Volenta wrote:
Good point your making. Although it can be made much more pleasing with laws and regulations, I kind of wonder how happy dogs really are.
I think, of all species, dogs are probably the best at socializing with humans. I wouldn't say cats can't be happy with a family, but they seem to be happiest spending much time away hunting- they are generally regarded as somewhat aloof. Dogs, being pack animals, are inclined to want to stay with their group- whether human or other dogs. I think they can be happy with a family.
However, being left alone is torture for a dog. They get incredibly bored and depressed when deprived of socialization- which is the other side of that coin.
Laws would have to classify leaving dogs at home alone all day as a form of animal cruelty to justify breeding them and maintaining their presence within human civilization.
Doggy daycare services would see a boom in business.
Volenta wrote:
There certainly is an essential difference between children and pets. Human children are grown up in a society of their own species, which is arranged for their own species. Pets have far less room to act naturally and do what they like to do.
I don't think that's necessarily true. Young children have some pretty serious limitations put upon them. Dogs also joined our ancestors from the wild a very long time ago. Being around us is a large part of what they like to do, and they have seemingly evolved hardware to read human emotions and socialize, stronger inhibitions, guilt, etc.
If you dropped a wolf into the same situation, that might be true to a larger extent. Aside from the fact that children grow up to benefit from their upbringing and dogs stay in that position, I don't know if there's a clear favorable position between the two.
Volenta wrote:
Children can play outside almost all day, dogs have a very narrow time outside in freedom and using a belt is required in most places.
In the context of American suburbs, young children and dogs both play in the same environment (and usually together); typically in the back yard, and around the house. Children are usually not let out on their own until much later.
We also have child leashes, although not laws enforcing their use:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/justinj13/35-ri ... ashes-7khw
Which, I think, demonstrates at least that we aren't being inconsistent by leashing dogs.
The bottom line is that dogs are not always responsible enough to not run into traffic chasing a plastic bag. Dogs also pose a little bit more danger to pedestrians, but most leash laws are to prevent runaways (which is an animal welfare problem), and traffic accidents.
Volenta wrote:
Children communicate their wishes and can do far more things in freedom then pets can (choosing when to eat, pee, have contact with other animals, ...).
Dogs communicate their wishes about as well as young children do.
They beg for treats like kids beg for candy, they ask to go out, or go on walks, they ask to play and express boredom.
Young children can't choose when to eat, pee, or play with friends. They can learn to throw tantrums in the same way some dogs do, and get what they want... but there's no difference there.
If you've raised children and dogs, there's a remarkable similarity until the kids are around five or so and start becoming more reasonable and responsible- at which point they start to diverge.
If being a child or a dog is a terrible thing, I guess the question remains whether growing up is worth childhood. And while most people remember their early childhood fondly, if this is some kind of memory bias, blocking out the torturous experience of the whole thing.
Volenta wrote:
And now I'm especially talking about dogs, of which circumstances are far better than that of birds, guinea pigs, turtles, reptiles and other animals put into cages with far too less space.
Of course.
Short of having a large atrium where they have plenty of room, it's probably a rather stressful experience. Less so, I imagine, for cold blooded animals (since they don't have a habit of roaming around as much), but probably very much so for birds.
The only way we might be able to know is to release an African Grey into the wild, and recover him/her after a time living with other parrots, and ask him/her which he/she would prefer.
Most birds would be hard pressed to understand and answer the question, but a Grey might,
It's hard to imagine he or she wouldn't choose to be free and among his or her own kind though, unless captivity had made him or her socially inept.
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