I have seen the South Park episode when the dog whisperer trains Cartman to be obedient… and succeeds. Does that count? ;)

Damn right on the dominance thing – don’t know if you’ve seen “The Dog Whisperer” or any show like it (including all the nanny shows come to think of it) but it basically always works in 2 steps – 1. Establish dominance 2. Communicate to dog what it is that you want of them.

If you’re the pack leader, they obey willingly, devotedly and without question (unless they smell something cool in the bushes, in which case you lose priority :wink:)

A dog that thinks it’s the boss… that only leads to bad places – with dogs that aren’t up to the task of being leader they get all stressed out trying to defend you from all those people you insist on letting into the house and end up biting someone because they’re panicking. Dogs that are up to the task can be over-protective, territorial, potentially aggressive (in their minds they’re defending the pack)

And of course there are the spoiled little rat-dogs who are totally un-disciplined, demand food whenever they want it, go wherever they want, demand your attention for no reason, probably haven’t gotten the toilet training down pat yet and are generally just a total pain.

Amend what I said – dogs that know their place in the pack (loyal follower) rock!

Wow – that site’s layout is so broken in Firefox that it’s not even funny.

Actually, it’s also broken in IE. The sidebar is repeated on left and right, and contains the same shit on both sides. WTF?

The parasites are kinda freaky. Luckily they don’t make weird fungi sprout out of our brains yet. :P

Yep the link doesn’t work, outta pay more attention. The Return of the Puppet Masters and Pandas are endangered sadly.

@Starhawk – yup, I unspammed it. :)

I guess panda pets are only cool in anime. :P Also, I’m not sure if they are not endangered which would rule out the pet thing anyway.

LOL on the NYT quote. Then again, a properly trained dog should know it’s place in the “pack”. A lot of people a spoil their pets rotten and some never even get that whole “shitting on the carpet” thing worked out. But in the end dogs are pack animals – if you establish dominance, they will follow. If you let them do whatever they want, they will assume they are the de-facto pack leader and act accordingly.

Cats are a bit different and I don’t get them. I have a wild cat living on my deck. I’ve been feeding it for over a year now. It has it’s own bowl by the deck door, and it comes into the house when I open the door. Still, he won’t let anyone get within arms reach to him, and if I close the door while he is inside he will stop whatever he’s doing and meow loudly until someone opens it at which point he bolts out. I keep telling him to fucking get domesticated so I can take him to the vet and get him vaccinated and etc but he is not very keen on that idea. That is pretty much the extent of my experience with cats though.

Btw, your cat link is broken.

Oh, and yes – adopting is also a good way of getting a dog that might already be housebroken, and trained. You just have to be careful because some of these dogs might have been abused, or conditioned in weird ways. For example, when he was young my dad owned a dog who apparently was trained by the previous owner to allow people to come into the house but not let them leave unless escorted by the owner – so he would actually attack guests who were leaving the house without a warning (and it was a German Sheppard so he actually could do serious bodily damage). It was a very odd quirk, and they never figured out how to undo that. I mean, stuff like that is rare, but it’s something to keep in mind.

@vacri – very true. Some people have no business owning a pet. For example, someone I knew ended up taking care of her daughters dog when she moved to a place where pets were not allowed. I never seen this, but allegedly she would keep her dog in the little carry-on cage all day, and let him out only to take him out into the yard and tie his leash to the deck post and leave him there for 20 minutes to “do his business”. Then it was back to the cage. If the dog would bark or make sounds during the day she would hit the cage with a stick.

That kind of thing just makes me sick. So you are right – the daughter bought a dog on a whim, then dropped it off at her mom’s house when she didn’t need it and the poor thing ended up in a fucking maximum security dog prison. Well, allegedly at least – I mean, I’m still not entirely sure if someone could be *that* cruel to a living thing.

Matt` is right Dogs rock and vacri makes a good point Pets are a long time commitment as well as a big cost over time. A freind of mine recently lost one of cats but it lived to 27 years old! Damn cat has a blog too but that is another story, I quess now it is a ghost blog and the last time I looked the cat only posted one entry after death. lol

And Luke btw I posted a comment here earlier today which I suppose because it was so long and contained a few links got snagged by your spam filter (hopefully). Tho I do have a local copy…longer comments I type in a text editor as this little box suxs ;)

And oh yeah one moret hing you mention in your blog buying a dog … plenty of dogs available for free or at the various pet prisons and death camps around the world. That is probably a better option than buying a pet at a pet store or elsewhere :)

The only thing with a real pet is that they’re long-term. A dog is 10-15 years, a cat is 10-20 years. That’s a lot of time, and as such, pets shouldn’t be obtained on a whim, but out of a real desire. If you want a cool toy to play with for a short time, buy a robotic dog or an electric racetrack set. If you want a pet, it’s a whole different world and requires at least a modicum of forethought.

Hmmm Wikipedia claims “The average Giant Panda eats as much as 20 to 30 pounds of bamboo shoots a day. ” Now I eat a little bit bamboo now and then but shit that’s a lot of bamboo. Of course everybody loves Pandas how could ya not love something so damn cute and seemingly harmless. lol

But I agree with ya Luke Robot pets is stupid and AI is unlikely to ever at least any time soon achieve any kind of real intelligence. Being raised on Sci Fi I of course would love to see Real “Strong AI” … you know like Data but as a programmer I would have No idea where to start. Philosophically speaking I doubt it is even possible, it may be and I would love for it be but I have a lot of doubts.

But I think all kids should be raised around pets preferably intelligent pets (goldfish doesn’t count lol) as well as raised around other non human animals and have the opportunity to play in natural environments. Such experiences serves to teach compassion responsibility empathy as well as opening peoples eyes to the fact that other animals do indeed have minds can think and feel emotions and so on. Both Dogs and Cats are good choices for pets because they are smart and adapt so well to our societies. Of course we have breed them to some extent to fit in, but I feel it is also true that they have likewise influenced our evolution.

See Explaining religion 4 – Wolves and gods for a rather thought provoking blog by a biologist on one way dogs have influenced us (I feel we have been influenced by dogs in many more ways but I’m just an idiot that thinks and reads too much). Cats on the other hand may have influenced us by infecting us with a cat loving parasite, seriously see The Return of the Puppet Masters.

One more thought

Dogs belong to that elite group of con artists at the very pinnacle of their profession, the ones who pick our pockets clean and leave us smiling about it. Dogs take from the rich, they take from the poor, and they keep it all. They lie on top of the air-conditioning vent in the summer, they curl up in front of the fireplace in winter, they commit outrages upon our property too varied and unspeakable to name. They decide when we may go to bed at night and when we must rise in the morning, where we may go on vacation and for how long, whom we may invite over to dinner, and how we should decorate our living rooms. They steal the very bread from our plates. (I am thinking here of a certain collie I used to have whose specialty actually was toast.) If we had a roommate who behaved like this, we’d be calling a lawyer, or the police.

From a New York Times book review

Actually, having a real life pet panda would be kinda awesome. ;)

Believe it or not, this crap isn’t limited to dogs. I saw a mechanical PANDA in Fry’s the other day. Not only that, but there was also the “baby” panda that you could buy “for” it.