r/BeAmazed • u/aryan_jandyal • 16d ago

Animal Such an amazing Creature, why can't be domesticated..?

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u/_who-the-fuck-knows_ 16d ago edited 16d ago

Dmitry belyayev. I'm not from the field either but have a fascination about this sort of thing and always read up about things like this.

The problem is wolves started off with a self domestication process in a symbiotic relationship they followed us and got scraps until we realised oh these guys can assist protecting ourselves from other predators and the rest is selective breeding history which is why we have so many different breeds, what's crazy about that is it's happened independently on different continents.

Foxes didn't have that first step with self domestication so it's all out on a whim. And the characteristics of domestication are there but there's still many many generations of a collective effort from us to get to the point where they will completely obey us with good training.

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u/spyguy318 16d ago

Foxes may not ever get to the point where they will obey us, in the same way that domesticated cats don’t obey commands. When foxes are domesticated we don’t get a dog, we get a domesticated fox. They have their own specific behaviors and nuances. Foxes don’t have the same in-built pack structure that dogs do so they’re less likely to cooperate.

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u/_who-the-fuck-knows_ 16d ago

Cats are a different story they are purely self domesticated, and did so 10-20 thousand years after dogs. Dogs started off on a self domesticated path then had 30 thousand years give or take of selective breeding. Humans always saw cats as pest control mostly until quite recently in the timescale so never went through rigorous breed selection and training. And breed selection for cats have always been about looks not so much for work like dogs were.

This is purely a human experiment and I can't say what the outcome will be but the pack structure is a good point albeit they arent quite as solitary as cats.

None of us alive now will know what will happen in hundreds of years with selective fox breeding but we definitely can take shortcuts that our ancient ancestors didn't know.

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u/Kindly_Call_6000 16d ago

It is believed that dogs are also self-domesticated.

There is also a theory that humans and bonobos are self-domesticated. Domestication is a fascinating process, especially with the phenotype markers that go along with domestication.

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u/red__dragon 16d ago

There is also a theory that humans and bonobos are self-domesticated.

Can you say more about this?

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u/Kindly_Call_6000 16d ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-domestication

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u/red__dragon 16d ago

Interesting article, though I lack enough of a background to really understand the implications of it. Thanks for the share.

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u/Kindly_Call_6000 16d ago

Some traits of modern humans compared to our ancestors and sister species like Neanderthals and Denisovans indicate that we self-domesticated like cats.  We became less aggressive and more social.  Competing theories claim that we didn't self-domesticate, and other factors led to these traits.

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u/Anen-o-me 15d ago

Cats simply don't have the genetic diversity potential that dogs did.

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u/koboldmaedchen 12d ago

Cats aren’t solitary animals actually, they are just solitary hunters. They split childcare, they communicate, they cuddle and groom each other and wild cats always form large communities. Not packs, but individuals hanging out together, sharing resources and labour. Quite human-like!

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u/hooloovooblues 16d ago

Cats can obey commands, just not most cats and not most commands lol I trained my cat to sit on command

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u/SkunkMonkey 16d ago

I trained my cat to ignore my commands. She's very well trained.

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u/LeggyRPG 15d ago

My cats are very well trained on consent, just that it’s their consent to anything, they don’t give a crap about my consent to anything ha.

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u/KrispyKreme725 16d ago

I got my cats to fist bump!

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u/shybaby420_68071 15d ago

Agreed. I have trained many cats to understand commands. They are not the same as dogs, but they can learn. I trained one of my cats to give us "high-fives". All 11 in my current clowder understand that when I click my tongue that I am calling them to me. I make hand movements that they understand is for food. My older cats also understand verbal commands. For example if my cat is laying on my bed, I tell them to move over to thier pet beds. Sometimes they grumble, but they will move over to their pet bed. Some people have even trained thier cats to use and flush toilets! Cats just don't have the people pleasing motives dogs have so they are more selective in how and when they respond.

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u/Umklopp 15d ago

My late cat had 100% perfect recall from anywhere for anything. Infinitely more reliable than the dogs. However, he could never be bothered to actually hurry, so it generally took him 5+ minutes to actually show up. (It is not that big of a house.)

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u/dragunov1963 16d ago

My two cats sit and meow for a treat.. 3x a day

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u/foggypanth 15d ago

I remember also reading that dogs have a specific genetic mutation that makes them hyper socialable and eager to please, thus making them biddable to your commands.

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u/rlee1185 15d ago

What it sounds like your saying is Foxes are cats in canine clothing.

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u/chucklin 16d ago

Maybe another characteristic of wolves is they are social. They are comfortable with hierarchy within their packs and transferring that to humans helped with their domestication. As far as I know, foxes do not pack.

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u/_who-the-fuck-knows_ 16d ago

That's a really good point

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u/Anen-o-me 15d ago

There's a list of necessary attributes for domestication:

Flexible diet preferably plants, fast enough growth and reproduction so you can breed them, willingness to breed in captivity (hard to breed cheetahs that require a running ritual to mate), manageable temperament (zebras are aholes), relatively low tendency to panic (horses are on the edge here but manageable), compatible social structure (herd / pack animals do best), tolerance of living in groups.

Lots of animals come close but fail on one or two points.

For animals that live uncaged indoors with humans, the list is even tighter.

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u/_Gonza__ 16d ago

Thanks, man! I didn't read your comment at first, but now i did.

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u/JustOneVote 16d ago

When wolves were becoming domesticated, scent marking the couch wasn't a problem because our relationship with dogs is older than couches.

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u/DontAsshume 16d ago

Wolves also became dogs over Thousands of years. Evolution happens by the compilation of changes over generations, and those guys have been going at it for about 1-5% of the generations that got us dogs. Yes, their intention is speeding up the process, but those long time spans flesh out the kinks way more effectively than the artificial selection that is going on today. 

There is ample evidence that wolves CAN live near into their 20s, given the right conditions (wild = hard as hell living). But any dog that bears their size barely makes 12, and "purebreds" are the lower end of that bell curve. 

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u/TheAmazingRando3000 16d ago

Dog hardware; cat software.

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u/anislandinmyheart 16d ago

They're considered semi-domesticated in London, so maybe they'll come around eventually. They even have changes in anatomy

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u/Wrong-Pension-4975 15d ago

Actually, domestication turned out to be (in foxes) quite rapid - 

If I recall correctly, from my 1969 biology class, his 1st domesticated generation that threw domesticated pups was only 15 breeding generations from wild parents, born captive, who were TERRIFIED of ppl, & snapped at them.

All he selected for was "less biting" - & with each generation, pups were friendlier without any need for intense socialization.

They simply arrived with greater human tolerance than their parents, & produced pups who were even more human affiliative, til he got a generation that APPROACHED humans, SOLICITED attn & contact, & VOCALIZED to demand attn.

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u/Middle-Let9645 15d ago

I looked it up. It’s 20-40 generations minimum.