I can always count on FR commenting on dog threads, even if he doesn't really address the issue at hand... Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
I don't have a dog at the moment, but if I did have a dog and I had a problem, I'd pm Fraggle. He should run a Canistics section.
I would love to see that! Neoteny is such a heavy trait in all domestic dogs that I would think it vanishingly difficult to do it in a few generations. More interesting was Belyaev Fox-Farm Experiment done in the USSR. It tells us a lot about what goes on in canid domestication. ~String
Speaking of foxes, these guys are real cute and make pretty decent pets - I had a pair and encountered no problems with them, except they are escape artists. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Fennec foxes as pets: It is a good idea to check legalities, here is a resource for the US: http://www.critterhouse.com/fennec_state_laws.htm
There are plenty of good books on dogs. We've only been breeding them for about 25 years, and only Lhasa Apsos. We've had a couple of other breeds, one Maltese and one Anatolian. I think it's a little inaccurate to call it neoteny. Dogs are more easygoing than wolves, the same way bonobos are more easygoing than true chimpanzees. We call bonobos "the free-lovin' hippies of the jungle," but no one accuses them of neoteny. Now I'll go so far as to agree that this could not have happened to a predatory species in nature. Apes are grazers and can afford to be laid back; hunters cannot. We've spent twelve thousand years turning dogs into grazers: they started out with a steady and reliable source of food in our middens, and now they get it in little bowls inside our houses. They don't need a predator's temperament any more, and in fact in the environment we now expect them to thrive in, it would be a disadvantage. It's a reasonable speculation that the wolves who chose to scavenge from our middens instead of chasing oryx were the ones who already did not have a strong fighting instinct and were considerably more curious and gregarious than their fellows, and they simply self-selected for participation in this grand experiment in building the world's first voluntary multi-species community. I see this as something almost miraculous; to dismiss it as neoteny trivializes it.
@Fraggle. Yes, you have been very specialist. No mongrels at all ?????? Tch. There is a theory that dogs and men are symbiotic. That neither would have succeeded so well without living in proximity.
Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Have you considered the possibility that they may be taking flight?
Well sure, when I was a kid. Lhasa Apsos are very unusual dogs. They're not very active and don't mind being alone, which is why they became so popular among people who live alone in small apartments and aren't home a lot. They just do their job sitting on the sofa all day listening for burglars. They have a lot of feline traits, dogs for cat people. I've always said that. Learning to live in harmony and cooperation with "folks" who aren't even of our species and can't talk must have gotten us wondering whether we could do the same with the rival tribe of humans in the next valley. Without dogs, civilization might never have been invented. As for the dogs, it's hard to say whether they're happier than wolves since we can't ask them, but this one lying in my lap certainly seems to be content with his life in our multi-species community.
