Quote Originally Posted by Stefan-A View Post
You know, I had actually planned to respond to several of your posts in that thread, I even saved my reply as a .txt, like I sometimes do when I decide for one reason or another to leave things unsaid. Here's the segment, that was intended to respond to that particular post of yours, with some minor modifications. Without the context of the first 2/3 of the original text, it's probably going to seem exceptionally random.

I'm not convinced that they feel completely comfortable in the wild or in captivity. Nature still is their biggest killer. What we do for them in captivity is not for their comfort, but for their survival. Since we don't know if they are comfortable at any point, what we're left with are the things that keep them alive and healthy.

According to studies conducted some 30-40 years ago, even our domesticated animals don't lose their natural instincts that readily, so the distinction between domesticated and captive is pretty arbitrary. In other words, domestication is a bit of a misnomer. Sure, we've selectively bred them to a point where they seem like they would not make it without us, but even several thousand years of "domestication" doesn't erase the drive to hunt or dig dens, which is obvious from the fact that every one of our domesticated animals has been able to form feral populations as well.

Once the wolves have gone extinct, there will still be hundreds of millions of dogs in the world. By what measure would dogs be inferior, if not by their ability to survive?

Why would it matter if they became as alienated from their wild counterparts, as dogs or cats, for example? How alienated are dogs from their wild counterparts, by the way?

If rendering the old instincts obsolete (is that even what happens?) is the byproduct of a change in conditions that improves their survival rate, why object to it? As I see it, good and right don't enter into it, especially since they aren't obvious in cases like this.

You don't have to die to feel it, it can be tested although not safely. But who is to decide if not us?

It took my mice between 3 and 20 seconds to go unconscious and at no point were any teeth penetrating their skin, the breath wasn't physically squeezed out of them and they weren't swallowed alive, either. Neither did they risk dying a slow death at the hands (pun) of a snake that just didn't quite get the coils right, that didn't get enough venom into its prey, or that simply doesn't kill its prey before swallowing it. That last one sounds incredibly familiar, have you heard of any snake that doesn't kill its prey by constricting it or by envenomating it?
I simply dont have time to respond to everything right now stefan, as I need to get to bed, but for one every time i look at an english bulldog, the genetic inferiority in dogs to wolves is apparent. Thank god the day they are roaming the earth free, I will be dead.

I absolutely considered thamnophis, nerodia, drymarchon and others when making the post that they eat by over powering, but the fact is that I did not feel like getting into that, it woudl ahve been a whole 'nother paragraph and I was making a general statement about snakes eating at the time and the fact that most pet snakes kill their prey first. Either way, my opinion remains unchanged and I will continue to feel the way that I do. I don't go out of my way to feed live, ever, in fact any prey i feed is killed before it's fed anyways, save for that rare snake that won't have it any other way. I still don't see any problem with those who choose to do it provided they do it with all the knowledge available to them.