Comment by teruakohatu
12 days ago
I know nothing about horses, but I have always wondered how domesticated they are. It seems they are quite happy to live in the wild and require a fair bit of breaking in.
Compared to sheep, cattle and dogs, they seem more on the wild side of spectrum than other domestic animals.
Domestication is pretty poorly defined, but IMO it's more about a capacity rather than necessity. A domesticated dog isn't just instantly domesticated and raised outside of humans would still be wild and quite dangerous, but with training and the right environment can be just another family member.
By contrast cats are not really domesticated and cannot be, no matter how you treat them. This is why you'll still have things like a cat just randomly attack you in weird circumstances and ways, but because they're tiny and relatively harmless it just makes them hilarious and weird. But it's also why people who miss out on this final nuance, and pick up lynx and similar animals as pets, often end up in the hospital.
"By contrast cats are not really domesticated and cannot be, no matter how you treat them"
Of course you can. A small tiger won't sleep on your couch and remembers not to make a mess in the house. And when a small tiger attacks you, it can still be dangerous. There are still wild cats around here (in europe) - and they would not get that tame so easily.
(Also you can teach cats some commands, it is just way more work and the commands won't work all the time)
I have a random stray living in my yard, in a major metropolitan city here in central Europe, who regularly displays immense affection for me (of course, I feed her) and is playful and engaged and interacts with me in what would be perceived, by humans, in a loving manner.
However, she has her limits, and will often give me a hefty bite if I do something she considers unacceptable, such as stop scratching her ears and instead try to pet her fur or clear it of nestles, which she seems to love collecting.
It is me, being domesticated. I wait for my ears to flop.
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Pet tigers are actually a thing. Like cats they sometimes attack their owner. Unlike cats, the amount of force they can use can easily kill a human, even when playing.
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I've just figured out that cats are Semi-Domesticated
You are mixing up two concepts here, that of the domesticated species and the domesticated individual animal. The article talks about the former. The latter means taming an individual of a species. Dogs are by definition domesticated wolves and depend on humans for survival in general.
>Horses may have been domesticated twice
When I read the title, I was thinking I like a horse that's been domesticated the whole time :)
Former or latter, I don't want to actually participate in the full rodeo experience.
Plenty of dogs live wild mostly off the waste stream of humans, but they are not domesticated. Lets call them coyotes.
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I pay attention to my cats. They don't bite me without me knowing in advance. Even people who've had cats for decades get bit more than I do. I don't understand why people don't pay that much attention to other people or pets. There's a lot going on that you can be aware of if you make an effort.
I find it easier to read cats than people most of the time. Cats are obvious. But I think a lot of people get surprises simply because they don't care about whether an animal consents to their treatment or not, and a cat has a short fuse if you overstep.
The countless people that have been mauled and killed by their pet chimps, big cats, and so on also felt the exact same, or obviously they would not have had those sorts of animals as pets.
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Dogs can not be trusted : never leave an infant/toddler alone with them.
If you read this and think "would be fine with my dog", I say the same, but remember the kid can mess with the dog and the dog will defend itself. Do you know for sure what the dog will do if the kid pokes it in the eye? The dangerous part is more what the kid will do.
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It's the same as saying humans can't be trusted. Of course you can trust some humans, and of course you can trust some dogs. Just first make sure... my dog took so much "torture" from my kids, and yet they were inseparable. Would I trust some random dog on the street? Of course not...
I got bit by a dog a few years ago and it was a real wake up call. It wasn't that I wasn't aware that a dog will bite under the right circumstances - I knew that.
I had believed that I understood when a dog was unhappy. The dog that bit me gave zero indication that I could see. I walked past it and it attacked. I have no doubt that someone very perceptive might have seen it coming but my policy now is to treat all dogs as if they're unhappy until I get super clear sense that that's not the case.
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Dogs have instincts, and that's the problem. Apparently you can trigger one of those by approaching a dog from behind and put your hand on the dog's shoulder. At least that's the explanation I've seen for when a kind dog out of the blue attack a child reflexively. Obviously this is not something I'm willing to try out myself.
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I really wonder people who say these things ever owned a cat. I cannot see how cats are "less capable of living with humans albeit they're less dangerous". My anecdotes show:
* Cats absolutely can be obedient with training. I've been clicker training my cat for years and he can do any trick a dog can do. He also understands his name. I tested this many many times by yelling random words, seeing him continue sleeping, then yelling his name, causing him to jump and run towards me.
* Cats can be trained not to attack at hands like dogs. This is called "cat inhibition" and it's standard practice for cat owners, all good cat owners must know and practice inhibition training.
* Cats clearly prefer sitting next to humans and sleep close to them. If you never experienced this you never lived with a cat long term. It's actually fascinating, when a cat is "sleeping" they're actually not sleeping in a human sense, it's a particularly light sleep. They're still ready to hunt. What most cat owners will see is that when your cat is sleeping next to you, and you suddenly change the room to clean dishes or use the bathroom, your cat will get up and sleep somewhere close to you. Although a human interprets this as cat being lazy, they're exhibiting hypersocial behavior for their species.
* Cats are not weak. Have you ever fought a cat? I did. I'm a full sized human male who weight trains regularly and my cat can barely overpower me if he puts all his power. Go watch some feral cat vet videos, you'll see cats require a strongman sized vet to be fully seized (and rarely some still get away). An adult cat will have no problem overpowering a human female. If you think "cats are attacking their owners" you seriously have no idea how incredibly powerful these creatures are. When a cat slaps you or whatever they're merely warning you in a "polite" way (and, as explained before this is a sort of behavior that can usually be curbed with training)
individual members of a species are individuals, that you can have individual cats that are aggressive does no invalidate the domestication of the entire species.
also attacking in play is different than attacking, so that should be considered.
Breaking-in is the traditional approach. Horse whisperer style is more effective and takes better advantage of the horses domestic nature.
It’s a spectrum, some cattle breeds are pretty wild. Dogs are special.
One good measure of domestication would be to compare with zebras which are considered relatively untamable - as in unlike horses they’ll always maintain a violent streak. Ponies tend to be more violent than horses.
Zebras have a tendency to bite the face and not let go. Definitely not ideal for domestication.
And wolves are ideal?
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On that note, 17th century Sweden can report that moose make for very poor cavalry steeds.
As a counter argument, every mammal born outside of a domesticated setting/structure is quite wild. Horses may seem wild because they are fast movers.
Sheep and Cows will also act wild if not domesticated; they are just not fast by nature.
Even humans can be on the extreme wild spectrum if not domesticated. There is plenty of evidence even to this day.
> Sheep and Cows will also act wild if not domesticated; they are just not fast by nature.
What does that mean? Do you mean feral animals? Non-domesticated cows went extinct hundreds of years ago [1]
> Even humans can be on the extreme wild spectrum if not domesticated. There is plenty of evidence even to this day.
What evidence? What is a non-domesticated human?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurochs#Extinction
If domesticated breeds of cattle live in feral herds they will act like similar wild animals. I have seen a wild herd myself once, and people familiar with them said they were dangerous.
> What evidence? What is a non-domesticated human?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_child
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If you want an idea of what undomesticated cattle look like head over to the American midwest and observe the Buffalo. Or go to Africa and check out the Sanga.
You can tell by their pointed ears. Further domestication might make their ears floppy.
Here’s a nice article about the biological basis of domestication:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4096361/
I'm not very educated on the topic, but my understanding is that many domesticated animals possessed traits in their natural state that lent to living in a domesticated setting, like having a natural herding instinct. The animals that didn't have said traits were simply never integrated into human agriculture, and thus never came to be considered "domesticated".
But that doesn't address your point about horses seeming to be happy to live in the wild, which would indicate that horses have seen less change from their pre-domestication state than other domestic animals have.
Maybe their role in human societies, as transportation and draft animals, didn't require them to lose as many of the traits of their wild ancestors, as other domestic animals did?
If you ever wrangle camels (or, for that matter, even shetties!) you may start to appreciate how domesticated horses are.
Well no one ever organized a horse fights, but bull fights were quite popular through-out the Europe. And even goats are far from friendly, unless they're accustomed to having a lot of people around. Pretty much any farm animal that's used to being handled by one or two people max, will be very shy and sometimes aggressive (especially when they have babies) about any new face. Smaller animals reaction will be to run away form you, but large ones will stand and fight. And when a cow lowers its head to show you the horns, it can get pretty tense, believe me :)
Your comment made me wonder if anyone did actually organize a horse fight, and it turns out that the answer is yes - in Iceland during the Viking Age[1]. Thankfully, people seem to have found more wholesome activities to do with their horses now, including teaching them to type[2].
[1]: https://www.medievalists.net/2016/08/horse-fights-the-brutal...
[2]: https://www.visiticeland.com/outhorse-your-email/
Thank you for this, had no idea :)
I know very little about horses, but find myself surrounded by them thanks to my wife’s interests. We have a horse who is quiet natured and well behaved. But, the fight or flight instinct wakes up very quickly and he’s 600kg.