Intriguing questions

@suzianne said
Ask Rudyard Kipling.

Any question I would ask would most likely get removed. 🙂

-VR

@moonbus said
Introducing fully domesticated animals to the wild seldom works out well for the animal in question. They have none of the natural socialization or hunting skills required to survive.

I'd give any of our three about half an hour...

@indonesia-phil said
I'd give any of our three about half an hour...

We are looking after a friends hound at the moment. He chases anything that moves but has no concept of killing and eating a wild creature.

@the-gravedigger said
We are looking after a friends hound at the moment. He chases anything that moves but has no concept of killing and eating a wild creature.

If dogs could live on a diet of tennis balls, ours would do just fine.

@indonesia-phil said
If dogs could live on a diet of tennis balls, ours would do just fine.

Our male pooch (a 130lbs cross bread) has a penchant for socks. I come across them when doing the “poop patrol). No, I don’t extract, wash and reuse them.😡🫢

@great-big-stees said
Our male pooch (a 130lbs cross bread) has a penchant for socks. I come across them when doing the “poop patrol). No, I don’t extract, wash and reuse them.😡🫢

There you go; I reckon tennis balls and socks would provide a fairly balanced diet.

@indonesia-phil said
There you go; I reckon tennis balls and socks would provide a fairly balanced diet.

Both our male and female pooches “play” with tennis balls🎾🎾 (breaking them) but thankfully they don’t find then edible.👍

@the-gravedigger said
We are looking after a friends hound at the moment. He chases anything that moves but has no concept of killing and eating a wild creature.

Hunting dogs were bred to find a fallen bird or a punctured rabbit and prevent any other scavenger from getting at it before the huntsman got there to take charge of it.

A husky, otoh, is bred to pull a sledge. A Rhodesian ridgeback to hunt lions .... etc.

I grew up with a bullmastiff. His job was to protect the lord's estate from poachers. He would do that by knocking a poacher down and sitting on him until the game warden showed up and took charge of the man.

I haven't a clue what 'job' a chihuahua was bred to fulfil, except possibly to consume few resources.

@moonbus said

I haven't a clue what 'job' a chihuahua was bred to fulfil, except possibly to consume few resources.

They are noisy little buggers, perhaps it was felt they would scare people away. 🙂

-VR

@moonbus said
Hunting dogs were bred to find a fallen bird or a punctured rabbit and prevent any other scavenger from getting at it before the huntsman got there to take charge of it.

A husky, otoh, is bred to pull a sledge. A Rhodesian ridgeback to hunt lions .... etc.

I grew up with a bullmastiff. His job was to protect the lord's estate from poachers. He would do that by knocking ...[text shortened]... haven't a clue what 'job' a chihuahua was bred to fulfil, except possibly to consume few resources.

Good answer, thanks.

@very-rusty said
They are noisy little buggers, perhaps it was felt they would scare people away. 🙂

-VR

More likely to hunt mice and keep them out of the grain hoppers.

@the-gravedigger said
Good answer, thanks.

The clue is that a hunting dog isn’t supposed to hunt for himself, but for his master.

A cat, just the opposite, hunts for itself and wouldn’t bring home anything its ’curator’ might want to eat. I once had a cat which would catch lizards and bring them home, half alive, drop them into the shower basin (which had a rim high enough the lizard couldn’t climb out but low enough the cat could look over), and the cat would sit there watching the panicked lizard run around until it expired of exhaustion.

@moonbus said
The clue is that a hunting dog isn’t supposed to hunt for himself, but for his master.

A cat, just the opposite, hunts for itself and wouldn’t bring home anything its ’curator’ might want to eat. I once had a cat which would catch lizards and bring them home, half alive, drop them into the shower basin (which had a rim high enough the lizard couldn’t climb out but low enou ...[text shortened]... and the cat would sit there watching the panicked lizard run around until it expired of exhaustion.

Your cat would have fitted in well here.

@the-gravedigger said
Your cat would have fitted in well here.

We domesticated dogs, but cats domesticated us.

😆

@torunn said
If an animal is taken care of by humans from birth or very early age, if/when released into the free, don't they know what group of animals to join?

Some, indeed, do not. Look up Konrad Lorenz and his geese. He got a Nobel in Physiology for it.