Temple Grandin??  ::Doing a dance and spinning in circles all a twitter::
Do you know who she is?  She is a severely autistic author.  However,
she overcame autism and learned social strategies in life leading her
to success.  She went on to college, then I think she earned her Ph.D
in agricultural sciences.  She travels around the states to not just
lecture about her area of expertise (agriculture, etc.), but to talk
about overcoming autism.  Her parents helped her very much as a child,
but she had a very difficult time nevertheless.  If you can imagine,
she had great intelligence along with the autism.  Her mother described
her coming home from school as a child and absolutely going ballistic
destroying plants, tables, and tearing up the house from horrrible
frustration.  But she worked through it.  Her neatest contribution to
me, was that she invented a "squeeze machine" that was very calming to
herself and other autistics.  She later used this invention to calm down
cattle.  She felt sorry that cattle were slaughtered as they panicked and
had such hellish last minutes.  So she invented a very humane way to herd
them and to calm them so they weren't scared during their last minutes in
life.
 
I had no idea that she now writes books about genetics.  Boy it was so
interesting to read about how working dogs seem to have added health
benefits.  When I thought about it, I thought "of course."  How many
fancy companion breeds (of cat and dog) do we know to have extreme
health problems as opposed to working breeds?
 
I've thought about the tameness issue with ferrets quite often.  I've
battled with my own thoughts such as Marshall Farms ferrets seem to have
the best dispositions, but then I think about how robust some of the
other stock in the world seem to be.  I've often thought this, but I have
no idea if it has any basis.  Considering what you said, it looks like it
might?
 
Symmetry in animals has long been known to be connected to good health.
Discover magazine reported on a study a few years ago regarding symmetry
and humans.  Humans pick people with symmetrical faces over asymmetrical
faces.  They state them as being more "attractive".  This is an innate
behavior.  In the wild, animals pick their mates accordingly ... this is
part of natural selection.  And this is why so many wild animals have
more symmetrical features rather than domestic animals.  Cool stuff.
Yah, it would be neat if ferret breeding focused more on this.  And yes,
there are hodgepodge ways of measuring this in ferrets.  Good ferret
judges measure such things in ferret shows.  In fact, I understand that
it counts for a lot of points.
 
Wolfy
http://wolfysluv.jacksnet.com
[Posted in FML issue 4688]