Shame I can’t get hit by an actual bus

  • TotallynotJessica@lemmy.worldM
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    2 months ago

    Dogs aren’t as inherently submissive and dependent as people assume. Many areas of the world still have town dogs who survive on their own while still being affectionate with humans. All dogs being helpless furry children by default is a newer development that comes out of the west. Dogs weren’t as selectively bred, being shaped into our best friends more by evolutionary pressures than the eugenics programs that are now normalized.

    People hem and hah about dingos going extinct by breeding with wild dogs, but dingos are just what works in the Australian outback. They were originally brought to Australia by humans and were often friendly with people depending on the circumstances. These independent dogs outcompeted the Tasmanian tiger and took over their niche, allowing them to be less reliant on humans and less inclined to be friendly. The new wild dogs that successfully mingle with dingos only succeed when they have advantages in the wild canine genepool. Most escaped pups probably die because they can’t survive as well as the original dingos. Dingos are only going extinct if you buy into purity genetics.

    Species distinctions are lines we draw based on our efforts to understand the world, not some fundamental truth. Dogs aren’t what we think, and neither are most species. We think about life in a fundamentally limited way and we need to understand those limitations or we’ll get constantly misled by our bias.

    • pixeltree@lemmy.blahaj.zoneOP
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      2 months ago

      Tbh, I’m not sure how pervasive the idea that dogs are helpless furry children are. Sure people love to treat their pets that way, but it’s not like feral dogs don’t exist.

      I think they’re more domesticated than cats, sure, but you need to look no further than pitbull drama to see that they’re complex creatures and more than (submissive pets).

      As it applies to puppygirl posting, there’s very little it has to do with characteristics real dogs display. The traits and actions and interactions that are fun and make people feel good will naturally be what draws people to it. I’d imagine there’s people out there who like to roleplay dogs realistically but I honestly wouldn’t put that under the petplay umbrella.

      Sorry I don’t want to be argumentative! You’re definitely not wrong about what you’re talking about I’m just not sure if you were just talking about neat stuff that’s loosely related or were saying something about puppygirl values so I thought I’d vomit some words onto the internet and pretend they have value

      • TotallynotJessica@lemmy.worldM
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        2 months ago

        It’s more the idea that they can’t be both independent and friendly in a way that’s similar to cats. They can be both free and not feral. There was a dog in my neighborhood who patrolled the road and the park nearby, having a similar level of independence as a housecat. As a result of being a large enough dog to be safe from coyotes, he was friendlier with strangers than the cats in the neighborhood. Sometimes people picked him up, thinking he was lost, but he was just vibin.

        For independent dogs, it’s better to be friendly than hostile like stereotypical pitbulls. Often when dogs are mean like that, it’s because they are defending the rigid boundaries of the yards they’re kept in. The dog that isn’t contained in their yard will be friendlier with strangers than the dog that escaped it.

        As far as vomiting words on the internet goes, that’s exactly what I did, so it’s all good.