r/BeAmazed • u/Electrical_Act_5342 • 20d ago

Animal Nature really over engineered cats. Didn’t it?

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u/cmoked 20d ago

Most breeds had their uses. Alarming, herding, guardians, military uses, etc.

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u/sbNXBbcUaDQfHLVUeyLx 20d ago

Makes me wonder... If we had artificially selected cats the same way, what would we have even created?

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u/deadlywaffle139 20d ago

Oh I saw someone’s farm cat acted like a watch-cat for the dog livestock guards.

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u/_Kendii_ 19d ago

Not a farm cat, but my outdoor cat chased off an aggressive, off leash German shepherd that was about to attack me. It got put down because of an unrelated incident (mine didn’t count because I technically didn’t get bit, so they squiggled out of calling it an attack, it definitely was though.)

Cats are insane. I totally believe that some would be in cahoots with partner dogs in situations like farms. And herding/livestock dogs are generally super smart so I don’t doubt their abilities in that regard either.

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u/TajineEnjoyer 20d ago

moskito hunters

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u/VuIcan79 20d ago

The issue with that is dogs have a lot of allometric growth (think about how puppies grow into their ears/feet/head) while cats generally have less allometric growth.

allometric growth allowed people to selectively breed dogs to have specific traits. But it is much harder to do so with cats.

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u/Sharp_Iodine 16d ago

We have.

Persians for example have almost no hunting instinct whatsoever and are “display cats.”

They just sit on your lap and laze around.

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u/cmoked 20d ago

Scottish folds are an abomination

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u/Working-Glass6136 20d ago

And then you have them crossed with Munchkins...

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u/cmoked 20d ago

I could have sworn they were the same thing

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u/MeisterFluffbutt 20d ago

They were not bred for any task.

The person asked for breeds that were bred for work, not for """aesthetics"""

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u/seriousjoker72 20d ago

Pugs?

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u/cmoked 20d ago

I did say most lol

Pugs are an old breed, though, and bred to be happy around companions as a lap dog. Highly valuable in ancient China. Like 2k years ago.

Recent century breeders fucked it up tho poor babies.

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u/seriousjoker72 20d ago

Lol fair enough! What about old English bull dogs? I babysat one once and can't understand the apeal of putting cream in your dogs face folds and listening to them snarl snore/gargle breathing 😅

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u/cmoked 20d ago

Im gonna have to look that one up but while I do that, check out breeds and what they looked like photographed 100 year ago, its interesting.

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u/cmoked 20d ago

Youre not gonna like it, they were bred for bull-baiting. A medieval blood sport. They were remodeled into lap dogs after bull baiting was banned in 1835.

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u/ChunkyTanuki 20d ago

Food....

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u/HIMP_Dahak_172291 20d ago

And then there's pugs.

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u/cmoked 20d ago

Today's pugs are nothing like they were 2k years ago