I have cats. Lots of them. All strays, or hard luck stories (bought at pet store then deserted, injured and left at vet, that sort of thing). I have had them all neutered (unless they already were) and think it is the responsible thing to do.
But one thing bothers me. Isn’t this going to cause the species to evolve away from friendliness and human compatibility?
What I mean is this: feral cats have a variety of traits that may be more or less helpful in their survival and will evolve accordingly. However, if some of them want to join human company and show up on my doorstep, they will have a nice time here, but they won’t contribute any more genes to the pool.
Surely stray cats that are friendlier toward humans will be somewhat liklier to be adopted.
Is our responsible treatment of pets making pet species less suitable for becoming pets?
The problem with your theory, IMO, is the relatively small number of people who actually comply with recommendations for spaying/neutering pets.
Unfriendly animals have, I think, a much likelier chance of not reproducing: they’ll get euthanized at the shelter, or they’ll be abandoned by the roadside and die, or some other pre-reproductive fate will meet them. Friendly animals are likelier to be spayed or neutered, sure–but they’re probably also likelier to be bred.
It’s similar to (but more sophisticated than) the aggressive question I used to get when I worked for the local humane society: “If we spay or neuter all the dogs or cats, won’t they die out?” My answer was always that, at the point we weren’t euthanizing perfectly friendly and adoptable animals due to the sheer number of them, we’d stop recommending universal spay/neuter.
Even if we leave out the fact that we kill way to many animals due to human irresponsibility and overbreeding unfixed dogs especially males are much much more likely to bite or cause a DBRF. They are also more likely to be dog aggressive and less tolerant of outsiders. I am generally in favor of small unobtrusive government but I would not be unhappy with requiring non-breeders to neuter their pet. It would be better for both the animals and the people around them.
Mainly I don’t think we’re relying on friendly strays to maintain the sociability of the species. Most of the pet population should be coming from breeders, either directly or a generation or two removed, so most neutered pets still have very close relatives who are keeping the genes alive.
But don’t breeders focus on appearance? I know they pay some attention to temperament, but mostly from outside breeding circles it’s the exotic coats and facial shapes and other visual traits I see getting the attention.
You don’t think the good nature of a Golden Retriever comes from breeding intentionally for that nature? Additionally, it seems (based on the Silver Fox experiment) that the fancy coats are an artifact of domestication, when the only chosen selection trait is friendliness to humans.
I understand that cats were not intentionally domesticated; they sort of self-domesticated. If you don’t handle, stroke, and generally socialize kittens to human company, they avoid human contact as adults, and only cats exposed to human company meow.
Well, yes, of course - that’s pretty much my point. Neutering for all pets is a pretty new thing. Over most of the last few thousand years, we have been trying to get dogs to be better at various specialty tasks, many of which are based partly on a desire to please or other aspects of friendliness. My idea is that we would encourage new generations of offspring from the friendliest Golden Retrievers and pay less attention to the less friendly ones. But for no more than the last century, we would choose the friendliest Golden Retrievers as our pets, and neuter them, and pay less attention to the less friendly ones, who would be liklier to run wild and breed.
When all dogs breed together, they pretty much revert to looking like a dingo or a Carolina yellow dog. (short tan coat, upturned tail, and standup ears) So, it is not possible to have “golden retreivers running wild and breeding.” Absent intentional maintenance of the breed, the golden retreiver will not exist.
And breeders distinguish between Breed/Show quality, and Pet quality. Responsible breeders normally require Pet quality dogs to be neutered because they do not meet the breed ideal. Unfortunately, there are a lot of irresponsible breeders.
Hello Again, you sound like you are trying to explain why my worry is misplaced, but the content of your postings keeps reinforcing it.
It’s certainly possible to have golden retreivers running wild and breeding. You just can’t do it for multiple generations.
My worry is that, in general, if we collect and keep and neuter dogs and cats that display trends we like, including friendliness (and perhaps long shiny red coats), even a little bit more often than we do it with trends we dislike, we will give evolution reason to favor the trends we dislike.
Absent intentional maintenance of the breed, the golden retriever will not exist, as you say. So, you agree with me?
Let me give you an example. In certain area of Quarter Horse breeding, it is considered very desirable to be very muscled. A stallion, named Impressive, was a world champion because he was extremely muscled – possessed much of the desired characteristic. He was widely bred and his progeny were also Champion horses.
Unfortunately, what made Impressive so um, impressive is that he had a genetic mutation, which was recessive. In its recessive form, HYPP sometimes caused problems, But when this mutation was dominant, the horse had a strong liklihood of a painful and sudden death. The American Quarter Horse Association decided to refuse registration to HYPP+ horses, but there are irresponsible breeders out there breeding HYPP+ horses cause it makes 'em look purty.
Whenever you breed solely for one characteristic, whether it is temperment, looks, or strength, you are generally going to get animals that are unfavorable in some other respect. However, most breeds are NOT based solely on one characteristic. There are a whole of requirements to conform to breed standard.
It’s too late! We have a housecat with no evidence of this “friendliness” trait you mention. He’s like the Anton LaVey of pets: “An it harms none, do what ye list,” except without the “an it harms none” clause.
Because I’ve never heard such a statement. We’ve had barn cats that went deep into the haymow to give birth, and kept their kittens hidden for a few weeks until they paraded them out for us. But they certainly meowed. And even the hidden litters that we had never seen or touched – we often found where they were because we could hear the kittens meowing.
And, evolutionarily, that doesn’t seem to make sense. Cats developed a meow long before they were ever domesticated by humans (or vice-versa). Why would they have evolved a meow if it was never used pre-human exposure?
And the problem IS? (or would be?) I also have a history of adopting strays (or rather, it seems, BEING adopted by them) and they get snipped right off (or as soon as possible after often showing up already pregnant)
Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the pets I’ve lived with, but I don’t feel any great, burning need to KEEP pets (in fact, find them a PITA, more often than not:rolleyes:). I see no great disaster in these “pet breeds” created by man for his own amusment dying off over time. I would much rather see the wild, naturally evolved variations of our “pets” thriving in their natural habitat.
All in all, I have to conclude that the “benefit” of discouraging sterilization for our shamefully abundant and often killed for want OF a loving home “companion animals” because it might render them more friendly and likely to be adopted is heavily outweighed by the wisdom of sterilizing them and allowing the excess, unwanted, homelsss populations to die off.
Sorry I overstated. The fact I was trying to communicate is that cats have adapted their communication style to human preferences, without humans ever intentionally influencing the process.