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[–]WolfMaster5000 0 points1 point


So I just remembered this video I watched on dogs and gestures a while ago. In a study they found that dogs usually did very well finding hidden treats by following the gestures made by humans. They even did well when the human motioned with a foot or their gaze instead of outright pointing. Then they found that chimps usually failed to follow the human gestures pointing to the food.

(I can't find the original video, I think it was part of a documentary about the domestication of the dog, but here's a news article about it)

They hypothesized that the dogs looked to the humans for informational clues, but the chimps completely ignored the human information and made their choices before the humans ever pointed.

I think this is important to think about when considering domestication. It is important that the animal wants to look to the human for information. It's the same with falconry, where the birds are never truly domesticated, but they still work with humans because it is easier that being on their own.

[–]joels1234[S] 0 points1 point


I think I saw that too. But if I remember, the dogs were following the subject's eyes right? But didn't they also show that eye contact with wolves/man was threatening/provocative but that eye contact was expressly bred INTO dogs to better work/live with us?

I may be confusing two NatGeo/Nova type specials but I'm sure I saw that.

This type of breeding changes, along with both bulldogs and chihuahua's both coming from wolf ancestors is why I'm asking this question. If we can manipulate wolves so very much from what they were, into the dogs we have today, I just can't believe we couldn't also have done so much more to domesticate apes/chimps.

If we can turn a wolf into a chihuahua that likes to make eye contact with humans - better breeds of chimps sure seems possible too.

EDIT: A word

[–]WolfMaster5000 0 points1 point


From the documentary I found the dogs followed both hands and eyes and the chimps just ignored everything. And yes, direct eye contact with a wolf is considered dominating/aggressive, however, I've worked with wolves and wolf hybrids and I've found that once they know you, you can actually use eye contact for a lot of communication, and it's more about the energy you're trying to convey.

I do think that we would see a very different relationship with other apes if we had worked with them for 10,000 years. However, using falconry as an example again, falconry has been practiced for about 4000 years and you'll still lose a bird if it's too fat and doesn't decide to come back. Birds of prey will probably never truly "domesticate". One issue with working with raptors is when they think they're a person or you're a bird and they display really weird behaviors. Maybe chimps are just too close to humans to ever be able to domesticate.