Are pets nest parasites

I'm here to talk about a conspiracy pulled off by animals a few thousand years ago. But first to explain nest parasitism for those who don't know, it's when a bird lays it's eggs in another nest, and that bird raises them for it. So could some animals have learned to do this. Some people think baby animals trigger paternal instincts in humans and we form bonds with them. So did a group of wolves know this and leave their young with us, thinking a bond could be triggered, it would not be quite as strong as with our own children. But strong enough that we would raise their young fir them, and the dog was bred out of this process. Could the loving dogs and cats we have today just have been created by wolves and sand cats taking advantage of us, a litteral conspiracy pulled off by animals. I'm not counting exotic animals as they arnt domesticated and were taken by humans

When female dogs have puppies, what do they do with them?

reply to post by RestingInPieces


Usually raise them, but you consider that we give the dog and puppies,we kind of help

reply to post by connorromanow


You should look into the history of dogs and cats more. At first it was almost symbiotic with dogs helping to protect humans, hunt and later heard livestock. The typical house cat would have live on the outskirts of civilization, mousing in the fields etc and when people saw that began letting them into their homes. I've heard it argued that without dogs, we may not have gotten as far as we have.

No conspiracy and I would not call them a parasite as we are the ones actively seeking to have them in our homes.

reply to post by Domo1


The question is though is why do we want them, in ancient times it was actualy too much work to domesticate them, so what gave us the motivation. Do we want them because we evolved with them, from nest parasitism

reply to post by connorromanow


My point is that they evolved with us from a necessity ( killing field mice/rodents herding etc. ) and now we just enjoy there company. I don't think I would say they were ever a parasite. Parasite implies that they are an unwanted guest, and people can easily choose not to have a pet.

reply to post by Domo1


In this case I was using nest parasitism, which was more just saying that they got us to raise their young for them, they can still be wanted. And once again early humans may not have seen all the future uses of domestic dogs, so it would have taken stronger for us like a minor paternal bond to have been formed

I don't think we will ever be able to know that. My honest guess? Some hunter saw a pup brought it back to his cave and nursed it to adulthood. Then more people started doing it and eventually breeding them. I don't think that dogs really have an instinct to glom onto humans ( a pack I suppose ). There is a really interesting study done on Arctic Foxes. The vast majority are vicious towards humans from birth, but a small percent are not. After breeding the none vicious for a few generations ( I seem to recall 20-30 which is quite small ) the Foxes were completely domesticated. I

Originally posted by connorromanow
reply to post by Domo1

 

The question is though is why do we want them, in ancient times it was actualy too much work to domesticate them, so what gave us the motivation. Do we want them because we evolved with them, from nest parasitism

Why do we want them...the reasons are varied. But yes, Domesiticated Dogs and Cats did evolve with us. Think of it as a symbiotic relationship.

Having owned a wolf hybrid for many years(may he RIP), and now having German Shepherds. I would say that humans recruited them for protection. I would say that they provide me with a great deal of companionship, but would challenge you to harm my family. Your conspiracy really leaves a lot to be researched.

reply to post by BubbaJoe


Fair enough I'll do some more looking. Also it's not mine I read in a book awhile ago, I just decided to post it

Ask the baboons why they keep the dogs around




Here is a good documentary on how we domesticated dogs and their evolution with us:

www.megavideo.com...

No, they started out as tools.Just like horses. We would use dogs to pull sleds and what not.Over the years we just kind of decided to domesticate and keep the cuter animals as pets.

I don't think animals such as dogs and cats are smart enough to plot and plan and create a conspiracy in order to get them living in houses... If so, then why do tigers and wolves still live in the wild?

I've been telling my dog to get a job for years...he doesn't listen
Just lays around, sh*ts in my backyard and expects me to feed him and give him something to drink every day - never even gets it himself....and he's never said thank you - not even once

reply to post by connorromanow


this is.....this is just....uhm...great. The answr is no.

Originally posted by connorromanow
The question is though is why do we want them, in ancient times it was actualy too much work to domesticate them,

Look up the difference between:

Parasitism

and

Symbiosis

Some dogs were used to assist shepherds in keeping control of their flock. The dog helped man and man helped the dog, so it was a form of symbiosis.

Herding Dog

The more modern arrangement is less practical than a food source like sheep herding, and more emotional or psychological, but I'd argue that still has value to man so there is still a symbiotic rather than a parasitic relationship.

Some people do try to humanize their pets and treat them like children but unless they are raising those pets instead of their own children I wouldn't call it nest parasitism. It's more common that a family has both children AND pets, so in that case the pets aren't a substitute for your own children.

reply to post by connorromanow


rant follows based on my own opinion of a conspiracy to convince people of this conspiracy of this thread
people want to grow the definitions of negative terms in your vocabulary, doing so has a chance of increasing ones own negativity in life.

rant which is nothing but personal opinion good vs bad love hate and death blah blah blah, what lots of you would call substanceless and just skip over without even reading, heres a thing to try more then read it, try to feel it, rather then skipping over it completely like so many do.


do you have children? are they nest parasites? where you before moving out?

how do you know the original nest building bird wasnt more then happy to allow a second bird to have their old nest?

dont be so shallow as to attach a negative term like parasite to anything having a better chance at life thanks to someone or something elses work,

this world this universe, its life. its survival, or death, without life what is it all? nothing cause it would not have anyone there to try and define it.

so be happy to help life of any kind to survive as much longer as possible, that is the only way the universe will continue to be beautiful, is if it continues to have life in it that can find and observe that beauty

pets are just animals like humans are (yes a human is a type of animal, many forget this.) they experience love and gratitude also, and if they were alone in a home they would leave and move on, even if the food was supplied they'd still leave, its companionship they stick around for, not just a nest.

and companionship is the same reason a person has a pet and keeps them around,

in my opinion everything can be considered a form of love or death, (as polarized as that is also remember its all shades of grey)

pets and companionship are most definitely a form of love,

labeling things with negative terms to remind one to try to not love it, is the other, it is not out of love to grow your definition of negative labels.

THEY'RE NOT PARASITES!!!

and btw i dont even have any pets, used to like 3 years ago, but, whateve