----- Original Message ----- From: "Kagan, Marty" <mak at akamai.com> To: <dragaera at dragaera.info> Sent: Tuesday, February 03, 2004 6:52 PM Subject: domesticated animals > > I'm half-way through Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by > Jared Diamond, and I'm struck by the similarity between the implicit > agreement made between humans and wolves in 10,000 BC which led to their > domestication, and the explicit agreement made between Vlad and Loish's > mother (and later, between Vlad and Rocza), ie: help me hunt, in exchange > for long life & easy meat. No big surprise there, but it's not often one is > struck by the thought, "hey, this reminds me of Brust" while reading dense > history texts. > > Which led me to wonder: Has anyone else in Dragaeran history ever attempted > to domesticate wild jhereg? Is the natural lifespan of wild jhereg on a > (I'll avoid the word "human" here for the sake of clarity) Dragaeran-scale, > or a Fenarian-scale? Assuming the later, shouldn't one expect to see, over > the next couple of reigns, a similar pattern of selective breeding and > "artifical selection"? By the time the next Cycle comes around, will there > be the jhereg equivalents of Dachshunds, Poodles, and Weimaraners running > around? Have we seen ANY pets in Dragerea with regards to the dominant race there? I can't think of any off hand, nor can I think of them even treating thier horses like anything but tools to be used. Perhaps the Dragereans keep Teckla for pets...