We have a symbiotic relationship with our pets. We provide food, medicine and shelter, they provide amusement, exercise and protection.
We derive pleasure from stroking a cat and it's purring will send me to sleep any time I lie on the sofa.
A dog will amuse you with it's antics, going for a walk will heal your body and soul.
My dog is not vicious but she will bark to alert me if someone is outside my house.
I believe that pet owners live longer because they are less stressed than others.
There is no such thing as the natural world that you talk of, humans have modified almost all of it.
We have five cats we adopted from the streets. Had we not those five felines would have been put to sleep by the animal control people three days after they were captured. That's cruel.
It depends on the animal.
I would be hard pressed to label my snake as unhappy. Snakes sleep like 95% of their lives, most of the time they only bother moving to find food or a safe place to sleep.
That's what she said.
Take a domestic dog and see how well it lives in the wild and then decide again.
C. lupus familiaris, a subspecies of wolf, has co-evolved with H. sapiens in a cooperative relationship that benefits each in survival. C. lupus was a willing partner as soon as some individuals began associating closely with H. sapiens.
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This universe is crazy. I'm going back to my own.
Most house pet breeds of dogs and cats have already been bred to be domesticated. They are not wild animals. Keeping a lion or wildebeast as a pet is cruel. Keeping a housecat or chihuahua as a pet is not cruel.
Agreed. You might want to read this:The Covenant of the Wild: Why Animals Chose Domestication.
http://www.amazon.com/Covenant-Wild-.../dp/0300079931
I also suspect squirrels and raccoons are also gradually domesticating themselves. You can already see color mutations in squirrels. The squirrels who are the most willing to approach humans are the winners, just as wolves used to be way back when.
Last edited by Linuxratty; April 15th, 2013 at 04:02 PM. Reason: clarifaction.
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