WI: Dogs and Cats were never Domesticated?
- Thread starter Unkown00
- Start date
Memes don't occur and we are all more depressed due to the lack of Cats and Dogs
Memes don't occur and we are all more depressed due to the lack of Cats and Dogs
Humanity might have never left the prehistoric times. Dogs helped with guard, hunting and other things. Cats, I'm not so sure about what they did, although probably rat catching so diseases would be more rampant. The Black Plague for example was much worse in countries that killed cats because they thought cats were to blame, althoug cats actually killed the rats, that spread the disease.
They ruled us, gave us direction and were our gods. Life would not be worth living without our feline overlords. Humanity would have died out. Indeed, it was they who raises us to civilization so that we might better serve them!!!!!!
*sighs* I miss my cats.
Quantum Immortal
Banned
I think this is properly an evolutionary POD. I've read a strong case for the idea that advancement and organization in human society, with greater cooperation in hunting, building, etc. was due to friendly human contact with wolves/dogs.
Nephi
Banned
That's exactly what they did, I have three of them for just that.
I live in the country in the first time I moved out here the first winter there were so many mice I mean it was just insane, I got three cats now they annoy me laying on the vehicles, they've laid on one of my trucks so much that they took all the paint off the windshield wipers. And constant paw prints. But for a few handfuls of food a day they keep, rats, mice, snakes, and rabbits away.
During the daytime they'll lay in my garden and kill rabbits as big as they are.
The value of cats is not truly understood or appreciated until you live in a wooded area.
I have not had one mouse in this house.
I think that this is bit unlikely when both animals came quiet close of humans and humans noticed how useful they are. Dogs guarding your home caves, protecticng your tribe and help on hunting. Cats again are good to destroy mice and rats which are eating your crops.
So probably humans would stay on stone age much longerif not forever. At least agriculture would be quiet hard if you can't kill all mice and rats.
So probably humans would stay on stone age much longerif not forever. At least agriculture would be quiet hard if you can't kill all mice and rats.
I tend to agree with this hypothesis.
Domestication is a two-way street, it changed us as much as it changed them.
Wolves started raiding human trash and over time that selected for brave enough to do it but not so brave they're seen as a threat and killed.
If that doesn't happen this should be ASB.
If it does happen, but humans ignore it, you'd get some kind of weird coexistence.
If that doesn't happen this should be ASB.
If it does happen, but humans ignore it, you'd get some kind of weird coexistence.
The dog is the oldest domesticated animal and had been domesticated independently throughout the world. There is no group of humans anywhere that doesn't interact with the dogs. Even Australian Aboriginals and New Guineans used the dingo and singing dog respectively in hunts. No dog domestication means that agriculture likely does not happen. It also means less meat as dogs were used in the hunt and as guard animals. Dogs also proved their worth as pack animals used for pulling travois and sleds by Native Americans. As for domesticating mice, well I did a timeline where humans domesticated various relatives of the cavy, but if you're talking regular field mice there'd be no incentive. Too small for eating and their hides are tiny as well. Cats domesticated themselves at the time of the Neolithic Revolution and proved their worth as verminators then later on as ships cats. One might say that their ruthless predation of vermin helped increase the food supply. And yes, there is a difference between the wildcat and domestic cats same as domestic dogs and wolves.
Would that mean a megafaunal survival in North America, of at least a few more species, if Paleo-Indians don't have dogs to help them hunt? Perhaps horses? As for cats, another verminator would be found, but I'm not sure what could fill that niche. That point is likely moot however, as domestication might not happen.