is not the point) and the animal say the vole got used to me and infact loved to be petted and ate from my hand, never bit me, and was trained. That would just be a "tame" yet WILD vole? But if I went to a petstore and say they already had a captive bred vole(hypothetically speaking) and I took it home. The vole was aggressive YET it was captive bred. That's the difference right? Like say how two balloons can b e made of the same thing. But one is blue and one is red. That's what Iam talking about. Like both can be tamed or aggressive but only one is "truelly" domesticated. Domesticated through generations and generations of breeding and weeding out the bad "Seed". while taming it can just be going out to the wild taking a wild vole and hope for good god it doesn't bite the crud out of me. lol. Which if its t urns out being "nice" it could then be bred and START a domestication process which would take generations to perfect.

Is that it?