>From:    Edward Lipinski Ferrets NorthWest FNW <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Domestication and Training Differences Defined?
>What is the difference between the training and domestication of an
>organism, plant as well as animal?
 
I'll leave out the plant bit as its way too far afield.
 
So what you seem to want the difference between training and domestication.
Well... Training applies to specific things taught to a single ferret or
other animal.  Domestication applies to a whole species.  Merely by being a
ferret, your little critter is domesticated.  There is no question.  A Blue
whale is by being a blue whale not domesiticated.  This doesn't change in
the lifetime of the animal with the exception of some animals being able
to revert to a feral condition.  But I would think that it is still a
domesticated animal that has picked up a learned set of traits that allow
it to live as if it was a wild animal.  Domestication and training really
have nothing to do with each other.
 
But at birth no critter is trained.  By definition.  If your ferret knows a
particular "skill" at birth its innane and not trained.  THat innate skill
can be further refined though.  But if it doesn't know something at birth
its got to be trained.
 
So since you mentioned wolf and dog rather than polecat and ferret - A
wolf is a wolf and as such is not a domesticated animal - ever.  It can be
trained.
 
There is a somewhat arbitrary definition to define which generation removed
from wild you change from a captive bred to a domestic animal.  I'll leave
that to Bob C.  or one of our other more knowledgable in those precise
definitions.
 
Now the one key point you have not yet understood...
 
>And further, the domestic cat, which is assumed to have evolved under
>pressures of man at a time earlier than the ferret, and hence may be
>considered "more domestic" than the ferret
 
THe cat may NOT be considered more domestic than a ferret.  Both are
domestic.  Neither are wild.  Its not a continuum in that sense.
 
>Does the reversion to the feral state somehow indicate that the cat is
>"less domestic" than is the ferret?
 
No.  Its just that during domestication that cat did not lose the essential
innate skills and traits that allow it to revert.  The ferret did for the
most part (at least under conditions in the United States)
 
>whereas the ferret is not known to revert to the feral state?
 
Noting that part about the US... I said that because under conditions that
prevail in New Zealand and parts of Europe, ferrets can go feral.
 
>at which point does an organism's domestication cease?
 
Ah... Lets try this approach... Domestication is not a process that an
animal goes through.  Its a change wrought upon a species.  Perhaps think
of it as a graduation.  A species is wild and "uneducated".  If some
representatives of that species are captured and through controlled
breeding they are educated.  At some point enough modification occurs and
they are declared enough modifed or "educated" they are issued a diploma
and "poof" they are graduated or domesticated.  THey can still be educated
but that degree is still there and not modified.  Bob C won't lose his
Bachelor's degree just because he working on or earning a more advanced
degree.  If there were a problem along the way that captive set of animals
might die out and thus they would flunk out and not earn the degree.  They
did not become domesticated.
 
So domestication ceases once it happens.  You paint all offspring before
the magic point in one color say red for wild and all offspring after that
magic point say green for domesticated.
 
So Pinky are you pondering what I'm pondering?  <tribute to the Ferlospher>
 
-bill
--
bill and diane killian
zen and the art of ferrets
http://www.zenferret.com/
mailto:[log in to unmask]
[Posted in FML issue 2711]