I feel like bears is the most obvious answer. In this scenario it would have started thousands of years ago. We’d have dozens/hundreds of breeds with different shapes,sizes and characteristics. What do you think would be the most interesting/cool?
I still think a fox is manageable. Cat software running on dog hardware seems…interesting
Hmm, I would say a monkey would be an obvious choice since they can manipulate objects and do all kinds of things, are also fluffy/cuddly, and there’s a potential for two-way communication. Possibly an ape, though it would be bigger–maybe too big and not as cute, and it could easily kill you if things don’t go well.
Lowland gorillas are the new pitbull.
Foxes, Wombats, cats.
Give
Me
Giant
Pet
Salticids
Yeah but if they turned on you that would be fucking horrific
I like to think that jumping spiders could easily kill us with their bites, but they’re simply too sweet to even think about attacking us
This applies to my hypothetical giant spider puppies
The Liger. It’s pretty much my favorite animal.
I couldn’t afford to feed a Liger
Red panda
People
we already have consumers.
yes I’m criticizing myself too.
I think that’s just called a sub.
Quokka of course.
Not domestication per se, but we should teach our ape cousins how to control fire and develop technology. Ascend, my brethren! Come and join your furless kin! Reach out your hands and grasp the tools that are your salvation! Reject the weakness of your flesh!
Ook
Maybe a large seal species. Something to ride in the water, but that could still come on land and fall asleep by the fire.
Raccoons are cool. They seem to be in the early stages of self-domestication, which is probably how we got cats.
There was a video being shared by someone who studies raccoons.
The tl;dr was they are too smart and tend to hold grudges to become domestic.
Still, they would be cool pets.
Hi I really like raccoons but have not seen this video. Do you have a link to this video?
This argument is always so silly. Domestication is the process of changing animals so they become more suitable to living with humans. The fact that wild animals aren’t domesticated and therefore have traits that are problematic for that is tautological.
2 points:
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Quolls, in Australia, are apparently about the same smarts as raccoons: you have to childproof EVERYTHING in a house they’re living-in. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quoll ( the article I’d read pointed-out that they’re endangered BECAUSE people can’t have them as pets, whereas cats aren’t endangered & are pets )
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grudge-holding may not be amendable, through breeding-program.
_ /\ _
Pretty much any behavioral trait is changeable through natural or artificial selection. That includes intelligence. Actually it’s pretty clear that part of domestication for dogs was making them less intelligent.
Some species may take longer, and it’s generally a slow process. I doubt these animals will be domesticated during our lifetimes but in the future who knows?
Actually it’s pretty clear that part of domestication for dogs was making them less intelligent.
Had a Mastiff. Can confirm.
Actually it’s pretty clear that part of domestication for dogs was making them less intelligent.
There was a scientific study run in the US comparing the behavior of wolves and dogs.
Within 2 days, the scientists had to add a lock to the door of the wolf enclosure because the wolves had learned by watching them how to open the door and escaped. The dogs kept the same simple door latch throughout the entire experiment and never escaped.
This dog begs to differ!
So our beloved man’s best friend are just derived from the dumbest of the wolves?
Kind of…
The domestication of dogs brought out a lot of neoteny traits – juvenile traits retained into adulthood. Our beloved man’s best friend are derived from wolves that never fully grew up and instead remained puppy-like for their entire lives. This makes them smaller, friendlier, more submissive, and easier to train (among other things) … but it also does make them a bit stupider.
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you just described cats
Ha. True! I do have one revenge-seeker living under my roof!
Even better, if after their domestication they were still smart and resistant enough to not fall into the hands of owners that treat them like toys.
They can be very cat like too. Super chill one minute, total asshats the next
I looked into this a while back and it seems that keeping one as a pet is a full day job.
Right. They are not yet domesticated to the level of companion animals and trying to keep one as a pet now is a bad idea.
Yeah, my grandfather raised one when I was a kid. It was fine until it was grown, then it got bitey and he turned I loose on his property.
It only takes one day? Sign me up!
I personally get freaked out by animals with human like hands.
Red Pandas
You could have the most cuddlest creature with you.
Yeah, red panda would make for an adorable pet!
- They’re cute and fluffy
- All they want is to nom nom on their yummy leaves.
- Have you seen that thing they do where they put up their arms to make them look more menacing? That doesn’t really work, and to me, it just looks like the cute little panda want uppsies.
I want a red panda
For me, it’s Racoons, Squirrels, or Crows.
I used to have a Robin friend, who would keep me company while I gardened, so he could grab a juicy worm from the ground I was turning. I’m currently friends with a pair of Sand Hill Cranes who spend every night in front of my house. I talk them nearly every night. They know me well, I stand right next to them, they aren’t afraid of me at all.
While I envy your ability to get close to wildlife, loosing their fear of humans is really very dangerous for Sand Hill Cranes especially.
Sand Hills aren’t very afraid of humans anyway. I’ve just gotten to know these two well, because they sleep in front of my house every night, for the last several years.
The only time we don’t see them, is when they have an egg at wherever they have their day time spot. For the last few days, only George has been showing up, which means Martha is probably on the egg somewhere. Soon, he’ll stay with her, and we won’t see them for a couple of months, until their new babies are old enough to fly to our house, their normal nighttime spot.
The first time they returned with two babies, my mom opened the door, and there was George, most of the way up the driveway, which he had never done before, with Martha and their two babies at the end of the driveway. George wanted to introduce me to his new family!
So I said “George! Welcome back! Are these your new babies? They’re beautiful!” And I walked up to the babies and stood right near them. They got nervous, but Martha and George were fine, so the babies settled down.
They don’t always show back up with babies, which is sad. They laid one in front of our house one year, but it disappeared after a few weeks. We think a coyote took it. George was very sad, and when I approached him after it disappeared, he lifted his head and called loudly. He was sharing his grief with me.
I know who all the animals around my house are, every bird and mammal, and even a couple of gators, but we don’t have relationships. George and I are true friends.
Sand Hills aren’t very afraid of humans anyway.
Yes, that is the vulnerability that you are exploiting and making worse for an entire family of cranes.
I’ve seen this story before. It usually ends in tragedy for the cranes. You’ve likely already seen the results with the loss of their chick. You blame it on a wild animal without proof, but it’s just as likely that the reduction of their fear response to humans (as a direct result of your “kindness”) led to their death.
Like it or not, we have to share the world with them, so being kind to them isn’t being abusive or exploitive. I don’t feed them, chase them, bother them. But they are there in my environment, and I’m in theirs, and we are aware of each other, and get along. That’s all.
I would love having a squirrel as pet. Unfortunately most squirrel types don’t do well in captivity because they are too anxious. I nursed a baby squirrel once as a volunteer and it would just sleep in my shirt pocket or bra and be the cutest little thing until it was old enough to start learning to be a wild squirrel.
Username checks out
I think I’m going to side with you on this one. They start out calm enough, simple feeding and housing requirements, they can’t hurt you as much as some of these larger animals, and most don’t seem to get too bad an attitude even as adults unless they’re cornered. Honestly my biggest problem would be them going to the bathroom everywhere and in places not readily accessible to clean. Eww.
We tried to keep squirrels as pets for more than 2 years. Couldn’t hold them ever. Eventually we just opened the door to the pen and it was a squirrel hotel for years. Watched lots of little babies come out of that thing.
I hope they were native squirrels! The netherlands almost had an escaped-pet-turned-invasive-species problem because some imported squirrels escaped.
They were native. It was still illegal. Originally what happened is a pair of squirrels lost their parents and literally wouldn’t stop trying to crawl all over us whenever we went outside. So we planned on keeping them safe for a little bit. My mom got attached. Then they got out once and came back so we just left the door open. Eventually they got bored of that “hotel” and just stopped coming around altogether.
Giraffes of course.
Silly question.
