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A collection of some classic Lemmy memes for your enjoyment
The biggest dog I've ever met was a great dane that weighed 80kg (~176lbs). I'm short, but his back was on my waist-height, and his head was a lot bigger than mine. He was completely black too, so quite the startling sight running towards you, genuinely looked like some sort of hell hound lmao. He was very friendly though, we met him at a dog park. The owner also told me they had to order custom harnesses for him, since nothing commercially made was big enough
Jurassic Bark
Why are my eyes leaking?
🎶If it takes forever I will wait for you
For a thousand summers I will wait for you🎵
You did it. You crazy son of a bitch, you did it.
This sounds like an attempt to recreate mollosoi dogs, just with extra steps.
I'm fairly confident that the examples given would result in a large (but not giant), smart, and people friendly dog that could still operate successfully without a handler. Not in the first generation, but eventually.
Tbh, don't even need wolves in the mix; they don't really bring much to the table, and you aren't going to maintain that look past three or four generations to begin with. Wolf-dogs that breed with each other don't hold on to a wolfish look for very many generations as it is, even when they're all mixed with the same dog breed. Hiding mixing in that many dog breeds, you're looking at what? 1/32 wolf by the time you have a breed that's no longer being crosses outside of established individuals from the project. Maybe it's 1/64th, I can't remember what it came out to when someone did the math on reddit about how many generations it would take to no longer be breeding half breeds at all, with a stable population for the project.
If you leave wolves out, you already have a more stable pool that you can select traits from for each succeeding generation. You just can't keep a wolf appearance without breeding wolves only, and even then you'd have to select each generation for that look to the exclusion of other traits.
Part of the reason dog breeds exist is those repeating chains of DNA that most (but not all, supposedly) canids have. Can't remember the right term for it, but the Russian foxes also rely on that quirk. When that's in play, you can breed for specific traits, but the more focused you get on one, or one small set, the more the others express themselves, hence the curly tails and floppy ears of the Russian "domesticated" foxes. You select for friendliness, you get "softer" looks. You select for looks, you get some combination of other traits (like the skittishness some smaller breeds are known for).
We already have a good idea of what traits breeding for size gets, and we have an idea of what breeding to visual standards gets when that standard is wolfish.
Edit: the Wiki summary for mollosoi dogs
So, the thing is, the genes for size don't add up or multiply, they overlap and the dominant ones win. If your goal is bigger then it's better to just pick the biggest ones from many litters and breed them, as is the origin of many of the large breeds listed.
Pictured here is Irish Wolfhound.
The first time I saw one of those was in person, and also the weirdest place. Was installing internet for a small business and they had a California king size bed in an office right behind the reception desk and this giant fucking dog was taking up the entire bed.
I hella want one so my huge ass could ride a dog like a horse. They are that big.
For anyone considering getting one: sadly the bigger the dog is, the shorter the lifespan usually. Irish wolfhounds are already old at around 6 years. Just be prepared
TBH I kind of like small dogs. If trained with proper strictness and authority they're just as likely to attack babies and small animals as a big dog but far less capable of doing harm. I wouldn't trust dogs with their own litters, I barely trust people to be rational so I would never expect a dog to just "be good."
I would never expect a dog to just "be good."
Nobody should. They need to be taught what is good and bad just like a person. If you want a pet that can basically care for itself, get a cat.
I dunno, she doesn't look that big.
While that is using a bit of forced perspective, they are big dogs.
I knew someone with one and it could lick the dirty plates in the sink without having to jump on, or even reach over, the counter.
I think he weighed just over 200 pounds.
Breed every type of dog in a huge bracket and end up with the ultimate mutt. It will probably live 20 years.
Mutts aren't guaranteed to live longer, it's all about which genes were dominant. Healthy Genetics aren't guaranteed to overwrite unhealthy ones and they're also not immune to being overwritten, and all of the dog breeds genetics would overlap such that the more recent breeds in the list would be very pronounced and the most distant would be barely noticeable if any traits remained.
Sir this is a memes Lemmy.
Lmao Wooosh
Definitely seen mutts reach that age. The key is to just have a small mutt that doesn't have any purebred ancestors for the last few generations at least.
I'd love a worg for a pet
But am I still allowed to pet?
If theres wolves in the mix, then no. They're emotionally different from dogs, though they can be very loving they can express their loving nature by biting and holding onto people, not allowing them to leave without them.
Long distance air pats it is!
Poor doggies would probably have hip dysplasia.
Sounds great. Just make sure it also gets the genes for strong hip ligaments. And the dopey friend genes that all labradors tend to have.
And then breed it to look like a polar bear sized grey wolf.
It's going to cost a fortune to feed that beast.
And he's going to hog the bed.
Probably also going to have serious heart problems.
Don't forget walks.
That dog doesn't "get taken" for a walk, it'll take you for a walk. Or a drag.
There is an experiment in Russia that has been breeding foxes for over 50 years now. The goal is to understand how domestication changes an the physiology of an animal. They breed the foxes that show the most tame and docile behaviors towards humans in an effort to recreate the process of changing wolves to dogs.
On the flip side, they also breed the foxes that are most aggressive and hostile towards people. One day they will get too powerful and get loose...
The coolest thing about that experiment is that just selecting for tame and docile foxes also caused them to develop floppy ears and curled tails.
What I have to wonder about that, is if those genes are actually connected to behavior, or if humans just perceive animals with floppy ears and curly tails as friendlier and accidentally select for that as well
From the show I saw, the early choice was between foxes that would immediately try to kill you versus foxes that would be willing to let you live. The floppy ears and curly tails happened very gradually in the process.
The "not selected" foxes were snarling and snapping and generally being nasty as hell.
There were other serious problems standing in the way of making them pets. Probably the worst is that they pee everywhere, and the pee is extremely foul smelling, so you can't keep them in the house, no matter how friendly they might be.
They also don't make cute or useful sound like a bark, or a purr, they make a really loud, very annoying wail, that gets on the nerves of even the most ardent fox lover.
Even after all these years of breeding, these serious issues remain, keeping them from becoming viable pets for the foreseeable future.
So, like short-hair Tibetan Mastiffs, or just straight up grizzlies, then? I mean, at some point on that arc, you leave "canine" behind and find out for yourself what that mage who invented owlbears must've felt — before being formally introduced to their own intestines.
We had a dog until recently (RIP my sweet girl) that was part Tennessee Tree walker who was also part Pyrenese (this was all confirmed by DNA test because no one could figure out what she was.) The result was that she was 2-3X as big as any other tree walker. Picture a beagle that stood waist high to an average man, Great Dane sized.
Now imagine if we did this with a Chihuahua,
Ah, so that's where chupacabras come from.
We need to revive other mega fauna first, otherwise they'll just eat us as the next best choice. Big predators require big prey.
"Otherwise"? By the proximity alone inherent in the implied domesticity, humans'd never be off-menu.
Baleen whales would like a word
Add a dash of beagle for pure mayhem.
good idea