Go Awwwww you lose!

[Dave]

...

Yeah, I remember the methods used by the Russian fur industry to "domesticate" the foxes they bred in an OU programme (back when such were available on TV).

Pretty extreme "Pavlovian" methods were used to "break" the foxes and make them totally dependent on their handlers, physically and emotionally - a kind of brainwashing/conditioning. Selective breeding them produced more amenable stock that you did not have to kill before you could handle it.

As far as I recall the breeders simply took the cubs that were the friendliest in each generation and simply bred from them.

In my memory, which might well be faulty, the video showed considerable harsh treatment, caging, beating etc. There might well be two strings to this story, the "industrial" and the "fashionable", even if the latter possibly grew out of the former. Better to give the fox a home than weair it I suppose!

[Claireliontamer]

How fascinating!  I had no idea about this experiment.  http://155.97.32.9/~bbenham/2510%20Spring%2009/Behavior%20Genetics/Farm-Fox%20Experiment.pdf is a detailed account of the experiment which I'm saving here to read later.

[Tank]

It is fascinating. In particular the domestication traits followed the embryo. They cross transplanted domesticated embryos into un-domesticated mothers  and all the domesticated traits appeared in the offspring.

[Claireliontamer]

[Arturo]

Are these yours? I've always wanted a hedgehog.

[Claireliontamer]

Are these yours? I've always wanted a hedgehog.

Sadly not. These are orphaned hoglets at a hedgehogs sanctuary in the UK.

[xSilverPhinx]

I would say that those hedgehogs look cuddly but on second thought...

[Claireliontamer]

[Sandra Craft]

^^ So totally lost it.

[Tank]

I lost big time!

[xSilverPhinx]

What an odd-looking creature. Cute no doubt, but odd all the same.

[Arturo]

http://www.funnyjunk.com/channel/WholesomeMemes/Man+feeds+water+to+dehydrated+rabbit/hporLuc/

[xSilverPhinx]

[Arturo]

Bad link

[xSilverPhinx]

Strange, I see it.