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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   3043 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for May 17, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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What kinds of pets do you all have? And why are dogs the best?

I grew up with and like dogs but I think modern people have concerning relationships with them where they let them define their lives and sink way too much medical care into pets for their own good. Hence I've never really felt any need to own one as an adult

I'll go a step further and confess what I likely never will overtly say IRL: I don't like dogs. I don't hate dogs, I tolerate them to some extent, but I think they are smelly and gross, generally parasitical on the finances of most owners, annoying to be around due to barking/leaping at you/bothering guests, enormously disruptive for personal travel and to a lesser extent daily routine that I think I would resent, their QoL is often quite poor, and although somewhat useful for generalized companionship/mindless adoration and they empirically seem to fill child-sized emotional holes in people with decent efficiency, I don't really think the comparison is fundamentally sound.

I have yet to find the right balance of bringing this up when dating as sadly all too many women my age are dog-crazy and frankly it is actually a deal-breaker to me. Call me selfish but I don't want to be eternally second fiddle.

I have yet to find the right balance of bringing this up when dating as sadly all too many women my age are dog-crazy and frankly it is actually a deal-breaker to me. Call me selfish but I don't want to be eternally second fiddle.

It would be easier to tolerate if the dog was ever an acceptable breed or well-trained, but it's always a poorly-behaved kick dog.

I really like @bonsaii's comment below for a mixture of reasons.

  1. I (still) love dogs (see below)
  2. Bonsaii's factual observations are mostly right, although his normative judgments stemming from them are more extreme. He admits this, which is laudable.
  3. My love for dogs, although intact, has been systematically challenge over the past decade or so.

Story time...

Several years ago (COVID, lol) I fled from a leafy suburb that had lost its damn mind. Previously, it was purple in the neo-lib/neo-con sense; while people were accepting of the gays, abortion, and whatnot, they wanted low taxes and weren't quite alright with the heavy-handed presence of gov't. Of course, COVID removed all of that reticence. Paired with George Floyd's Amazing Awokening Medicine Show, 2020-21 had masked Karens roaming the streets with the other members of the religious police to ensure that all Red Hat wearers, be they MAGA voters or Catholic Cardinals, were appropriately verbally pummeled for their lack of conviction to the One True Faith.

Being fully and permanently remote work and financial quite mobile, I exited my lease and started a new one sight unseen in a small town in a deep red area of my state about 90 minutes away. The place I rented then was quite nice on its own. A solo developer had bought up a foreclosed house at a bargain price and so could put in real money for renovations and upgrades while keeping the rent roughly in an acceptable range for the area. To be sure, however, he was targeting re-locating out of towners like me and COVID turned into somewhat of a bonanza for him.

The neighborhood within which my new pad was located was .... "transitioning." Spoiler alert, it still hasn't finished.

More honestly and directly, the neighborhood was shitty although not exactly unsafe in terms of humans. It was mixed country black and redneck white with a literal dividing avenue. The residents were a mix of about three or four groups depending on how you count; elderly black and white folks who had been living in the town for 30+ years and never left. Some of them were now living in quite large and legitimately "historic" homes too big for their needs. Others had a rotating cast of grown children, grown grand-children, nieces, nehphews, and boyfriends and girlfriends rotating in and out. The second group was a corps of local rednecks who moved into the town from the county when the housing prices got attractive. This group was the most aesthetically blighted; yards (on less than 1 acre plots) full of BBQ grills, kids toys, kiddie pools and adult hottubs, abandoned outdoor projects, broken down motorcycles and cars. The final group was magical junkies. Roughly every fifth house was in a state of disrepair and inhabited by heavily tattooed and questionably skinny men and women below forty and of all races. Color my suspicious that they were related. My theory is that one "pilgrim" junkie would inherit a home from a relative, move into it after that relative died or was relocated to a senior living center, and then gradually invite their junkie friends to flop. These places had tin foil and garbage bags on the windows, broken roofs, security cameras (?!) and ..... dogs.

And so did the rednecks.

(A short but important tangent)

I grew up in a very safe suburb that had lots of dogs. But these were suburban dogs. Lots of golden retrievers and black labs. Every dog, even from the "mean" breeds (Dobermans, German Shepherds) had been picked up either from a breeder or that special kind of suburban shelter that only seems to have Sarah McLaughlin level pitiable dogs with the kindest of souls. No pitbulls. No problem dogs.

Therefore, my default approach to dogs has always been "Awesome! A Dog!"

In my new neighborhood, back in the turn of the decade, however, I quickly update my priors.

My nextdoor neighbor had a large Doberman he had named "Orion" because that's fucking cool, bro. The dog was constantly menacing anyone who got close to the yard. Which was everyone because, as I said, this was a clump of mostly .5 acre homes with small, fenced in yards. I never saw him leap over the fence, but I always assumed it was possible if he got riled up enough. The yard was full - full - of Orion's feces every day of the year. The owner simply didn't care to clean it up.

Down the street, at one of the junkie houses, was a pitbull mix of some sort. This was an evil dog. Though it was, thankfully, chained to a wall without exception, it still managed to kill several semi-stray cats in the neighborhood, another dog that had tempted fate by getting just a little too close, and mauled a pizza delivery man who got the address wrong and walked up to the front door without realizing the pitbull was under the porch.

Before any dog absolutists jump in with "those are both mean breads" the final example I'll use is one of a rather kind looking hound of some sort (he had the classic "baying" sound, which I still actually like). Although I never saw him actually harm another living thing, he was the worst harasser of the bunch. For some reason, he was permitted off leash constantly, albeit with a rather sadistic looking double shock collar on. He routinely pushed passers by into the street due to his aggressive stance and loud baying. It a lot of ways, he was scarier than the pitbull because of the incongruity of appearance to behavior. The pitbull was a very obvious murder machine. This hound looked like me might teach you life lessons, but then began schizophrenically wailing at you for no reason.

Challenges

The dog defenders out there will look at my little story and say "Well, obviously those owners are all incompetent. They are the problem, not the dogs!" And I do agree with this but only as far as it goes. I'm not holding dogs culpable in a legal or moral sense. I don't really think they have agency in the way we say humans have agency. I also know dog behavior can be shaped very well or very poorly early in the dogs life.

The problem is, past a certain point, I don't think the dogs can be "un-fucked-up." Sure, maybe with constant, daily interaction from hardcore dog re-trainers or something. But the overwhelming majority of fucked up dogs are simply timebombs. Eventually, they'll hurt someone or some other thing (cat, dog, squirrel, chicken etc.) And the correlation between people who have fucked up dogs and people who cannot be trusted to responsibility manage fucked up dogs is probably > 0.99. Thinking back to my own childhood in Suburbia, those families nearly universally prioritized safety and pleasantness and were highly conscientious of their neighbors. Therefore, any dog with even the hint of aggression wouldn't even be adopted, let alone tolerated.

But in the 'hood (such as it was) that pro-social consideration doesn't exist and so now you have these random violence machines in the hands of the careless, stupid, and self-absorbed.

Which has made me less sympathetic to dogs in general because I can't afford to be. I see them, sometimes, as uninsulated live wires. Yes, someone should be blamed for not doing their basic job with them long ago but, now, we have to turn off the power, remove the damaged section, and replace it with what is intrinsically far safer.

Implications

  1. I support breed specific bans, legislated at the local level. Pitbulls around small children is pants-on-head insane.
  2. I'd support a "shall issue" regime of dog ownership licensing. All you have to do is go down to your local municipal building and fill out a form that says "I want a dog." That's it and you get it, per dog, for life. It's free. This is enough friction that the truly incapable won't go to the trouble, will get illegal dogs, and then can be prosecuted for it. Furthermore, if an illegal dog hurts a person, the illegal "owner" is held liable for the same offense.
  3. Dogs without collars / ownership identification can be immediately held in a local shelter for X amount of days, then euthanized.
  4. Off-leash without fencing / outside of private property is the rough equivalent to a speeding ticket. Repeated offenses become more and more punitive
  5. No dog friendly businesses anymore. This is mostly a health and hygiene issue, but also saves the business from what could be catastrophic liability claims in edge cases.

Some of these come dangerously close to violating a lot of my small c-conservative "the government should not do stuff" principles. But the common good interest of public safety, imho, totally and obviously outweighs it. Bad Dogs are like grenades with pulled pins and delayed fuses rolling around the street. After a bad mauling or bite, saying "this was an unavoidable tragedy!" is an epistemically bankrupt thing to say.

On #2: I doubt illegal dog-owners will ever be prosecuted, unless it's in tandem with another offense. In my city, code enforcement is responsive - not proactive. I would expect minimal enforcement until a violent offense happens, and then two charges to be brought up instead of one. Which feels like a piling-on of trumped up charges to create Death By Multiple Cuts.

It doesn't seem like a good process, this. I don't work in the legal system, but I wish there were a better way of doing things.

I think it would have some effect if the consequences of owning an illegal dog were the same as owning an illegal firearm. I believe, in most jurisdictions, having an illegal firearm is either a felony or the "worst" misdemeanor. And yes, if piled on other charges, it gets serious in a hurry.

"Are you serious? Illegal dog the same as an illegal gun? Get out of town, man..." The haters will say.

But let me ask this; besides a gun, what "thing" can you own that can do the same level of damage / death that an off leash (large) dog could do? Perhaps a car (which we have lots of licensing and registration regimes around). Knives and power tools are a little more shaky, but not a totally bad argument. The key, however, becomes that dogs, unlikely any of the things just listed, have (literally) a mind of their own. If I lock my power tools inside my car and lock that in my garage and throw away the keys, the probability of maiming or killing others is effectively 0.

If I do that with my dog, ironically enough, that's called animal abuse.

Yeah. Tons of shitty owners out there. I grew up with dogs and I'm broadly pleasant with them but 95% of dog owners have an inherent 'my dog is wonderful' affectation where they don't consider optics, other peoples' feelings or that it's fundamentally an animal that can act more aggressively than you'd expect. I also did a stint in pizza delivery and the amount of people that just figured 'oh my medium-large dog is fine with me I should make zero precautions for the pizza guy' was one of my biggest issues with the role.

People have also gotten downright ridiculous with expecting to take dogs everywhere. I'm sure you like the thing but it's injecting potential volatility into everybody's lives and probably part of the forces keeping the fertility rate down.

I support breed specific bans, legislated at the local level. Pitbulls around small children is pants-on-head insane.

I think your proposals are reasonable except for this one. Pit bulls are fine in and of themselves. I've known more than one very chill, very friendly pit bull in my day who was that way because the owner cared and put in the work to teach the dog as a puppy. While it's certainly true that irresponsible dog owners disproportionately choose pit bulls, a bad owner can ruin any breed (as you yourself pointed out). The problem is not the breed, it is the owner, and I don't support outlawing something which responsible people handle perfectly fine just because a minority of people are irresponsible jerks.

A better proposal imo would be to strike this one altogether and let the revocation of someone's dog license do the work. If some underclass guy gets a pit because he wants to have a "tough" dog and he fucks it up, well, he won't have any dog any more. Sucks to suck.

'Pit bull' isn't a thing. Purebred American Pit Bull Terriers are mostly fine around humans, but there's plenty of mixes involving fighting breeds or whatever that are also called pit bulls. If you want a pit, get it from a reputable breeder. Most 'pit bulls' in America are mixes whose ancestry isn't well enough known to say if they tend towards aggressive or not.

Wife has a cat, we get along well. I do love a well-trained dog, but those are rare.

I have three cats. Being a cat lover is like becoming an Epicurean, or a eunuch; you don't go back.

I’ll always love the quote, “A dog is a creature that assumes if you bring it food, you are a God. A cat assumes if you bring it food, they are Gods.”

It's not about food though. I mean sure, dogs need to eat, but beyond basic needs the level of food motivation varies very widely among dogs. What is much more common is a need for connection and socialization. So in dogs you get someone who is always glad to socialize with you, and in cats you get somebody who occasionally tolerates you socializing with them. If they're in the mood.

Funny enough, my neighbors recently got a Cane Corso.

My brother, being a... bit of a worrying person, wanted to make sure said dog was friendly with us, so made it a point to introduce and be friendly with it on our weekly walks.

Said dog ended up liking us so much that we damn near kidnapped it at one point, much to it's owners worry and consternation.

They no longer bring it out during the hours we're typically on our walks, now.

This is not the only case of local dogs absolutely loving us when we're out and about, weirdly enough.

I have cats. One is a cuddle, the other a mouser; a good balance.

I want to get backyard chickens again, but do not feel up to building them an enclosure. When I had them before, they kept getting killed by dogs, and there are also mountain lions, so it might not work out. Too bad, since it solve the sad layers problem. They were very happy layers while alive. Or I could just commit to getting new not very secure hens every year? They start laying fairly quickly. I could eat them myself and also solve the sad meat chickens problem locally, but butchering is a lot of work.

Dogs are fine, but not worth the effort of boarding them when we're away. The cats just stay home for up to two weeks together, and seem OK with it

Islam is right about dogs.

Muslims hate dogs? Just another reason not to like them.

So are korean cookbooks.

💀. Ah shit, you just had to go there, didn’t you?

I have a female cat, and have so far been resistant to other pet project ideas. I do cooperate with the neighbors to make sure there's food out for the neighborhood strays, but that's mostly not on me, it's a village cats policy.

Your kids don't want puppies???

Of course they do. I'm simply not onboard with the idea(or my wife's many other pet ideas).

How come? What's the block for you? With dogs specifically.

Though I am curious about your wife's other ideas now, lol.

Dogs of the sort I would be ok with smell bad, and I don't want to add to my list of yard chores by cleaning up after them, and they're expensive to get one I'm ok with having. They are also loud, and unlike cats(which strictly speaking need water, food, and litterbox- and that can be delayed for a day or two) we would need to make arrangements for walking etc if we went out of town. It's possible that someone I know might rehome a dog because of moving and I would be ok with getting it, but I'm not trusting a shelterpet, not with a dog(that's where cats come from though), and I do not wish to spend hundreds of dollars on a purebred, nor am I thrilled about the puppy stage.

My wife grew up in a veritable zoo, and I am, needless to say, not as onboard with the wide variety of animals. She’s more or less ok with this, although I suspect when our kids get older she’ll push a bit harder to let them have bunnies and fish tanks and caged birds. Some of these sound like worse ideas than the other.

Curious effect of the way people have become more conscientious pet owners over the last few decades - fewer random puppies about. When I was a kid, the main way you got a dog was because a neighbor or friend of a friend had a dog that had puppies, and they put out a "free to a good home" call through the grapevine. More people now do the "responsible" thing and get their animals fixed, so your choices are either a paid breeder or rolling the dice on some irresponsible person's shelter dog instead of being blessed by middle class serendipity.

I have a very realistic looking houseplant. The fact that I haven't watered it since I moved in a year ago suggests that it's probably plastic. (Or that I've stumbled onto a hardy new species of Scottish cactus.)

Back home? A Labrador and a Golden. The former has two brain cells, both currently on lunch break. The latter is too smart for his own good. I adore them both, and I look forward to being settled enough to justify getting a dog here. I grew up with more dogs than I can count, which is unsurprising given that we also had more parrots than I could count, or that my grandfather once owned a tiger. (Yes, a tiger. A different time, a different country, very different ideas about what constitutes a reasonable household animal.) I think my kids should enjoy that same privilege, even if I've concluded that a single animal is perfectly adequate. This is probably the consequence of a serial injection of pragmatic genes into the family. The men in my ancestry tend toward pleasant eccentricity, the women toward laudable sanity. I'm not sure where I land.

My personal benchmark for canine intelligence is the ability to open doors. The Golden could do it from the moment he was tall enough to reach the handle on his hind legs. My Lab can't, and just stares at them mournfully until someone takes pity. An earlier German Shepherd managed it too, though less consistently than his mother. She was a rescue (so is the Golden), and she came into our house with a profound distrust of menfolk. It took over a year for her to accept that I wasn't going to hurt her, and then assent to scritches behind the ears. She'd graduated to begrudgingly accepting belly rubs a year or so before she passed. Her son, and every dog since, seems to gravitate toward me. Maybe it's because I'm unusually considerate of their needs, while my younger brother has been known to wield a chancla when they misbehave. My father is the living archetype of the "we are absolutely not getting more dogs" to "I cannot live without them" pipeline. My mother is usually the one who talks us into the original transgression.

Honestly, I'm glad that most of my dogs passed away suddenly, and painlessly. I support euthanasia in principle, but taking an animal I love to the vet with full knowledge that they aren't coming back with me would break parts of me I'd prefer to keep intact. Dogs live unfortunately short lives. Parrots live far too long.

Some say we don't deserve dogs. I find that farcical. They're one of humanity's greatest achievements: without anything resembling a modern understanding of genetics, we managed to turn a ravenous pack predator into a creature that will, more often than not, lay down its life for you. We made dogs. We deserve them. (If anything, the dogs got the better end of the bargain, though I doubt they'd phrase it that way.)

Cats? I don't mind them. I'm slightly fond of them. Some can be cute, and they seem to like me in particular because I don't go out of my way to fuss over them. I've irritated quite a few of my female cat-loving friends by being the lap of choice. While renting elsewhere, I once had a stake in a kitten who would always climb up into my bedsheets and snooze on my feet. I'd wake up every morning, and before I could panic-dress and run off to catch the bus, I had to make sure she was safely disentangled. I could have stepped on her without noticing, which is probably also why she enjoyed sleeping inside my shoes. I felt awful the one time I forgot to let her out of the bedroom, coming back from work to see her practically leap ten times her body length over my shoulder to escape. Oh well, at least she kept coming back. I wonder how she's doing these days. She was on the smaller side, and lived a semi-outdoor lifestyle in an area where cats go missing with distressing frequency. I hope she's fine, and that she has kittens who've found smaller shoes to fill.

Funny you mention door opening as an intelligence test. All of my family's dogs have been able to pull that off, thought they've all been of a very specific breed. I have fond memories of them doing their daily patrols to check and make sure everyone was present before wandering back out.

I agree we deserve dogs, and your intelligence test is great. Our dog is great at opening doors and it's a pain, but we love him.

I'm the same with cats, they're ok but nowhere near as lovable as dogs. Kind of like, less variance though since they tend to be less annoying.

I've been feeding a local stray cat for a number of years. She's very affectionate.

Dogs are subjectively the best because they are easier to read, and should have some loyalty to you as a member of their pack/family. Very untrained dogs suck, dogs that need stimulation and room should not be denied it, and I'd honestly make pet liability insurance mandatory until the pitbull population goes into the low thousands.

Aesthetically I prefer cats. Biologically I'm allergic to cats (and allegedly anti-allergic sphinx cats are ugly, the furriness is the whole point of a cat). Preferentially, I don't want to nurture and care for anyone who will never learn to remove their own shit or hold up their end of a conversation.

It's not the cat or even the dander you're allergic to. It's the protein Fel d 1 in the cat's saliva that is transferred to their fur/skin when they groom themselves. Some cat food companies claim to make a kibble that supposedly has anti Fel D 1 antibodies, creating hypoallergenic cats. I have no idea to what degree this works. This won't help with the shit removal or improve the conversation. (Though my black cat will talk to me if I cough.)

Thoughts on some recent pets:

Black cat. Black cats are surprisingly good at hiding in a home environment. He liked to curl up on a black towel / jacket / backpack and become invisible. Watching the humans look for him provided immense entertainment. I got him a black throw blanket and a window bird feeder and he'd spend all day staring at the birds who only saw two golden floating orbs. After pouncing at the window a few too many times he learned to squint at the birds to remain hidden.

Toy poodle. Adorable. High energy with extreme demands for attention. Likes cat wands more than cats do. Does not get along well with cats, who just want to sleep. Stubborn. Thinks the world will end if he's ever more than ten feet away from a human. Thinks he can win at tug if he just finds the right leverage despite being 11lbs. He likes sitting on the back of the couch and resting his head on my shoulder during Zoom calls.

Outdoor Maine Coon (cat). Friendly and adorable. Conned me into thinking he was a starving stray despite living in a large house. Could eat shocking amounts of tuna.

For some reason raccoons keep populating my YouTube feed. They are damn cute creatures, I must say; but I think I’d be hesitant ever getting one. Are they even domesticable? Or are they just friendly “until the time is right?”

Last pets I recently had were three cats. Two of them passed away a few years back and were up there in age, the last one is up there in age now and is being taken care of by a relative. One was a most neurotic calico that was insane and hilarious, but I loved her. I actually caught her playing with my gun once after I finished cleaning it and forgot to put it away. The other was a Norwegian forest cat that had a perfectly colored Adolf Hitler mustache (and actually burned his litter box down in our garage once). I love how arrogant cats can be.

They can be tamed but they aren’t domesticated. My dad had one or two growing up.

So a lot like those people that keep tigers in their house. I wouldn’t be afraid to keep a raccoon around but I’d be very hesitant leaving it alone in the house with the cat.

Are they even domesticable? Or are they just friendly

Kinda, my father raised a couple growing up in the backwoods, so I hear the stories. They are super friendly when young but become pretty mean and grouchy as adults. N of 3 so take it with some salt. But I agree they are super cute and adorable with their antics.

Well humans become mean and grouchy when they become adults; I don’t find that a formidable objection.

I too love how cats get indignant at any perceived slight.

Are they even domesticable?

No. Raccoons make worse pets than wolves, bobcats, foxes, raptors, etc. It's actually difficult to think of a carnivore which makes a worse pet without resorting to ones that produce man eating individuals regularly.

So then there really was cause for concern watching this?

Dog culture is just a unique form of brood parasitism. They are like any other superstimulus. What porn is for sex, what streamers are for friendship, what dramas are for romance, etc. That is what dogs are for raising children. They grab the relevant hardwired reward systems without any of the messy complications of dealing with actual people who can have their own lives and develop their own agency. Nothing more than a low-stakes, ersatz sense of fulfillment.

Objectively, I can't feel much more than disgust for dog culture when I see the shit and piss covering my city, the daily cacophony of barking, the glimmer of slobber residue lining products in grocery stores, the stories of bites and maulings. Dog ownership is easily one of the highest negative externality hobbies that society just accepts without question (see even this thread: "And why are dogs the best?" "Literally nobody can raise an ethical objection to giving dogs healthier, longer lives, right?"). I would put so much money on the table to live in a city that completely bans dogs and actually enforces it.

More importantly, dogs have evolved their behaviors and appearances to most effectively hijack our instincts. You look at a golden retriever and it looks like it's smiling. It hops around and wags its tail and it looks like it's happy. But is any of that actually a reflection of its internal mental state or are these just behaviors we subconsciously selected for because it's pleasant to us. Do they play with us because they enjoy it or because we programmed them to obsessively need it? Maybe it's both, but if they were actually miserable on the inside because we bred them to crave human attention the way an addict craves heroin there's no way for us to know.

To me it seems akin to a putting a smiling face on a robot or setting ChatGPT to max sycophancy. We are just more susceptible to projecting human assumptions onto dogs because on some level we know that we made robots and LLMs, but we rarely think about what we've done to dogs. They seem constantly anxious and bored, because we wanted them to always be willing and able to play whenever we feel like it. We've stripped away so much of their basic instincts they don't even realize it's not the best idea to eat their own shit or lap up their own vomit. In some cases we've actively bred for deformities because some find them "cute."

They are craven, pathetic creatures that only exist to feed into our narcissism. It would be hard to convince me that the world wouldn't be better if dogs never existed. For us, and maybe even for them.

Do they play with us because they enjoy it or because we programmed them to obsessively need it

Same question can be asked about humans. p-zombies and all that. Do other people really like you, or only pretend to like you to get on your good side (and eventually betray and hurt you, of course). It's a long stairway down to hell this way. I'd rather stay up here out of it, and pet the dog.

We've stripped away so much of their basic instincts they don't even realize it's not the best idea to eat their own shit

You need to do a bit of reading. Eating shit has very little to do with stupidity and lack of instincts and very much to do with nutrition. Of course, modern house dog rarely needs it as a proper owner already provides them necessary nutrients in much better form, but this is not depravity, and measuring different species by standards of modern Western hygiene is only a step away from "my dog/cat is a vegan" (those kinds of people need to be isolated on a barren island where there's nothing to eat but each other).

If you go for a ragebait, at least make it not an ignorant one maybe?

Dogs eating their own shit is not an evolved nutritional instinct, they aren't rabbits. Dogs will eat some quite nasty things because they think they taste good- used menstrual products, rotting meat, creepy crawlies, etc- but not poop. Poop eating is actually a den-cleaning behavior which can usually be prevented by providing a clean environment.

As I said, I personally never witnessed any dogs eating their own shit, so I can only go by literature, not empirical data. Your reason is mentioned among others, but I can not also exclude others. In any case, it's not an evidence of some kind of depravity of the dogkind (even if in the case of your explanation, it is an evidence for depravity of the owner).

I think the fact that you would consider P(other humans are p-zombies) even on the same order of magnitude as P(dogs are essentially p-zombies) is essentially the point I'm making.

Eating shit has very little to do with stupidity and lack of instincts and very much to do with nutrition.

I'm aware of animals that eat others' shit that has been through a different digestive tract and therefore has a different nutritional remnants, but please do enlighten me if the prevalence of eating one's own feces is more common than I thought.

Also, I see you left out the part about the vomit. Is there some nutritional value to that I'm also ignorant of?

Yes. First of all, a lot of what you call "vomit" isn't, it's regurgitation. That can happen when the dog expels food that hadn't reached the stomach yet. That can happen from time to time, though if it happens frequently there might be some problem with the plumbing somewhere on the way. But could be just biting more than they could chew, or stomach, quite literally. Obviously, there's no reason to waste good food just because it's slightly wet. Second, regurgitating is a frequent way for a parent to make food more easily palatable to children, and a dog may occasionally return to this childish behavior. Third, dogs have a chemical analyzer that most of us can't even dream of, and with that, if they see something that has viable nutrients mixed together with iffy substances, they could separate one from the other and eat the good parts without eating the bad ones. Just like eating carryon, for example. You probably would be revolted at the thought, but for many species - including dogs - it's a perfectly good meal, if you know what you're doing. There's also an instinctive behavior to clean up after themselves (to hide one's smell, for example, which both protects the dog and does not let the prey know the dog is near) and since the dog doesn't exactly have pockets... It could also be that a particular dog is unwell, of course, or is unable to realize eating something that smells good is not necessarily good for them - same as happens to many people too, just visit any local McDonalds store. Generally, if the dog vomits or regurgitates a lot, then that's the actual health problem. If it happens once in a while, usually not a big deal, and tells no more of their degeneracy than having an occasional quarter-pounder with cheese tells about human's.

Again, I must remind you that dogs are not humans, and what is disgusting and maybe harmful for you, is not necessarily so for a dog. If you started trying to lick your own butt as a means to maintain hygiene, your relatives probably would have you committed, but for a dog it is normal (and for many other animals too).

but please do enlighten me if the prevalence of eating one's own feces is more common than I thought.

Coprophagia happens a lot in herbivores, because plants are tough to digest (I think you can continue this line of thought). Eating their own feces in dogs is actually not that common, but happens from time to time - though other species' feces are usually more appealing to them, for reasons you pointed out (though for a well-fed domestic dog there's no serious nutritional reason, but again the dog might not know that). One of the reasons puppies might do it is microbiome transfer (the gut has a lot of beneficial microbes, and guess what's the most efficient way for a mother to transfer some to the child). On the other hand, the pups may not have good hygiene habits yet, and in the absence of Pampers... But this is not that common in adult dogs actually. Of all dogs I knew well (about a dozen), none had any interest to their own poop. Research I saw shows only about 1/4 of dogs engage in this behavior, and it could be caused by various causes - from bad nutrition to bad training to psychological problems (anxiety->drive to hide->drive to remove one's smell->you can guess). But this specific thing is not universal for dogs at all.

Appreciate the deep-dive, though it certainly hasn't done anything for my utter disgust at being licked by them.

tells no more of their degeneracy

In case it wasn't clear, I wasn't trying to assign any sort of moral degeneracy to the dogs themselves. Rather, I believe we've warped their neural circuitry in ways that are cruel and maladaptive, much like we've done to the limbs and airways of certain breeds.

With the licking, you do need to be careful, it is understandable. Since dogs pretty much have the only way of cleaning themselves, their mouth may not be always as clean as one would prefer, and also a lot of owners neglect dental hygiene because it's impossible to teach the dog to brush their own teeth and floss, and they often dislike those procedures quite intensely, so it could be an expensive visit to a veterinarian to get their mouth in order. And dogs are as poorly evolutionary adapted to modern refined-sugar high-carbs diets as humans are. So being licked by a random strange dog is not always a good experience.

This is a very impoverished way of seeing the world. You could use the same reductionist logic to say that love is nothing but chemicals firing in the brain, or that morality is nothing but dressing on cold, utilitarian game theoretical outcomes to push cooperation.

It's one way of looking at life, that has perhaps some truth to it, but is ultimately deeply flawed.

This is a very impoverished way of seeing the world. You could use the same reductionist logic to say that love is nothing but chemicals firing in the brain, or that morality is nothing but dressing on cold, utilitarian game theoretical outcomes to push cooperation.

This is orthogonal to my point. I'm basically talking about p-zombies. My disagreement is not about the value of love, morality, loyalty, etc. I just take issue with dog owners who insist that these are qualities that one can find in dogs. I consider humans to have all been produced in a similar enough mold to go about my life assuming that they aren't all p-zombies. Dogs come from a very different path. One that I interpret as producing something closer to a p-zombie. I believe Jane Doe when she says she loves to ski. I have doubts Fido loves playing fetch any more than Claude loves to code.

If you were to suddenly go comatose with only your dog around, how long do you think before it starts eating your face and gnawing on your ribs? Is that what you call love and loyalty?

If you were to suddenly go comatose with only your dog around, how long do you think before it starts eating your face and gnawing on your ribs?

Various very unfortunate experiments show to us humans frequently resort to cannibalism once starved enough. Including consuming their own offspring, for example. As I said, if you step on this stairway and walk on it consistently, with open eyes and cold logic, it won't lead you to a happy place.

For a bonded dog? Your corpse would stink and the city would show up before it started to eat you. They’ll eat feces first.

Seconded. If you break everything down to its molecular structure, then yeah life is pretty goddamned stupid and no one should try for anything. "The only philosophical question is suicide" and all that.

Sometimes you just have to let fun, stupid things be fun and stupid. I do this all the time with sports, Christmas, raising kids, etc.

This is the most Motte post I've read all week. It's also the first thread I've read so there's that.

I grew up with dogs, but mostly very well-trained dogs. I get your intolerance for dogs, or at least I get your intolerance for dogs that run amok. Dog people (a term I use loosely) often think if they have you over you'll be fine with the dog nuzzling up against you as you're trying to eat the bean burrito. Isn't Buster cute? Look he's hungry. There is also an unquestionable smell of dog in most every indoor dog house. Not necessarily feces, but definitely dog.

I do like dogs and I get that, too. Except most of the dogs in Japan, which I consider odd mutations of what may have once been noble strong breeds but are now tiny, yappy, dew-eyed over-coiffed and overdressed trip hazards. As in you'll trip over them.

We have cats now. Entire different animal type requiring an entirely different mindset. I won't belabor the obvious that everyone already knows when I write that.

I do get your impatience for dogs, though. Though yours is more a hatred and disgust. My own impatience is mostly for the owners. One of the many reasons I quit reddit was the fawning subculture of cat people who would post what they imagined were adorable videos of their cats innocently destroying some expensive tchothcke, or grabbing their McDonald's nugget or whatever embarrassing fast food they were eating, usually in bed. I would typically bite my tongue/typing fingers regarding their questionable hygiene, and instead post a benign "Train your animal, please" and be downvoted to kitty hell. Ok maybe once I said "WTF Train your fucking cat."

I feel as if you were in the wilderness or countryside and had a loyal dog you might change your mind. I could be wrong, though.

Except most of the dogs in Japan

I wonder if dog culture in Japan is more considerate of non-dog lovers than in the US, or if lack of consideration and assumption that dogs are some unalloyed good is just a feature of dog owners that transcends local culture.

I do get your impatience for dogs, though. Though yours is more a hatred and disgust. My own impatience is mostly for the owners.

I would say my hatred and disgust is mostly for the owners as well. My feeling towards the dogs themselves I would liken mostly to how you might feel about a dog-sized cockroach or tarantula that people could not stop shoving into your face so it can rub its secretions on you. For whatever reason (probably a heavier than usual dose of autism, even for a place like this), I'm largely immune to the wiles of most dogs and find them rather ugly (the ones that basically look like wolves can be cute, but the more obviously their appearance has been selectively bred by humans the more off-putting I find them).

I feel as if you were in the wilderness or countryside and had a loyal dog you might change your mind. I could be wrong, though.

I have a hard time ascribing "loyalty" to a dog. Their behaviors are compulsions that humans chose for them, some because they give the appearance of loyalty and that makes humans feel good. I could see how a dog might be useful in a wilderness scenario, but my feelings toward it would be no different from those for ChatGPT sycophantically praising me when I ask it for code. They do what we programmed them to do and don't have the agency to do otherwise.

ChatGPT sycophantically praising me when I ask it for code.

That's the best part of my workday right there. Some hours I use more tokens self-glazing than solving the problem.

By "programmed", do you mean conditioned via training or something like selected through breeding?

Both, but with more emphasis on the latter. Owners tend to anthropomorphize dog psychology in a way that I think is in contradiction to their unique evolutionary history. A human was more likely to keep and breed a dog that not only followed commands but exhibited behaviors we instinctively pattern-match to things like happiness and loyalty while doing so. Over generations, these became as hard-coded as the instinct to eat. Modern owners don't consider this and assume that these are genuine displays of affection (I can't definitively say that isn't the case, but I don't think it's the most likely one). From the outside looking in, it feels like watching a bunch of people who are convinced that an LLM really is their best friend - some sort of twisted mass psychosis.

Are you saying you don't nuzzle up to your ChatGPT?

Regarding tarantulas and cockroaches, kill them with fire. We used to have quite large (big-ass) cockroaches in Alabama, and once I felt the hair on my neck stand up when I saw one launch itself from a high wall and flutter its infernal wings as it glided to the floor. As for spiders I am a lifelong arachnophobe. The camel spiders of the Kalahari (yes yes not arachnids) compounded that trauma tenfold.

That is what dogs are for raising children.

My malamute used to earn her keep by killing rattlesnakes in the wood pile. I'm pretty sure I'd get a visit from the county if I made my kids do that.

Shades of this classic essay: https://mattlakeman.org/2020/03/21/against-dog-ownership/

I think dogs if you have a sizable piece of land (or even big yard) are totally fine. Or if you already have kids. I absolutely have some internal judgement towards any couple I see that has a dog and no kids (probably should go to confession)

I'm certainly not the first or only one to come to these conclusions. I genuinely believe dogs have some sort of mind virus effect. They've found an exploit in our circuitry that blinds many to the obvious. People are defensive of their dogs right to slobber on you with a ferocity I haven't even seen for children.

I absolutely have some internal judgement towards any couple I see that has a dog and no kids

I do wonder if pet culture has an appreciable suppressive effect on fertility rates the way that porn addiction can cause withdrawal from attempting real-world relationships.

There's some evidence that pet ownership makes childbearing more likely.

Anecdotally, I've observed similar among friends in the US, but I think for them it had more to do with a confounding desire to nurture that made them more likely both to want pets and to want children. Pets being relatively low-stakes makes it more sensible to try them first before children.

Also once you're used to taking care of a dog every day, a child seems more manageable. You've already adopted a lifestyle that involves being home on a regular schedule.

Caesar [Augustus] once, seeing some wealthy strangers at Rome, carrying up and down with them in their arms and bosoms young puppy-dogs and monkeys, embracing and making much of them, took occasion not unnaturally to ask whether the women in their country were not used to bear children; by that prince-like reprimand gravely reflecting upon persons who spend and lavish upon brute beasts that affection and kindness which nature has implanted in us to be bestowed on those of our own kind.

With like reason may we blame those who misuse that love of inquiry and observation which nature has implanted in our souls, by expending it on objects unworthy of the attention either of their eyes or their ears, while they disregard such as are excellent in themselves, and would do them good.

Plutarch: Pericles

I don't love the implication that you need pets to have a fulfilling life. Other choices are valid too and right for other people. My wife and I have a baby who is more than enough for us. We don't need pets.

Not all choices are equally valid and right. That's some woke bs. Dogs are superior and you and your wife would be better off with dogs. You're leaving happiness on the table, as @faceh says.

In Botswana there were many stray dogs. Probably some mix of Rhodesian Ridgebacks and whatever other feral dogs roamed the Kalahari. They were docile enough when alone and well fed, but wild enough that I wouldn't want to encounter a pack of them in the bush. There was an Afrikaner phrase which basically meant Get out of here which was, if I recall correctly, Vootsak! This--or ar least this was how it was explained to me--was a reduction of the sentence Voort se ek which meant "Forward, I say."

If you shouted "Vootsak" at a dog it seemed to get your meaning, and would fuck itself off. A hand gesture as if flinging seed like someone in a Van Gogh painting helped the message, if you were willing.

I only learned this term because Vootsak, if said to a human, was considered very much fighting words. Unless the human also fucked off, in which case job done, if rather rudely.

I'm just joking if it wasn't clear.

I have a black male rescue cat that I've taught a handful of tricks to (sit, shake, look, spin, lay down, up, down, shoulders, boop). They recently discontinued his kibble brand, so I've been trying to find him something else he likes before I run out of the stockpile of the good stuff.

I have mixed feelings on dogs. They are pretty great to own/be close to, especially if you have a bit of land that they can be on. Unfortunately a lot of people don't train their dogs (doesn't need to be formal, just basic etiquette is sufficient). They destroy property, they are capable of violence and often threaten it, they are loud enough to disturb neighbors, and they do all this with strong social cover that it isn't the owner's fault/responsibility. I think if your dog threatens someone, you should be held responsible as if you had done so. Good dogs are great though.

I much prefer cats; they are fluffier and don't slobber on you.

My cat Boots used to crouch and sit down like a donut directly on my head when I would go to sleep, so it looked like I was wearing a turban. Whenever I woke up I would try and get him off with my hand and he would very aggressively swat or bite at my fingers, and he would dig his paws into my head to avoid moving. Feeding him first thing in the morning was the only way I got him off.

You got lucky. My one cat drools like a Saint Bernard when she's happy.

Oh, I don't have a cat; I was just referring to my experience with others' pets.

Dogs are the best because thousands upon thousands of years of co-evolution has made humans and dogs biologically optimized for companionship with each other and mutually beneficial cooperation.

I like to say that if you don't have a dog in your life (not necessarily owning one, mind) you're leaving 'money on the table' in terms of personal happiness, you can improve your own mood for basically free just by petting one.

I have a medium-small mixed terrier rescue. With a diagnosed anxiety disorder. He's gotten a lot better since I got him. Already dreading the eventual day he'll leave me, but haven't regretted a minute of having him around. Okay, maybe a few hours here and there.

Anyway, here's hoping they solve dog longevity in the next 5 years. They deserve it more than us. Literally nobody can raise an ethical objection to giving dogs healthier, longer lives, right?

Currently, we have two male cats, both around six years of age.

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