I agree completely about the intelligence of the dog being underplayed in the story. I think it goes back to our last class discussion about what environment and personal strengths have in relation to success. We mentioned the quote Everybody is a genius. But, if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it’ll spend its whole life believing that it is stupid.” – Albert Einstein to This relates to the dog/wolf intelligence comparison and how it is the environment that determines who is more or less intelligent. Like you said the wolf wins in the wild but the dog wins in the domesticated world.

I do believe there is a fine line between the hybrid serving as a pet and being dangerous to others. The novel constantly mentioned others having a harsh reaction to the breed and the laws being very strict about putting the animals down if they were to hurt another human. The author portrays these are overly strict and irrational but at the same time is this another instance of humans trying to make an animal that is wild domesticated which will lead to preventable consequences?

The two things you hit on, giving birth at night and the fight or flight response were two of the more interesting ideas expressed in the reading to me. I think that the general instinct of some animals to protect their young is amazing, this including the notion to create the safest environment to give birth in which seems like something uncontrollable. The fight or flight response is interesting when applied to humans because I don’t feel particularly successful at either when faced against a predator. I already know that in any sort of dangerous situation I would choose flight simply because I have no ability to defend myself but this is a choice for others. Do animals already have a predisposed notion to fight or flight? Or, are some able to calculate the potential threat and decide between the two?

I agree with you that Bulliet has just now gotten into the process of domestication compared to the information he had in the introduction. I believe he included that bold intro as a means to capture the audience but it almost had the opposite reaction on me by making me question the relevance of his subject matter and actual level of expertise on the matter.

What stuck out to me most in the Ingold and Bulliet excerpts was the relationships premised around the emotions of fear/being tame and trust. In the Ingold article he talks about how hunters and gatherers share a mutual trust because they depend on one another. This type of relationship can lead to companionship. Bulliet and Clutton -Brock address the ability to domesticate an animal to a variety of factors but one in particular being the absence of fear. When an animal is accustomed to human interaction it is domesticated. This relates to the leash/non least concept because Ingold could see the lack of a leash as a companionship type relationship in which both parties trust one another eliminating the need for the leash altogether. Bulliet could see the use of the leash as fear existing between the parties or not completely taming the animal.

I agree that a lot of it was spewing every theory ever written at us and hoping we were able to digest it. I think he certainly dived into some interesting topics that I have never been exposed to before which in that respect made me want to keep reading. All in all I thought it covered different transitions in history well too in terms of a timeline but I think some of the bigger trends, again relating to the discussion of dogs, left out which is off putting.

I have never thought about mans ability to control the weather. While natural disasters cause destruction, displacement, and undue tragedy for humans it scares me to think that we could eventually control mother nature. I think sometimes with new developments and the interaction between nature and mankind we overlook the possible consequences.