I've seen evidence that indicates (don't ask me to cite, I'm never going to remember where I got this) that people infer way too much about felines because of their forward predator eyes, and that they're little more than asocial hunt-and-kill mechanisms.
Nah. They jump up in your lap and purr. And they roll over when you get home so you scratch your belly.
There's no way to know for sure unless we telepathically get inside a cat's brain, but you can say the same thing about humans (maybe they're lying when they say they love you). Cats certainly seem to exhibit all the outward behavioral signs of love and affection. Unless they're assholes.
I've seen evidence that indicates (don't ask me to cite, I'm never going to remember where I got this) that people infer way too much about felines because of their forward predator eyes, and that they're little more than asocial hunt-and-kill mechanisms.
Nah. They jump up in your lap and purr. And they roll over when you get home so you scratch your belly.
There's no way to know for sure unless we telepathically get inside a cat's brain, but you can say the same thing about humans (maybe they're lying when they say they love you). Cats certainly seem to exhibit all the outward behavioral signs of love and affection. Unless they're assholes.
Yeah, this is pretty much what I'm saying.
Feral on
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
I've seen evidence that indicates (don't ask me to cite, I'm never going to remember where I got this) that people infer way too much about felines because of their forward predator eyes, and that they're little more than asocial hunt-and-kill mechanisms.
Yeah the next time my cat cries at me after I've been gone for the weekend, follows me around the house, and then cuddles in my lap purring, I'll be sure to remember that she's an asocial hunt-and-kill mechanism.
Edit:
Oh and did I mention that when I'm playing a video game and she wants attention, she taps me on the leg? No claws, just a gentle "tap tap tap." Then I pause the game, look down, and she's sitting there, staring at me intently, and as soon as I reach down she'll lay down to get petted.
Yeah, totally asocial.
My guess would be that it's been inconsistently bred for. I've known one social cat. Every other one I've ever met has been pretty similar to my beardie.
I know, the plural of anecdote is not "data" but out of all the cats I've known and interacted with, and as sensitive as I would like to think I am to common forms of cognitive bias, I find it almost impossible to believe that cats do not form social, familial, possibly even emotional bonds with their humans.
Fixed.
Yes, I did do that just to be a smart-ass.
Anyway, I'm pretty positive you can't judge intelligence variance among members of a species just by brain size unless the member with the smaller brain actually has fewer neurons. The size of the cells may scale with the size of the animal, and even if they don't even the relationship between number of neurons and intelligence is not very strong. It's really just all about what's connected to what.
I've seen evidence that indicates (don't ask me to cite, I'm never going to remember where I got this) that people infer way too much about felines because of their forward predator eyes, and that they're little more than asocial hunt-and-kill mechanisms.
Yeah the next time my cat cries at me after I've been gone for the weekend, follows me around the house, and then cuddles in my lap purring, I'll be sure to remember that she's an asocial hunt-and-kill mechanism.
Edit:
Oh and did I mention that when I'm playing a video game and she wants attention, she taps me on the leg? No claws, just a gentle "tap tap tap." Then I pause the game, look down, and she's sitting there, staring at me intently, and as soon as I reach down she'll lay down to get petted.
Yeah, totally asocial.
My guess would be that it's been inconsistently bred for. I've known one social cat. Every other one I've ever met has been pretty similar to my beardie.
It's possible. I have another hypothesis, and this is mostly speculative:
Most species of cat are solitary and asocial but not all. That implies that there is likely the capacity, even unused, for social familial behavior between cats. This would mean that cats have some capacity to distinguish family from rival, which probably involves developmental imprinting early in life and reciprocal social cues. We also know that cats were self-domesticating, which likely means that cats self-selected social behaviors - the ancestors of domestic cats were the ones who were more social and more tolerant of humans; the less social ones ran out into the desert to be feral.
So if a cat is going to show social behavior with humans during adulthood, it needs to be properly socialized during early life with friendly social cues from humans. Feeding, of course; but also talking (even if they don't understand the content of speech, acclimating to the tone and volume of friendly vocalizations probably helps them distinguish 'family'); and petting, which besides feeling good for both parties involves reciprocal scent-marking. (I'd bet sharing sleeping arrangements also has a similar effect - I would not bother owning a cat if I didn't let her sleep on my bed.) So humans can trigger - or fail to trigger - the social instincts of cats through early-life interactions.
Feral on
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
My guess would be that it's been inconsistently bred for. I've known one social cat. Every other one I've ever met has been pretty similar to my beardie.
I don't think it's just a fact of breeding. I mean, you can't breed brand new vocalizations into an animal. There is a reason that cats have extensive means of communicating with each other, and that's because they practice some level of social behavior. this is observable in stray cat populations (in places that actually have easily observable stray cat populations, like Greece).
They're not as tightly bonded together as dogs; they hunt and eat by themselves for the most part, etc, but they still socialize and show affection for one another. They're hardly as stolid as lizards.
On wiki there's a whole slew of supposedly documented cat behavior - for instance, if their tail is straight up with a kink on the end that means they're around someone they like, while if they show you their belly it means they trust you (since doing so puts them in an extremely vulnerable position).
People definitely project human emotions and motives onto their pets - dogs more so than cats, from what I've seen - but animals are a lot more intelligent than people give them credit for, and usually intelligence corellates to some kind of emotion.
All cats have distinct personalities, anyway. I've had several cats and every one of them acted very different - some are affectionate, some are aloof and cold. One of our cats would always crawl into bed with me on winter mornings, even though it was warmer in front of the fireplace. Cats can also be very possessive - once we brought a couple of new kittens home and our other cat ran off for a few days because it was so pissed, and when it did come back around it refused to let us touch her. It seems pretty clear to me that they've got some form of emotional capacity.
Meet cassowary. The baddest guy in all of birdendom. The greatest evidence of the fact that dinosaurs are related to birds. Honestly, there aren't that many evolutionary steps between this guy and a velociraptor.
Cassowaries have a reputation for being dangerous to people and domestic animals. The 2007 edition of the Guinness World Records lists the cassowary as the world's most dangerous bird. During World War II American and Australian troops stationed in New Guinea were warned to steer clear of them. Many internet entries about cassowaries state that they can disembowel a man or dog with one kick, with the long second toe claw cutting the gut open. In his book "Living Birds of the World" from 1958, Ornithologist Thomas E. Gilliard wrote.
"The inner or second of the three toes is fitted with a long, straight, murderous nail which can sever an arm or eviscerate an abdomen with ease. There are many records of natives being killed by this bird."
Cassowary attacks occur every year in Queensland, Australia. Of 221 attacks studied, 150 were against humans. 75% of these were from cassowaries that had been fed by people. 71% of the time the bird chased or charged the victim. 15% of the time they kicked. Of the attacks, 73% involved the birds expecting or snatching food, 5% involved defending natural food sources, 15% involved defending themselves from attack, 7% involved defending their chicks or eggs. Of all 150 attacks there was only one human death.
The one documented human death caused by a cassowary was that of Phillip Mclean, aged 16 years old, and it happened on 6 April 1926. He and his brother, aged 13, were attempting to beat the cassowary to death with clubs. They were accompanied by their dog. The bird kicked the younger boy, who fell and ran away. Then the older boy struck the bird. The bird charged and knocked the older boy to the ground. While on the ground, Phillip was kicked in the neck, opening a 1.25 centimeter wound. Phillip got up and ran but died shortly afterwards from the hemorrhaging blood vessel in his neck.
Don't fuck with cassowaries. I'm imagining that scene looked like the times in all the ninja movies where the ninja slices some guy with a sword and at first nothing happens, but when the guy moves, a huge spurt of blood gets out of his neck.
Just look at this motherfucker. Would you mess with it?
I've seen evidence that indicates (don't ask me to cite, I'm never going to remember where I got this) that people infer way too much about felines because of their forward predator eyes, and that they're little more than asocial hunt-and-kill mechanisms.
Yeah the next time my cat cries at me after I've been gone for the weekend, follows me around the house, and then cuddles in my lap purring, I'll be sure to remember that she's an asocial hunt-and-kill mechanism.
Edit:
Oh and did I mention that when I'm playing a video game and she wants attention, she taps me on the leg? No claws, just a gentle "tap tap tap." Then I pause the game, look down, and she's sitting there, staring at me intently, and as soon as I reach down she'll lay down to get petted.
Yeah, totally asocial.
My guess would be that it's been inconsistently bred for. I've known one social cat. Every other one I've ever met has been pretty similar to my beardie.
It's possible. I have another hypothesis, and this is mostly speculative:
Most species of cat are solitary and asocial but not all. That implies that there is likely the capacity, even unused, for social familial behavior between cats. This would mean that cats have some capacity to distinguish family from rival, which probably involves developmental imprinting early in life and reciprocal social cues. We also know that cats were self-domesticating, which likely means that cats self-selected social behaviors - the ancestors of domestic cats were the ones who were more social and more tolerant of humans; the less social ones ran out into the desert to be feral.
So if a cat is going to show social behavior with humans during adulthood, it needs to be properly socialized during early life with friendly social cues from humans. Feeding, of course; but also talking (even if they don't understand the content of speech, acclimating to the tone and volume of friendly vocalizations probably helps them distinguish 'family'); and petting, which besides feeling good for both parties involves reciprocal scent-marking. (I'd bet sharing sleeping arrangements also has a similar effect - I would not bother owning a cat if I didn't let her sleep on my bed.) So humans can trigger - or fail to trigger - the social instincts of cats through early-life interactions.
Mkay, I can see that.
At least their not horses. Fucking dullards of mammalian world.
Meet cassowary. The baddest guy in all of birdendom. The greatest evidence of the fact that dinosaurs are related to birds. Honestly, there aren't that many evolutionary steps between this guy and a velociraptor.
Sorry dude. All birds are fairly badass but this is a very competitive field. Consider the recently-extinct Haast's Eagle of New Zealand, which was so massive it could carry off moas:
Haast's Eagle preyed on large, flightless bird species, including the moa which was up to 15 times its weight.[2] It attacked at speeds up to 80 km/h (50 mph), often seizing its prey's pelvis with the talons of one foot and killing with a blow to the head or neck with the other. Its size and weight indicate a bodily striking force equivalent to a cinder block landing on the target from a height of 25 m. The eagle had power in its talons easily sufficient to snap a human's neck, or puncture the skull. Its large beak was used to rip into the internal organs and death was induced by blood loss. In the absence of other large predators or scavengers, a Haast's Eagle could have easily monopolised a single large kill over a number of days.
There's some pretty terrifying pictures in the link (too huge to post here). These eagles have only been extinct for about 600 years, so should you be in New Zealand, you might want to be on the lookout for a remnant lest you be consumed.
Meet cassowary. The baddest guy in all of birdendom. The greatest evidence of the fact that dinosaurs are related to birds. Honestly, there aren't that many evolutionary steps between this guy and a velociraptor.
Sorry dude. All birds are fairly badass but this is a very competitive field. Consider the recently-extinct Haast's Eagle of New Zealand, which was so massive it could carry off moas:
Haast's Eagle preyed on large, flightless bird species, including the moa which was up to 15 times its weight.[2] It attacked at speeds up to 80 km/h (50 mph), often seizing its prey's pelvis with the talons of one foot and killing with a blow to the head or neck with the other. Its size and weight indicate a bodily striking force equivalent to a cinder block landing on the target from a height of 25 m. The eagle had power in its talons easily sufficient to snap a human's neck, or puncture the skull. Its large beak was used to rip into the internal organs and death was induced by blood loss. In the absence of other large predators or scavengers, a Haast's Eagle could have easily monopolised a single large kill over a number of days.
There's some pretty terrifying pictures in the link (too huge to post here). These eagles have only been extinct for about 600 years, so should you be in New Zealand, you might want to be on the lookout for a remnant lest you be consumed.
Every time I go over there to visit family a little bit of me wants to just see a 12 foot ostrich walking around in the woods. Not so eager to get carried off by a Haast's eagle, though.
I read in the QI Book of Animals that cats have the biggest range of personalities seen in any non-human species, which might explain our differing anecdotes.
We have three cats. Nelson is a big floppy softie; he loves sitting on your lap, being brushed and nuzzling. Magnus Emerson O'Puss is more aloof; he'll take the stroking, but won't sit on your lap, and isn't above play-fighting. Lucifer is temperamental; sometimes she'll allow herself to be stroked, but other times she'll take your hand off if you aren't my sister or her boyfriend.
Animal intelegence is hard. One bearded collie I know has a vocabulary of 23 distinct "words" in common usage (why her owner keeps a tally I don't know) and can "go toilet" on command, but has yet to figure out why it's a bad idea to sniff the tree when my dog's leg is up and will keep running over to a dog that will snarl and lunge at her in the park, as if she's in denial that there's anything on god's green earth can not like her. She also taunts my dog by stealing his toys while she's at out house and chewing it right in front of him and he lays there and parks at her (it seems that parking is tiring work).
I do know that dogs can hold a grudge. My old dog ignored my mom (formerly his favorite person in the world) for six months after she disappeared for a couple weeks and came home with me (I weighed ten pounds). Then, one day when the whole family was admiring her while she lay in bed holding me, he launched up onto the bed, circled around excitedly, and started licking my mom's face. What's really odd about this whole thing is that he didn't seem to have anything against me beyond a desire to stay outside of my reach when I discovered his fur.
The cool dinosaurs didn't so much go extinct as they just evolved into something else (like the cassowary), much the same way you won't find this on a catwalk in Paris these days.
NSFW BOOBIES
Unless you mean gigantic cool dinosaurs like apatosaurus or t rex.
Meet cassowary. The baddest guy in all of birdendom. The greatest evidence of the fact that dinosaurs are related to birds. Honestly, there aren't that many evolutionary steps between this guy and a velociraptor.
Sorry dude. All birds are fairly badass but this is a very competitive field. Consider the recently-extinct Haast's Eagle of New Zealand, which was so massive it could carry off moas:
Haast's Eagle preyed on large, flightless bird species, including the moa which was up to 15 times its weight.[2] It attacked at speeds up to 80 km/h (50 mph), often seizing its prey's pelvis with the talons of one foot and killing with a blow to the head or neck with the other. Its size and weight indicate a bodily striking force equivalent to a cinder block landing on the target from a height of 25 m. The eagle had power in its talons easily sufficient to snap a human's neck, or puncture the skull. Its large beak was used to rip into the internal organs and death was induced by blood loss. In the absence of other large predators or scavengers, a Haast's Eagle could have easily monopolised a single large kill over a number of days.
There's some pretty terrifying pictures in the link (too huge to post here). These eagles have only been extinct for about 600 years, so should you be in New Zealand, you might want to be on the lookout for a remnant lest you be consumed.
Your cats hate you and only care that you feed them.
No, that's the cat at my parent's place. My cats have food and water at all times. I clean their litter at least once a day. I've bought several types of treats for them, but they have no interest in them. I'll hold out the treat and they'll just rub their faces on my hand.
They honest and truly love me.
They'll eat your corpse before you turn cold. And then poop out mind control drugs.
Oh and did I mention that when I'm playing a video game and she wants attention, she taps me on the leg? No claws, just a gentle "tap tap tap." Then I pause the game, look down, and she's sitting there, staring at me intently, and as soon as I reach down she'll lay down to get petted.
Yeah, totally asocial.
When I was growing up, our cat would sit beside you on the couch and then use the tip of her tail to tickle you behind your knee so you'd pet her. And, she would really try to win over cat haters. She'd jump into their laps and purr loudly until they were won over. She also ate chocolate donuts. And knew how to remove tin foil from pot roast, eat the roast, and then push the foil closed so she wouldn't get in trouble,
You never know with cats. Some of the cats I've been around are absolutely loving once I know them. Some are hateful little shits no matter how kind I am. A couple of friend of mine have four, and their cats range from being evil bastards that stand guard over one room in the house and never, ever leave it and never let people touch them (even their owners) and the most social who will come up to any creature (humans, dogs, frogs, lizards, squirrels, even up against the fish tank) and try to love on it. Dumb as a fuckin post, but still my favorite because he's so sweet.
I can win over the meanest junkyard dog, though. I'm far from an animal expert, but I help out in animal shelters as volunteer work (it's more rewarding to me than working in a soup kitchen), and I usually help with the dogs with socialization problems just because they seem to trust me. I don't know why. Some people just take to a certain kinda animal. I'm also good with cows. Horrible with horses.
Hey, would you say smaller brained Cats/Dogs (like, just the smaller varieties) are dumber? That's always interested me. I mean, both of the dogs I've had were pretty bright, but one was 150 pounds and one was 15 pounds. I know that sheer size of a brain doesn't generally mean much inter-species, but I figured that there might be some effect when it's a single species and the dimorphism is this huge.
Honestly, the smartest and "human-est" dog I've ever known was a pug and the smartest and "human-est" cat (one I mentioned above that I grew up with) was on the tiny side.
I can win over the meanest junkyard dog, though. I'm far from an animal expert, but I help out in animal shelters as volunteer work (it's more rewarding to me than working in a soup kitchen), and I usually help with the dogs with socialization problems just because they seem to trust me. I don't know why. Some people just take to a certain kinda animal. I'm also good with cows. Horrible with horses.
You're the anti-me, then. I'm great with cats and pretty good with horses. Not so great with dogs.
Feral on
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
Oh shit, how could I forget about one of my favorite sea animals - the massive, magnificent manta ray. The way it looks and glides across the oceans is just so alien. It doesn't even look like a fish. And it's HUGE.
Honestly though, people are always excited about finding intelligent life from other planets...fuck that, I'm just interested in seeing what kind of wierd animals have evolved in other planets.
I'm sure you've all heard the urban legends about immense catfish that dwell in a local reservoir, lake, or wherever, that are large enough to swallow people whole.
And, while they don't exist, there are some catfish that get pretty damn big - the Mekong Giant Catfish. Unfortunately, they're critically endangered.
I have an insane fear of the ocean, because of the fucked up shit that lives in it. I've always told my friends that the fish with the lightbulb on its head is going to kill me. They insist the fish can never come to the surface because of water pressure and stuff, and I always counter that I dont want to be THE GUY. You know - THE GUY who on CNN they go "Hey, scientists are BAFFLED as to how this fish got to the surface to EAT THIS GUY. We didn't think it could, but it did!"
But this fear has led to me being really into aquariums and having salt water tanks. I feel like if I befriend enough of the sea creatures they will let me live if I enter thier home to swim. Anyways - when I started my saltwater tank I was scared shitless to look at it at night because some fucked up stuff comes out. Rocks that you have held in your hands suddenly have worms with stingers coming out of them wriggling around. Anyways, a co-worker, who remembered me talking about how fucking SCARED I was of my tank when I first noticed the worms (that are a bitch if you keep corals, but fine otherwise. You can buy crabs that kill them, but they usually clean up food and stuff so having some is a good thing) sent me this today.
Posts
There's no way to know for sure unless we telepathically get inside a cat's brain, but you can say the same thing about humans (maybe they're lying when they say they love you). Cats certainly seem to exhibit all the outward behavioral signs of love and affection. Unless they're assholes.
Yeah, this is pretty much what I'm saying.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
My guess would be that it's been inconsistently bred for. I've known one social cat. Every other one I've ever met has been pretty similar to my beardie.
Fixed.
Anyway, I'm pretty positive you can't judge intelligence variance among members of a species just by brain size unless the member with the smaller brain actually has fewer neurons. The size of the cells may scale with the size of the animal, and even if they don't even the relationship between number of neurons and intelligence is not very strong. It's really just all about what's connected to what.
It's possible. I have another hypothesis, and this is mostly speculative:
Most species of cat are solitary and asocial but not all. That implies that there is likely the capacity, even unused, for social familial behavior between cats. This would mean that cats have some capacity to distinguish family from rival, which probably involves developmental imprinting early in life and reciprocal social cues. We also know that cats were self-domesticating, which likely means that cats self-selected social behaviors - the ancestors of domestic cats were the ones who were more social and more tolerant of humans; the less social ones ran out into the desert to be feral.
So if a cat is going to show social behavior with humans during adulthood, it needs to be properly socialized during early life with friendly social cues from humans. Feeding, of course; but also talking (even if they don't understand the content of speech, acclimating to the tone and volume of friendly vocalizations probably helps them distinguish 'family'); and petting, which besides feeling good for both parties involves reciprocal scent-marking. (I'd bet sharing sleeping arrangements also has a similar effect - I would not bother owning a cat if I didn't let her sleep on my bed.) So humans can trigger - or fail to trigger - the social instincts of cats through early-life interactions.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
I don't think it's just a fact of breeding. I mean, you can't breed brand new vocalizations into an animal. There is a reason that cats have extensive means of communicating with each other, and that's because they practice some level of social behavior. this is observable in stray cat populations (in places that actually have easily observable stray cat populations, like Greece).
They're not as tightly bonded together as dogs; they hunt and eat by themselves for the most part, etc, but they still socialize and show affection for one another. They're hardly as stolid as lizards.
People definitely project human emotions and motives onto their pets - dogs more so than cats, from what I've seen - but animals are a lot more intelligent than people give them credit for, and usually intelligence corellates to some kind of emotion.
All cats have distinct personalities, anyway. I've had several cats and every one of them acted very different - some are affectionate, some are aloof and cold. One of our cats would always crawl into bed with me on winter mornings, even though it was warmer in front of the fireplace. Cats can also be very possessive - once we brought a couple of new kittens home and our other cat ran off for a few days because it was so pissed, and when it did come back around it refused to let us touch her. It seems pretty clear to me that they've got some form of emotional capacity.
Cats really don't have as tight a family structure as dogs do.
Basically dogs see everything within a dominance/submission relationship. Cats are not as hierarchical.
Meet cassowary. The baddest guy in all of birdendom. The greatest evidence of the fact that dinosaurs are related to birds. Honestly, there aren't that many evolutionary steps between this guy and a velociraptor.
Don't fuck with cassowaries. I'm imagining that scene looked like the times in all the ninja movies where the ninja slices some guy with a sword and at first nothing happens, but when the guy moves, a huge spurt of blood gets out of his neck.
Just look at this motherfucker. Would you mess with it?
In Australia even birds kill people...
Mkay, I can see that.
At least their not horses. Fucking dullards of mammalian world.
Sorry dude. All birds are fairly badass but this is a very competitive field. Consider the recently-extinct Haast's Eagle of New Zealand, which was so massive it could carry off moas:
There's some pretty terrifying pictures in the link (too huge to post here). These eagles have only been extinct for about 600 years, so should you be in New Zealand, you might want to be on the lookout for a remnant lest you be consumed.
Love is actually a much more recent emotion than fear or rage, but, in general, you are correct.
EDIT:
Why do all the cool dinosaurs have to go extinct?
Every time I go over there to visit family a little bit of me wants to just see a 12 foot ostrich walking around in the woods. Not so eager to get carried off by a Haast's eagle, though.
We have three cats. Nelson is a big floppy softie; he loves sitting on your lap, being brushed and nuzzling. Magnus Emerson O'Puss is more aloof; he'll take the stroking, but won't sit on your lap, and isn't above play-fighting. Lucifer is temperamental; sometimes she'll allow herself to be stroked, but other times she'll take your hand off if you aren't my sister or her boyfriend.
because they were stupid
I do know that dogs can hold a grudge. My old dog ignored my mom (formerly his favorite person in the world) for six months after she disappeared for a couple weeks and came home with me (I weighed ten pounds). Then, one day when the whole family was admiring her while she lay in bed holding me, he launched up onto the bed, circled around excitedly, and started licking my mom's face. What's really odd about this whole thing is that he didn't seem to have anything against me beyond a desire to stay outside of my reach when I discovered his fur.
And not pluffy enough.
The cool dinosaurs didn't so much go extinct as they just evolved into something else (like the cassowary), much the same way you won't find this on a catwalk in Paris these days.
NSFW BOOBIES
Unless you mean gigantic cool dinosaurs like apatosaurus or t rex.
Man, that picture...everyone always thinks that the moas are running away from the eagle but they always miss that small detail in the background.
http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/4590/cassoeagle.png
When I was growing up, our cat would sit beside you on the couch and then use the tip of her tail to tickle you behind your knee so you'd pet her. And, she would really try to win over cat haters. She'd jump into their laps and purr loudly until they were won over. She also ate chocolate donuts. And knew how to remove tin foil from pot roast, eat the roast, and then push the foil closed so she wouldn't get in trouble,
You never know with cats. Some of the cats I've been around are absolutely loving once I know them. Some are hateful little shits no matter how kind I am. A couple of friend of mine have four, and their cats range from being evil bastards that stand guard over one room in the house and never, ever leave it and never let people touch them (even their owners) and the most social who will come up to any creature (humans, dogs, frogs, lizards, squirrels, even up against the fish tank) and try to love on it. Dumb as a fuckin post, but still my favorite because he's so sweet.
I can win over the meanest junkyard dog, though. I'm far from an animal expert, but I help out in animal shelters as volunteer work (it's more rewarding to me than working in a soup kitchen), and I usually help with the dogs with socialization problems just because they seem to trust me. I don't know why. Some people just take to a certain kinda animal. I'm also good with cows. Horrible with horses.
Honestly, the smartest and "human-est" dog I've ever known was a pug and the smartest and "human-est" cat (one I mentioned above that I grew up with) was on the tiny side.
What's a tenrec? Well, it's not quite a hedgehog, it's not quite a shrew, but maaaan!
...
So to answer your question I dunno.
You're the anti-me, then. I'm great with cats and pretty good with horses. Not so great with dogs.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Maybe it's angry because it doesn't have a scrotum.
Anyway, maned wolf:
Apparently this gorgeous animal stinks to high heaven.
Native to Thailand:
And here is the cutest of all bats, the fox bat.
There were two at our local animal center and I spent hours just cuddling them.
So...soft...D:
And, while they don't exist, there are some catfish that get pretty damn big - the Mekong Giant Catfish. Unfortunately, they're critically endangered.
Cutest thing ever.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7o3o5K14Zk
But this fear has led to me being really into aquariums and having salt water tanks. I feel like if I befriend enough of the sea creatures they will let me live if I enter thier home to swim. Anyways - when I started my saltwater tank I was scared shitless to look at it at night because some fucked up stuff comes out. Rocks that you have held in your hands suddenly have worms with stingers coming out of them wriggling around. Anyways, a co-worker, who remembered me talking about how fucking SCARED I was of my tank when I first noticed the worms (that are a bitch if you keep corals, but fine otherwise. You can buy crabs that kill them, but they usually clean up food and stuff so having some is a good thing) sent me this today.
TERRIFIED.
READ WHAT IT DID. THESE THINGS EXIST IN THE OCEAN.