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Comment by lukan | Hacker News Reader

Compagnions and friends?

Maybe when we were nomads and the dogs roamed around freely around the tribe.

But most dogs today are locked in, most of the time and when they get outside, they are on a leash. Totally dependant on their human masters.

I don't think I would describe that relationship as a partnership.

Then there is the concept of breeding them, to establish certain "cute" traits, but cause great pain and misery to the animal:

https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualzucht (german)

I would argue, the native american tribes, who also did eat their dogs, treated them better overall, than humanity does today on average. So many dogs bred for running around, are lucky today, if they get to walk around outside for more than 20 minutes. This I would call betrayal.

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There are still many instances where this partnership is the case though. Search and rescue, avalanche rescue, herding, security and law enforcement, disability assistance, bomb/drug detection, hunting, etc. A lot of the companion dogs are useless for these roles, but many popular breeds could perform these tasks if given the training. On the west coast, people generally seem much more active with their dogs imo.

Yes I know, which is why I said "on average". Another big group of human-dog partnership, are with hippie/gypsy/punk people - but those dogs usually tend to be very annoying (and also dangerous) to everyone else.

> https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualzucht (german)

Here[0] is an English-language explanation of the term Qualzucht (with the English translation given as "torture breeding").

That German article also references a BBC documentary, which has its own English Wikipedia entry[1].

[0]https://www.petethevet.com/qualzucht-is-a-term-that-should-b...

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedigree_Dogs_Exposed

> I would argue, the native american tribes, who also did eat their dogs, treated them better overall, than humanity does today on average. So many dogs bred for running around, are lucky today, if they get to walk around outside for more than 20 minutes. This I would call betrayal.

Do you relatively equate this to how we treat other animals right now, killing the planet's livable ecosystems while exclusively creating living spaces and amenities for these domestic pets and treating the nature they come from as second class? Tens to hundreds of thousands of unique species and subspecies go extinct at previously unrecorded rates, but selective breeding of vanity traits in pet animals remains a common past time. There's clearly an attachment to these animals and breeds that keeps them in our conscious above others to consider it worthwhile to hold them in public reverence in a way that can still be described as companionship.

We've flipped the needle on adapting them for survival companionship to (essentially) slaved ownership with the aftereffects like you've mentioned, but I think zooming in on the scale of an individual societies' treatment won't generally be favorable. We barely even treat our own species with a level of achievable compassion for anyone deemed undesirable or are a lower class, the betrayal starts earlier than our treatment towards dogs.

"Do you relatively equate this to how we treat other animals right now"

I only talked about dogs and humans.

Yeah, it's a bit narrow minded to exclude the rest of the historical context while comparing two isolated points in time. Sure makes an entirely emotion-driven plea look initially more compelling and legitimate though! Good for you on sticking to your preferred form of discourse.

Are you .. serious?

Do you really think it makes sense to always talk about everything? The topic was about dogs and humans and this is what I was talking about. Nothing more, even though surely I could. Topics are connected and I do not neceasarily disagree to what you said, but sorry, this is indeed not my preferred form of discourse.

This doesn't really seem relevant to what I am saying. Or at least does no harm to my argument.

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