HistoryFreak1912

Something just occured to me now: How did we manage to turn the wolves and wild cats into the dogs and cats we know today?

What was the first recorded evidence of domesticated dogs and cats?


Discuss!

Lawnmowerman

Intresting study for you to read


They basically selectivly bred wild foxes that showed the least fear of humans and were able to create completly tame foxes.

One intresting side effect was that the tamer the foxes became the more variety they had in theor coats.

Wild Silver Fox



Domesticaed Silver Fox

AlpinLuke

Regarding the "domestication" of the cat, I would be less definitive. I have had many cats in my life and I know, because of my own experience, that what ethologists say is true: the cat is always able to go back to a condition of wild natural life, also in our towns. Without great problems. Despite what we think about the hunting capabilities of our domestic cats, they are real serial killers of insects and little animals which they hunt and kill as a game [since we feed them].

Also about reproduction, they are able to follow the instinct and to prepare suitable places to grow the kitties.

So, it would be more correct to say that the cat shares our territory since it doesn't consider us competitive predators, on the contrary, in our environment they find a lot of preys and also a lot of "help" [they follow an utilitarian principal creating a kind of temporary symbiosis with humans].

On the other hand, if we think to Ancient Egypt [and before of that to the neolithic Middle East], persons noted these cute animals moving in granaries, fields, around the homes ... but they didn't create damage and they didn't hunted big useful domestic animals, they hunted rats, scorpions, spiders, lizards ...

This is why Ancient Egyptians felt the need to be grateful to them and they begun to leave them enter their homes. In this way the cat became an animal for company.

Brunel

I think my little sister's dog needs to be domesticated a bit more.

I've just taken her for walkies. I got back half an hour ago. I took her along a stream near my parents' house and my flat and we just got near a farm with some cows in it and the daft mutt ran off. She just ran down the path and disappeared from my sight. God knows why. But I wasn't concerned as I thought she would be waiting at the stream at the end of the path. When I got there, though, she was nowhere to be seen and I started panicking. I walked along the stream shouting her name. I walked along this little field near the hospital shouting her name. Still no sign of her. I walked back to the farm calling her name. Still no sign. It was a mystery. So I started to think she had ran all the way home for some reason. So I started walking to my parents' house, where the dog lives, down this path that used to be a railway line and I asked a man and then a little old lady whether or not they had seen a black dog come down there. And they both said they hadn't. When I got home my parents said that she hadn't turned up there and I told them she had gone missing. So they got in the car and went to where we were to look for her. I stayed at their house worried sick. But just as I started to dread the thought of them coming home without her and we would be worried sick all night I received a phonecall from my dad saying that they'd found her. They found her near the farm. Talk about sheer relief.

Brunel

There is a TV programme on Channel 4 at 8pm on weeknights called Foxes Live. It is live from Battersea Power Station in London where urban foxes have been seen. They have installed little cameras in a fox den under a garden shed in Esher, Surrey. And they show live pictures of the fox family there.

On last night's episode they interviewed some residents of a little village in southern England where they had seen a mysterious black fox. Some people didn't believe it until photos were taken of it in a field. Eventually it was found dead and was taken to a vet for examination. It turns out it was one of those black silver foxes. They are native to North America but this one had somehow turned up in England.

Frank81

Yes it is considered that cats aren't domesticated at all, but they live with us because of a mutual agreement. Once I watched a National Geographic that studied the origin of cats. This seem to be placed in the Middle East, with Cyprus being the first place where domesticated cats are archeologically attested.

Star

Dogs: There was an informative article about dog breeds and what their DNA tells us in a recent issue of National Geographic. At the end of the issue there was a section about a field study being conducted in all parts of the developing world where dogs retain their most wild, or wolf-like characteristics. These dogs are still canis lupus familiarus (in the same species-level as common breeds of domesticated dog), but have not been specifically bred to hunt rabbits, guard castles, or sit on laps of movie stars.

As I'm sure you already know, most dogs are the way they are because of thousands of years of humans shooing off or killing the mean ones, and raising litters of easily trained and biddable pups. Whatever they were in the very earliest times, the ones having traits that allow for friendliest, most social, and most opportunistic adaptation features got the bone, scraps, and social pack-mentality bonding resulted.

Wikipedia says:

Mosquito

Many says that cats werent domesticated but that they domesticated themselves without any human attempts. It was enough that people who were hunters and gatherers changed their way of life and became agricultural, created granaries which tempted lolots of rodents and the cats came after them.

And cats are able to kill even the snakes:

Zeno

In Egypt after <some time> the cats became so respected and revered they were used as guard posts. So apart from rats and spiders it also kept unwanted humans out.