• dylanmorgan@slrpnk.net
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    8 months ago

    Cats were domesticated much more recently than dogs. Dogs were domesticated 20k-40k years ago, cats at most 10k years ago.

    • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.mlOP
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      8 months ago

      Not just that, but the nature of domestication is different. Cats just started living close to humans because they could hunt rodents that ate grain, and weren’t domesticated in the same sense as dogs.

  • BoxedFenders [any, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    8 months ago

    What’s funny is that ferrets have been domesticated for thousands of years for a similar purpose as cats but they’re still viewed as wild or exotic by many. California and Hawaii still prohibit ownership of ferrets out of fear that they will harm native wildlife populations. Yet cats are completely legal and are much more capable hunters in every situation other than underground burrows. And anyone who has owned or interacted with a pet ferret knows how completely useless they would be surviving in the wild on their own. They have zero self preservation instinct.