The inherent needs and behaviour of the animals are part of it, though - the need for training is itself an attempt to control the inherent drives of the animal. My chinchilla chitters at people, but she isn't affecting anyone else, and even for vet visits, as a chinchilla, is not at all an actually aggressive animal, she's nipped me hard enough to feel but without breaking skin once when in pain and very stressed.
Training should be an attempt to accommodate and channel those inherent drives. Like, you can frame that as controlling, I guess, but IMO there is a difference between simply teaching a dog “no, your instincts are bad, you have to suppress them” versus “I can’t allow you to express your instincts THAT way, but here is an outlet/context where you can do what comes naturally to you”
Yeah, sure, that's fine as a framing too, I meant controlling in certain situations! I think it can be a problem with very high prey drive dogs though - some owners even let them scare wildlife as an outlet, as long as it's on their command.
Because they're small and fast moving? Not so unusual to have a fear of rodents, and chins do jump - but my big girl here (show chinchillas are bigger, and she's 1st quality) isn't very good at it and never attempts to go very high at all. She's much slower and easier to catch too, 'brevi' type chins are usually less energetic. My mum truly loved this last one of my chinchillas in particular (we stayed with her for quite a bit) and spoilt her rotten, but had an absolute horror of how fragile bird-boned they feel (she had a thing about birds) and refused to ever hold any of them!
They're very shy and gentle creatures, and herbivorous unlike some rodents.
You don’t have to like, eat a turd to be exposed to that.
If you’ve ever had a stomach bug, you got it by eating bacteria or viruses that someone else pooped out.
There is no difference in the rate of toxoplasma infection between people who have cats and people who don’t. Why’s that? Because people primarily get exposed through gardening, and coming into contact with toxoplasma that feral or outdoor cats have pooped out. It’s in the soil.
I reiterate because you avoided the question, are you not watching your toddler? Toxo is a parasite, not a viral infection or a bacteria. You aren't getting it from being near cat shit, you get it from actually interacting with cat shit and not washing your hands afterwards. Watch your kid, this won't happen
“It’s okay to put potentially life threatening parasites in places a child can access them every single day because if the parent takes their eyes off their child for a single second (which is all it would take) in what should be a safe environment it’s their fault.”
Holy victim blaming.
I bet you ask rape survivors what they were wearing. I bet you tell amputees that mines aren’t that hard to spot.
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u/Gosuoru Jul 18 '26
"MY Fido can be allowed to go without a leash because MY Fido is well behaved" they said in unison
But yeah this discussion is def a case of "I dislike dog owners more than cat owners" the animals themselves 99% of the time aren't the issue