The Posthuman Dog

November 3, 2021 5:48 PM

If humans disappeared tomorrow, about 1 billion dogs would be left on their own. […] Although many people, when asked to picture a dog, will think of a furry companion curled up on the couch by a human’s side or walking on the end of a leash, research suggests that roughly 20 per cent of the world’s dogs live as pets, or what we call ‘intensively homed dogs’. The other 80 per cent of the world’s dogs are free-ranging, an umbrella term that includes village, street, unconfined, community, and feral dogs. In other words, most dogs on the planet are already living on their own, without direct human support within a homed environment.

In our new book, A Dog’s World (2021), Marc Bekoff and I [Jessica Pierce] invite readers into an imaginary world in which humans have suddenly disappeared and dogs must survive on their own. We consider two key questions. First, could dogs survive without their human counterparts – are they still capable of living on their own, as wild animals, without help from and relationships with humans? Second, and perhaps even more intriguing, what are some of the possible evolutionary trajectories of posthuman dogs, as ‘artificial’ selection is replaced by natural selection? Would dogs look or behave anything like the animals we now call our best friends? This is a serious thought-experiment in speculative biology and one that can ultimately help us better understand who dogs really are. Thinking about dogs without us can help us understand who dogs are with us, and what they need from us, right now, to flourish and be happy.

posted by Johnny Wallflower (70 comments total)

My mom's land piranha, aka a 4.5 lb teacup chihuahua, who frequently escapes under the gate, crosses the road to the open high desert sagebrush to give the local coyote population a piece of her mind, would do just fine.

Then again it is not unusual for feral SoCal & Arizona desert area dog packs to be lead by chihuahuas.
posted by msjen at 6:05 PM on November 3, 2021 [16 favorites]

Yes, traveling through Indonesia in the 1990s gave me a starkly different picture of what "a dog's life" could/might be. I remember being able to elicit gasps when I told locals I met that not only did people in my country (the US) go to the store to buy special food for their dogs but also allowed their dogs to sleep in the same bed with them.
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 6:17 PM on November 3, 2021 [5 favorites]

One of our five dogs is a little white fluffy muppet. He’s a pain in the ass but he’s smart. He’s probably be fine. The other four are bulldogs, so pray for em
posted by azpenguin at 6:24 PM on November 3, 2021 [5 favorites]

It's very striking when travelling to see the different relationships between humans and dogs. I feel like I could write a very long comment on this, but I'll just say that it's simply astonishing how various it is.
posted by sjswitzer at 6:26 PM on November 3, 2021 [6 favorites]

Dogs are the best. We don't deserve them...

Chihuahua's are crazy. Look at their eyes.

Still always try to pet them. Rarely works out well...
posted by Windopaene at 6:26 PM on November 3, 2021 [3 favorites]

I'm not sure I trust the author's conclusions about hypothetical post-human dogs, when her treatment of current science is suspect. Large dogs couldn't survive on berries and insects? (Elephants are herbivorous!) Dogs would lose access to acupuncture, and that would be bad?

That said, dogs are awesome. I don't know if dogs would be happier without people, but people are definitely happier with dogs. Dogs are a great reason not to drive drunk, for example [CW: heartstrings!].
posted by pH Indicating Socks at 6:28 PM on November 3, 2021 [4 favorites]

After my elderly dog's death, the only thing that could make me feel better was the idea of a puppy. I realized that I was expecting a different future than when I was in my twenties and my last dog was a pup. I was afraid -- I still am afraid -- about how I will protect her from a harder, meaner world. But then I realized that I wasn't the one who brought her into it, and that joy ought to be taken where it can, and shared. The best I can do is to try to protect her from what I always have feared for my dogs: that in some terrible circumstance, someone (human or animal) would try to eat her.

(I am a little low tonight because she's in the hospital, probably going to be fine but God, I think I will unfollow this thread and check in at a better time)
posted by Countess Elena at 6:31 PM on November 3, 2021 [36 favorites]

“These are the stories that the Dogs tell when the fires burn high and the wind is from the north. Then each family circle gathers at the hearthstone and the pups sit silently and listen and when the story's done they ask many questions:

"What is Man?" they'll ask.

Or perhaps: "What is a city?"

Or: "What is a war?”


― Clifford D. Simak, City (1952)
posted by doctornemo at 6:40 PM on November 3, 2021 [25 favorites]

It's dingoes. The future is dingoes.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 6:41 PM on November 3, 2021 [6 favorites]

My pug knows how to pick blueberries off our bushes. She'd survive a summer at least.
posted by perhapses at 6:54 PM on November 3, 2021 [4 favorites]

My pug knows how to pick blueberries off our bushes. She'd survive a summer at least.

OK, we need to see a pic of said pug after a blueberry feast. For science.
posted by azpenguin at 6:59 PM on November 3, 2021 [19 favorites]

It's not just about survival though, it's about thriving . . . I think about this a lot with respect to cats. Most cats can survive without people, at least long enough to reproduce . . . but their lives are shorter and infinitely more brutal. And if you dump a housecat who's accustomed to being fed by people, well, forget it.

Unhoused dogs live but I wouldn't say they're as happy as they'd be if they had someone to care for them.
posted by Anonymous at 6:59 PM on November 3, 2021

I will say, though, that Village Dogs are quite the thing. I've been in places with village dogs and they just wander around like Victorian dandies tipping their hats and saying "top of the morning" to you, then meet up with their other dog friends and say "Shall we head over to the park?" and then do. They are pillars of the community.

In other places street dogs are quite docile, even languorous, during the day, but you kinda don't want to be around at night when they're on the hunt, though it's probably mostly for rats. But these dogs are very savvy about living in cities and you could use them for instructional videos about looking both ways before crossing the street.

Some places have a very live-and-let-live approach. Catch, vaccinate against rabies, (neuter?), and release. You'll see notched ears in these places. The dogs can still be quite feral, but they're accepted as a normal part of life. And, again, they might be helpful in keeping vermin under control. I've seen packs of notched dogs flooding out of derelict buildings at twilight. Nobody seemed to give them much notice, but it was eerie to me.

There does seem to be an inverse relation between free-roving dogs and cats in cities. In places where dogs roam free, cats generally stay within secure compounds or homes. In places where dogs are more homebound you see more cats roaming freely.

Since these are personal and unscientific impressions, I've left places and countries out of this comment. But it does seem clear to me that the relations between humans and dogs are quite flexible and very subject to cultural norms.
posted by sjswitzer at 7:06 PM on November 3, 2021 [23 favorites]

There's a pretty good sci-fi series of books about this situation. An extended rumination/speculation on a lot of the things touched in the article.
posted by automatic cabinet at 7:18 PM on November 3, 2021

I'm curious - do those "village, street, unconfined, community, and feral dogs" have non-human-derived food sources? What would happen if they no longer had human garbage/leftovers/rat infestations*/(cats?)/etc. available?

*for that matter, what would likely happen to the rats once humans were gone?
posted by Greg_Ace at 7:19 PM on November 3, 2021 [2 favorites]

for that matter, what would likely happen to the rats once humans were gone?

For good or bad, I think that this is a problem that lots of species would have.
posted by Literaryhero at 7:28 PM on November 3, 2021

I mean manatees would probably be happier, but I imagine that pandas would be screwed.
posted by Literaryhero at 7:29 PM on November 3, 2021 [3 favorites]

Cool article, but it glosses over the fact that many intensively homed dogs will not be able to escape their intensive homes without a human to turn the doorknob for them. Let’s hope for their sakes that humanity doesn’t just vanish into thin air but drops dead on the spot, so that these intensively homed dogs have something to snack on for a while.
posted by ejs at 7:30 PM on November 3, 2021 [5 favorites]

This reminds me that the original novel of One Hundred and One Dalmatians had a sequel called The Starlight Barking. In the book, all the humans on Earth magically fall asleep and can’t be woken, and all the dogs on Earth gain telepathic powers and try to reorganize world government before being contacted by an alien from “the dogstar” Sirius.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 7:36 PM on November 3, 2021 [17 favorites]

for that matter, what would likely happen to the rats once humans were gone?

That kinda happened during the covid lockdowns in big cities / tourist areas.
posted by ryanrs at 7:42 PM on November 3, 2021 [3 favorites]

In the book, all the humans on Earth magically fall asleep and can’t be woken

Does the book go into how, once the humans are woken up again post canis ex machina, they're all aghast at the state of (the remains of) their refrigerators and pantries?
posted by Greg_Ace at 7:47 PM on November 3, 2021

And if you dump a housecat who's accustomed to being fed by people, well, forget it.

[…]
posted by schroedinger

Eponysterical?

(Says the woman with a house full of cats who were dumped by other humans. What have I become?)
posted by armeowda at 7:55 PM on November 3, 2021 [8 favorites]

Well, no. See ejs’s comment above.

Edit: Responding to ryanrs
posted by skyscraper at 7:57 PM on November 3, 2021

I'm curious - do those "village, street, unconfined, community, and feral dogs" have non-human-derived food sources? What would happen if they no longer had human garbage/leftovers/rat infestations*/(cats?)/etc. available?

Packs of feral dogs will definitely hunt both wild and domesticated animals (as well as attack children, though I don't believe typically for food). I doubt many of the highly-bred companion dogs would survive, though ((like the dogs this article calls "Maltese adjacent": really small dogs with short legs and they require a lot of attention and people are in love with them).

But at least in the places I have lived, there is a distinction between the street dogs who scavenge and live full-time on their own, and the dogs that have owners but are left free to roam around during the day. (Often there is an expectation the dog will come home at night to provide guarding/alerting services.)
posted by Dip Flash at 8:09 PM on November 3, 2021 [3 favorites]

Unhoused dogs live but I wouldn't say they're as happy as they'd be if they had someone to care for them.

Conversely, the same is true of undogged humans.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 8:41 PM on November 3, 2021 [19 favorites]

I, for one, wish to welcome our good boy overlords.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:48 PM on November 3, 2021 [6 favorites]

One of the bad scenarios that runs through my head when I am depressed is that a) all the people on earth die (this is fine) but then b) all the "domesticated" animals are trapped, and it makes me very sad and legitimately angry.
posted by turbid dahlia at 9:03 PM on November 3, 2021 [4 favorites]

I doubt many of the highly-bred companion dogs would survive, though

Yeah. There are some individuals that would do surprisingly well, but as a whole, some breeds would be pretty much gone quickly. I mentioned earlier we have four bulldogs. (They, as well as all of the other bulldogs we have had, are all rescues. We work with a bulldog rescue, and I’ll spare you too much info on what people do to these poor things in the name of “cute” or making money.) Bulldogs are born by C-section because the heads are too big for the mother to birth naturally. One of ours is a Frenchie, and those are a real genetic mess in a lot of cases. Pugs? Yeah, most of them are in trouble. The breathing problems of these breeds are well known as well, and they won’t do well once the temp gets even a little warm. We absolutely love the smoosh faces, but we’re also able to care for the hard cases and there are a lot of those cases. These are breeds that simply do not exist without humans purposely breeding them for some very particular characteristics, none of which would be helpful in nature.
posted by azpenguin at 9:27 PM on November 3, 2021 [3 favorites]

I've got 4 rescue mutts - mostly largely made up of Chihuahua. They'd survive. One of them would be the warlord of the hood. One his enforcer, one his caretaker, racing around to check in on everyone and the last to be the pretty princess that everyone adores (plus with her back is a frighteningly effective early warning system - still want to have words with the people who left her mostly alone in a backyard for 3 years - she's 7 lbs for cripe's sake)
posted by drewbage1847 at 9:40 PM on November 3, 2021 [2 favorites]

Yeah we’ve all seen the movie Amores Perros where pet dogs go outdoors and roam the streets during the day. It’s true! Dogs roam the streets unattended in Mexico in the places I’ve visited and seem to just ignore people as they go about whatever their business is. Somewhere I have a photo of a golden retriever sitting with a tortilla in its mouth, having just been fed at the backdoor of a tortilleria in Mexico City. This is normal to many people in the world, but is unusual to those of us who live in the U.S. Any time I see a dog off leash here I stop and nervously look around for its person.
posted by chrchr at 9:50 PM on November 3, 2021 [1 favorite]

I remember being able to elicit gasps when I told locals I met that not only did people in my country (the US) go to the store to buy special food for their dogs but also allowed their dogs to sleep in the same bed with them.

My dog was abandoned as a puppy in a village in Mexico (most likely the puppy of a village dog who died a few months later) and magically whisked away to Seattle. The woman who rescued him and arranged the whisking provided endless amusement for her neighbors when she told them he sleeps in my bed.

I feel like my dog would do well for a while at least because while he's gotten lazy in his middle-age (he's almost 9), he still has that scavenger side, where he's able to go for long stretches without eating or pooping. And he's never started a fight, but he's always walked away unharmed when other dogs came at him. But he is very, very lazy.
posted by lunasol at 11:14 PM on November 3, 2021 [1 favorite]

her treatment of current science is suspect. Large dogs couldn't survive on berries and insects? (Elephants are herbivorous!)

Elephant digestive systems and feeding behaviors are both very different than a dog's. I have no idea how well researched their assertion is but it's not automatically wrong because large herbivores have evolved.
posted by mark k at 11:40 PM on November 3, 2021 [8 favorites]

Garth Ennis has a comic book series about this: Red Rover Charlie.
posted by Paul Slade at 12:01 AM on November 4, 2021 [1 favorite]

Most cats can survive without people, at least long enough to reproduce . . . but their lives are shorter and infinitely more brutal.

People release domesticated rabbits in Discovery Park in Seattle. You can spot where they dig warrens by the red tailed hawks and bald eagles hovering in the wind overhead.

People have to get a license to drive a motor vehicle. But not to own dogs, cats or rabbits. Let alone have children. But it is illegal to abandon children, at least, at freeway rest stops. So there is that.
posted by y2karl at 1:02 AM on November 4, 2021 [4 favorites]

I don't know whether it's still believed, but Farley Mowat wrote about finding out that wolves in Canada live on mice during the summer. Not a general proof about anything, including the whole year, but at least evidence that enough small rodents can be enough for a large animal to live on.

I find the idea of fully vegetarian large dogs to be unlikely in the short run.

I agree that if people just disappeared suddenly, a lot of pets would simply be trapped and die as a result.

I have no idea whether, in the absence of people, dogs would revert to a medium-sized, medium-colored wild animal, or if there'd be divergence and eventually speciation. It's also possible that the herding instinct in some breeds would turn out to be useful in the wild.

I prefer wondering what would happen with the amazing range of ornamental plants people have scattered across the world.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 1:32 AM on November 4, 2021 [4 favorites]

Nancy Lebovitz: "fully vegetarian large dogs "

Is this a feature of fully-automated space communism?
posted by chavenet at 3:46 AM on November 4, 2021 [3 favorites]

without direct human support
There's a lot of indirect support out there. Dogs could scavenger for quite a while if humans disappeared, but once human-produced stuff discouraged, things would get real.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 5:20 AM on November 4, 2021

From the INDog Project:

…The dingo-pariah type village dogs of Asia and Africa have long been known to science, and to students of dog evolution and of landraces; though they are largely overlooked by general dog breed fans.

[Photo]
A pet INDog in a village in the Sundarbans area of Eastern India

The 1960 book ‘Pariahunde’ by Dr Rudolphina Menzel [bio] and Dr R Menzel [co-authors] was the first dedicated study of pariah dogs (those of Israel). The Menzels quote earlier writings on pariah dogs by zoologists Theophile Studer, Otto Antonius, Emil Hauck, Max Hilzheimer, Theodor Haltenorth, and the painter and author Richard Strebel.

These dogs belong to a broad group classified as primitive and aboriginal dogs, distinct from modern breeds. They include the Australian Dingo, the Canaan Dog of Israel [Wikiwand*], the New Guinea Singing Dog and the Central African village dog, ancestor of the African Basenji.

The Indian counterpart is the Indian Pariah Dog, the original and predominant domestic dog type in the plains and lower-altitude hill ranges of the subcontinent. The type can be described as a natural breed or landrace.

Our site is dedicated to this pan-Indian aboriginal dog: the Indian Pariah Dog or INDog as we prefer to call it today (short for ‘Indian Native Dog’).…

*See also the The Canaan Dog Club of America.

Some wags might call these types of retrofuturistic doggos the ‘Ultimutts’.
posted by cenoxo at 6:14 AM on November 4, 2021 [1 favorite]

And if you dump a housecat who's accustomed to being fed by people, well, forget it.

Oh, I don't know about that. We had a cat--a diminutive grey tiger-striped thing, who was gifted to my wife by her 6th-grade students in Houston after they found her in a literal gutter next to a road, abandoned by her mother. That cat followed my wife through three moves, one across the country, before ending up in our current place in Boston. She never spent a day outdoors after the traumatic first week of her life, until she slipped out the back door a few years ago. Try as we might, we could never recapture her... she was too smart to fall for baited Have-A-Heart traps, and would flee at the approach of any human. We despaired that she wouldn't last a week without human attention, but then we caught a glimpse of her six months later, having visibly GAINED weight. We think she's still living somewhere in the area, as we see neighborhood postings of the occasional sighting. The coyotes, large raptors, sociopathic turkeys, and even-more-sociopathic drivers near us haven't gotten her, and she seems to have taken quite well to a more rodent-based diet, even at the ripe old age of 12.

In conclusion, you can take the animal out of the wild, but you can't take the wild out of the animal. If we humans all disappeared tomorrow, I don't think most "domesticated" pets would have much of a problem.
posted by Mayor West at 6:22 AM on November 4, 2021 [7 favorites]

The odds for escaped animals vary a lot-- also, a particular feral animal may be getting fed by various humans.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 6:29 AM on November 4, 2021

In the book, all the humans on Earth magically fall asleep and can’t be woken

In the movie, the next scene will feature a needle drop of Marie Provost with a montage of pets...um...taking advantage of the situation.
posted by Thorzdad at 6:36 AM on November 4, 2021 [1 favorite]

for that matter, what would likely happen to the rats once humans were gone?

Seems to me Alan Weisman’s The World Without Us argued that lacking human garbage to eat and with avian raptors moving into empty cities, rats’ reputations as ultimate survivors would get knocked down a peg or three.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 6:41 AM on November 4, 2021 [3 favorites]

The novel Earth Abides (in which most, but not all, humans die of a plague -- yes, it influenced Stephen King's The Stand) addressed this topic. Many of the same themes come up -- many pets die because humans aren't able to care for the / let them out of houses, but many cats and dogs go feral.

(Interestingly, it posits that sheep all but go extinct, because they're too stupid to care for themselves without human intervention, and the rat population initially explodes but dies back severely because of overpopulation.)
posted by Gelatin at 6:53 AM on November 4, 2021 [1 favorite]

My friend and I spent the night at Coney Island. As the sky lightened we decided to smoke a joint on the rocks by the water. When we finished the sun was coming up and we decided to head home. We were walking to the boardwalk when we saw the strangest thing.

A very large pack of dogs running down the beach toward us. We booked it to the boardwalk and the dogs ran by. Pretty much every breed you could imagine. We were shocked and amazed. Never saw anything like it again. Yes we were high. Yes it was real.
posted by Splunge at 6:56 AM on November 4, 2021 [4 favorites]

From the INDog Project:

…The dingo-pariah type village dogs of Asia and Africa have long been known to science, and to students of dog evolution and of landraces; though they are largely overlooked by general dog breed fans.

One of the functions of pariah dogs in many places (and also a factor in their being considered pariahs) is their willingness to eat human feces along with scraps of food in trash. In a place where people are pooping in the outdoors, having dogs around to clean up at least some of that waste is a plus.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:58 AM on November 4, 2021 [2 favorites]

The local miniature schnauzer would completely and totally fail in the wild. He doesn’t shed so his coat would get horribly matted. He also doesn’t have a proper double coat, so he would freeze to death in the winter. He doesn’t know what to do with non-kibble food, so that would be a problem as well. He is also small enough that a coyote or even a great horned owl would consider him a fine snack.
posted by rockindata at 7:00 AM on November 4, 2021 [1 favorite]

rockindata: "He is also small enough that a coyote or even a great horned owl would consider him a fine snack."

Technically speaking, this is not "failing in the wild," it's "taking your place in the food chain."
posted by chavenet at 7:16 AM on November 4, 2021 [7 favorites]

I'd like to recommend Fifteen Dogs by Andre Alexis.. the book doesn't speak to the question of dogs without humans, but this topic has attracted a predictable swell of interest from the dog people and this book might interest you. One of the more memorable reads in the past several years, for me.
posted by elkevelvet at 7:30 AM on November 4, 2021 [1 favorite]

Clifford Simak's novel City, quoted above by doctornemo, is extraordinary.
posted by neuron at 7:31 AM on November 4, 2021

They would survive and become the companion animals of whatever crows are going to evolve into.
posted by Ardnamurchan at 8:15 AM on November 4, 2021 [10 favorites]

We had a cat--a diminutive grey tiger-striped thing, who was gifted to my wife by her 6th-grade students in Houston after they found her in a literal gutter next to a road, abandoned by her mother.

Agree with this. My parents have a place where a ton of cats roam free, and they do just fine. Deer, cats, foxes and other animals co-exist there. Also 'thrive' is kind of a loaded term for domesticated animals - they would probably be covered in mites, fleas, and ticks in the wild and have to spend a portion of their day hunting instead of laying around.

Also dogs can scratch through wooden doors. I think most stuck pets would make it fine for a while and most wouldn't starve to death behind closed doors.
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:28 AM on November 4, 2021

^ that's interesting.. between winter and foxes where I live, feral and semi-feral cats don't do well at all. Even the barn cats can have a bit of a struggle during the hard winters, you see a lot of cats with stumpy ears (frozen off) and I lost a cat to the foxes, plus I've seen a fox race across the highway with a cat in its jaws, and stories from friends indicate predation is not uncommon at all.
posted by elkevelvet at 8:50 AM on November 4, 2021 [2 favorites]

I, for one, wish to welcome our good boy overlords.
posted by Halloween Jack

Eponysterical, if they call them the Diamond Dogs.
posted by Devoidoid at 9:28 AM on November 4, 2021 [1 favorite]

Mickey: Good dags. D'ya like dags?
Tommy: Dags?
Mickey: What?
Mrs. O'Neil: Yeah, dags.
Tommy: Oh, dogs. Sure, I like dags.
posted by kirkaracha at 9:28 AM on November 4, 2021

for that matter, what would likely happen to the rats once humans were gone?

That kinda happened during the covid lockdowns in big cities / tourist areas.

yeah and what happened is that they ranged far and wide in search of food, turning up in all manner of unexpected places--for example, the residential blocks that lie adjacent to the usual commercial stretches. Without restaurant bins full of trash, they went hunting through the alleys and garages and basements. It was a bit delightful to see all of the rich suburban transplants in my neighborhood posting panicky alerts on Nextdoor about seeing RATS! in a CITY! WELL I NEVER.

I don't know that anyone has done enough study yet on whether there was measurable population impact.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 9:37 AM on November 4, 2021 [1 favorite]

I am firmly of the belief that dogs are humanity's greatest, and probably most noble, development. Certainly our greatest and most successful long-term project: 15,000 years and counting.

Everything else, like "agriculture" and that whole "industrialization" mess... double-edged swords, at best. Might turn out to be regrettable moves in the end.

Cats? Probably domesticated themselves. Probably wouldn't even admit they're domesticated if asked.

Horses, cows, water buffalo, and other large herbivores? Obviously very practical as prime movers (and prime steaks). Same with most other true domesticated (v. tame) animals; they fit into a pretty obvious need (meat, milk, wool, power/transport, etc.) that justifies the investment into their domestication and maintenance as a distinct reproductive group.

And yes, while some dogs certainly do have jobs—they're rarely ideally suited. Generally they're just flexible enough to get hammered into the gap that needs filling. Very much like humans in that way.

For us to have dogs... someone—probably quite a few someones, over time—must have found a litter of wild canids, and despite them being a competitor (and probable predator, at least occasionally) species to humans, decided to raise them and began the slow process of domestication. I'm not aware of any other species that will do that. Most other top-of-the-food-chain species are pretty, uh, rough, when it comes to finding the vulnerable young of a competitor. That's the evolutionarily safe move.

But for some reason, humans didn't always slaughter them, in some cases must have taken care of them, and as a result of that impulse—that empathetic spark—we got dogs.

I believe it is the closest we have ever come to being actual gods, to the fundamental act of creation in one's own image, and on a very real level I suspect that to dogs, we probably are indistinguishable from gods. (I haven't seen the study done yet, but I'd feel pretty confident in predicting that if you could do one of those fMRI studies of a domesticated dog interacting with 'its' bonded human, and that of a religious person having a serious spiritual moment of connectedness, you'd probably see the same brain regions light up.)

In the domestication of dogs I see the very best impulses of our species made real. In their treatment, some of the worst.

It would be sad, but perhaps entirely understandable, if dogs were unable to exist apart from us.
posted by Kadin2048 at 10:21 AM on November 4, 2021 [6 favorites]

^ I am biased but lately I really do marvel at the relationship we have developed over time with these other animals. It is quite something. I started reading a book last night, the parallel lives of Crazy Horse and Custer, and the importance of dogs prior to the arrival of the horse in pre-contact N. America is something I'd never really considered up till now. I have some knowledge of the specialized training for different helper dogs, and when you think about the time we've spent co-habiting with dogs, and what we achieve together, Kadin2048 is nowhere near over-stating the case re: dogs.
posted by elkevelvet at 10:40 AM on November 4, 2021 [3 favorites]

I am firmly of the belief that dogs are humanity's greatest, and probably most noble, development. Certainly our greatest and most successful long-term project: 15,000 years and counting.

...

Cats? Probably domesticated themselves. Probably wouldn't even admit they're domesticated if asked.

Relevant SMBC.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 12:19 PM on November 4, 2021 [1 favorite]

Kadin2048: "In the domestication of dogs I see the very best impulses of our species made real. "

Maybe it was them what domesticated us?
posted by chavenet at 12:53 PM on November 4, 2021 [1 favorite]

We've got a new rescue, a three-pawed Puerto Rican sato -- a street dog -- that seems to have been somebody's housepet at some time during her life, despite being found in very rough shape on the street with a new litter. For one, she's lived a pretty long time for a street dog (vets think she's six years old or so), but more than that, she is extremely well house trained and has taken to sleeping belly-up all over the house. She loves to run free, but she is mostly happy to sleep around the house all day long. (She is a very, very good dog. In case you're wondering.)

It's not just about survival though, it's about thriving

Yep -- this dog was surviving, but didn't appear to be thriving.
posted by uncleozzy at 1:27 PM on November 4, 2021 [4 favorites]

I find the idea of fully vegetarian large dogs to be unlikely in the short run.


About thirty years ago, I went to the Cause Celebre, a too woke before its time coffee shop where the service was as rude as it could be -- yet they had the first Tipping is Not a City in China [!] sign I ever saw -- and heard one coworker say to another, I taught my cat to be a vegetarian!

I laughed out so loud and so long for reals and, man, if looks could kill, you all would never have had heard of me.
posted by y2karl at 1:52 PM on November 4, 2021 [2 favorites]

Yep -- this dog was surviving, but didn't appear to be thriving.
posted by uncleozzy

Our yohuahua (I don't like chorkie) was a flea hotel when he was rescued from the street. They were even in his eyes. (sorry) Gizmo is now a fiesty, happy old doggo. He is now thriving. :)
posted by Splunge at 4:21 PM on November 4, 2021 [2 favorites]

(not that you asked but my pup came home from the vet today and she's looking good)
posted by Countess Elena at 8:07 PM on November 4, 2021 [15 favorites]

If I become stupendously wealthy and in need of a "moon shot" hobby with which to impress the other billionaires at Davos, I would start a captive-breeding program selecting for intelligence in nonhuman, non-primate species, with the goal of working towards communicable sentience.

As far as I know, nobody has really tried this in any serious way. Which is a bit disappointing, given the sort of really lazy shit we've bred dogs to do for us.

And as moon shot projects go, I think it has a significantly higher chance of success than, say, Musk's Mars-colonization fantasy. I mean, we know the process is possible, because we exist. Over on the great timeline thread, we can see that there were a series of increasingly-intelligent hominids that predated sapiens sapiens. We know that, somewhere in there, consciousness evolved at least once. It stands to reason it could be made to happen again, under the right selection pressures. There's nothing about it that seems like it should be totally exclusive to primates.

I'd probably want to start with multiple candidate species (maybe include dolphins of some sort? how about a Procyon like the raccoon?), but dogs would certainly be on the short list. There would be some hard questions to answer along the way—how do we measure intelligence? is the definition of "sentience" dependent entirely on communications ability with us? can a species be sentient but noncommunicative, or nonlinguistic?—and I suspect there would be some blind alleys that we'd have to explore along the way. We'd pursue all the plausible ones in parallel though, of course.

But it seems like a tractable problem given enough time and resources. I feel like, given maybe a decade or two and couple gigabucks, you'd probably have something to show for it that would get you a Ted Talk.

If there are any reclusive billionaires out there, have your people drop me a MeMail or leave a burner phone under my pillow or whatever it is you guys do. I'd be happy to project manage this for you. Here's my elevator pitch: "Musk has fantasies of being Vasco da Gama in a spacesuit, and will almost certainly fail. For the same amount of money, I'll take an honest shot at making you an actual god." The dogs get a retirement village, though, that's non-negotiable.
posted by Kadin2048 at 10:36 PM on November 4, 2021 [1 favorite]

I am glad your dog is better, Countess Elena.

On another topic entirely, I recall reading an article about a man who went to Mexico and, while drinking a beer in a taverna, allowed a friendly street dog to jump up and lick his face. He contracted rabies from those licks and died soon after: too late for the rabies immune globalin shots to be of any utility -- once you are infected, you are SOL.
posted by y2karl at 11:04 PM on November 4, 2021

how about a Procyon like the raccoon?

How about a cephalopod or a corvid? I mean dogs are 100% clearly the best species ever but the rest of this discussion (cough cats cough;) is so furry centric it should be held at the convention center.
posted by Press Butt.on to Check at 7:06 AM on November 5, 2021 [2 favorites]

How about a cephalopod or a corvid?

Humm, cephalopods would be an interesting candidate. I mean, you could run your captive breeding program under the guise of a seafood farm, and the stupid ones end up as takoyaki. Might even pay for itself.

The corvids would have to self-fund through crime, though.
posted by Kadin2048 at 11:40 AM on November 5, 2021 [5 favorites]

Humm, cephalopods would be an interesting candidate.

Apart from the seven year lifespan. Hard to build a civilization when you die of old age in second grade.

The corvids would have to self-fund through crime, though.

My experience with crows is that they prefer theft to accepting handouts. It's a matter of honor for them.
posted by y2karl at 6:25 PM on November 5, 2021

Honor among murders
posted by Greg_Ace at 6:51 PM on November 5, 2021

The True Story of Dogs in Space, Elisabeth Geier, Rover.com:

…Long before Yuri Gagarin and Alan Shepard became the first and second men in space, respectively, dogs had orbited Earth as part of tests conducted by the Soviet space program.

Both the United States and the Soviet Union used animals to gather data about the effects of space travel on living beings before sending humans into orbit, with the U.S. using monkeys as test subjects in high-speed flights as early as 1947.

According to NASA historians, the Soviet Union chose to use dogs instead of monkeys because dogs were thought to be more trainable and more suited to the confinement of a spaceship. They were also far more readily available; the majority of Soviet space dogs were picked up as strays. Dogs are hardy, malleable, and trusting, and their bodily systems are not too different from humans’, so they made excellent candidates for space travel….

See also Soviet Space Dogs at the European Society of Dog and Animal Welfare (ESDAW), with many historical photographs including a doggo space suit.
posted by cenoxo at 5:39 AM on November 7, 2021 [1 favorite]