Typically we’re talking quickly in geologic time.
Beyond that, at some point it stops selecting for existing traits in the population, and you’ve got to wait for mutations to go past that point. Like for example, if you were selecting for height, you could get 7.5 foot tall people pretty quickly, but for 9’, you’d have to have the occasional person be even taller than 7.5 feet, and these days, that’s more pituitary gland tumors, not genetic height.
A giant weasel is called a honey badger… or if you want to get closest to a GSD size, a wolverine or giant river otter.
I suspect this would be possible with lots of mammal species, though you might have some failures in introducing other undesired traits into the bloodline. Certain species that have had bottlenecks like cheetah might be dififcult. It’s certainly been done lots with plants and to some extent with fish. I suspect conservatively evolving fish like gar are difficult, they hybridize in the wild but don’t seem to change much.
Yeah, about 3 feet tall but a hefty 672 or so pounds. Most certainly not a lap animal. About the weight of some ponies. Good spot there, Babale.
Yes, but I wanted a dog that never grew up, a literal puppy forever. (now that I think of it no idea how such a dog would reproduce)
Off topic, and weird as fuck, but I have eaten one of those.
A friend illegally shot one, and we thought, “why not”?
We cooked it on coals in the same way one might cook a guinea pig (yeah, eaten those too)
We were unfortunately a little more drunk once it got to barbecue time, so while we skinned it and cleaned it up we managed to burn the spatchcock hyrax. But not too badly, so we ate what was acceptable. It is kind of like rabbit, although it is supposed to be the closest relative to elephant.
I have not yet tried elephant.
It was not bad, though.
We have some fairly small breegs of pigs here in South Africa, but the Transkie Pig is the smallest. They are still huge, bigger than an obese Labrador, similar size but way more weighty.
I really, really wanted one, but I did have an issue at the time. My on-site landlords were Muslim, liberal Muslim, but still…
I went to meet the piglets anyway (who doesn’t love piglets) and I discovered this guy also had a massive American Boar asleep in his passage. Boars get BIG. We had to step over him to get to the back garden.
The piglets were amazingly cute, but my girlfriend and I decided not to rock the boat at out house.
Yeah, but if nature can do that in 1,500 years just by virtue of the elephants being on an island, I think selective breeding could get to “lap animal” size.
The Cavalier King Charles Spaniel comes pretty close:
And that cute little Cavvy face makes them genetically susceptible to a painful and incurable skull malformation:
Law of unintended consequences strikes again.
Things like that were my aunt’s objection to my budding genetic designer plans.
Bah. Next you’ll be telling me that house hippos aren’t real.
Nor, alas, the adorable petite lap giraffes.
Well…. not that you can get them as pets, what with the being endangered and all.
From what I understand, they have heart problems with a high regularity, so it limits them to large dog lifespans. Cute dogs though.
I was going to suggest you can readily get teacup pigs from any farm supply place.
They just have very short practical lifespans. As soon as they outgrow your teacup, like 2 weeks from now, send them away* and get a replacement.
My first thought on reading the thread title was “Is it possible to do it with humans?”
Then I remembered a Vonnegut book I read once (Slapstick?) where the Chinese government, for the purposes of stretching their food supply, did just that. IIRC, they got to microbe-size and caused all sorts of respiratory problems.
The ones that didn’t move to Mars.
That’s Slapstick.
Also the Matt Damon film “Downsizing” which I have not seen but I understand had mixed reviews, considered preachy I think.
As well as the Dead Kennedys song “Shrink” with the twist that cops and businessmen don’t shrink themselves so now they can control the little people better.
And of course “Gulliver’s Travels” Lilliput’s tiny people and Brobdingnag’s giants.
Genetically engineered microscopic humans also figure in the short story * Surface Tension (short story) - Wikipedia*
by James Blish.
There’s the mammoths that were isolated on islands, so bred smaller and smaller due to shrinkig food supply - 17% of original size - the original ones were mammoth!
“Small” or “pygmy” is a relative term.
The elephant’s closest living relatives are sirenians/sea cows (manatee and dugong), and these rodent like fellows.
We had a miniature pinscher and they stay just like a puppy. They are both snuggly and playful !They are lots of fun. Some people think they are a smaller version of the doberman pinscher but that is not true. The mini-pin was one of the first small breeds, hundreds of years old. It was bred small from the standard pinscher and the doberman was bred up. But the AKC recognized the doberman well before the miniature.