So, this came up when I opened Firefox this morning. And… well… given fluffies are a mess of DNA, I have to wonder: are they part dog? They might not necessarily look the part, but I think they act it (in an exagerrated fashion to be sure).
With this article in mind, what would you do with it? Would you change their relationship with barkie-munstahs? Maybe look to at @ArtfulEon’s ideas on the matter?
I mean, it makes a lot of sense. Add in a bit of Guinea pig and you have an animal that both craves attention and dies from loneliness.
I did not know that about guinea pigs! I think I heard chinchillas are the same. Gotta get them in pairs.
Many text portrayals, including mine, give them a strong sense of smell for herdmate recognition and tracking for the ones smart enough to learn to use it since it doesn’t come purely on instinct. Though some folks portray them as effective truffle hunters, so suina DNA is also possible.
Fluffies don’t seem to understand their genetic ancestry. I doubt anything really does, though some human myths and possibly Alexander the Great made the connection between us and other primates and some domestic cats assume “ever-kitten” roles with larger felines.
I doubt it changes how they see anything. After all, they have human DNA, bird DNA, horse DNA sometimes, guinea pig DNA is popular, and as far as I’m concerned a fair bit of honey badger and river otter. It likely doesn’t change the smell of their musk, though it could change anal gland secretion smell. Something I’ve never seen addressed is the anal gland secretion of most animals smelling either like fishy feces or the extremely bitter smell of badger musk.
I’d think that canine DNA is probable considering the entire basis of the biotoy line was a thing that will unconditionally love you. If nothing else, I imagine dogs were the subject of much research given that their relationship with humans offers the closest approximation that they’d want to imitate anyway. That said, I doubt fluffy ponies would see dogs as being anything other than ‘bawkie munstahs,’ unless they personally knew them, considering their fear at pretty much anything they don’t immediately know is at least (in theory) a decent survival mechanism.
Dogs aren’t inherently friendly with each other strictly on the basis that they’re both the same kind of animal either so with more than a few steps removed I imagine one bad incident with one could scar the fluffy for life, as is usually depicted in the fandom.
@Chikahiro In Steamfluffs, I mentioned that one of the progenitors of the fluffies had reticent dog memories, as well as dog DNA, which was passed down to the fluffy species that it spawned.
I think dog DNA should be a part of fluffies, aside from parrot and human DNA, to explain both their domestication and loyalty. I really like how Waggytail explored the more doglike aspects of fluffies, like in this pic of a fluffy at the park.
The idea of exploring domestication in dogs and fluffies is also interesting, because of how humanity has changed the wolf to become a domestic dog. I would like to share a video about the domestication of the fox in Russia:
Fluffies, to me, is both an extreme domestication of the horse into a household pet, in addition to their further augmentation with other DNA (like possibly dog). Its also why wild/feral fluffy stories are interesting - how changed would a fluffy be if it lived in the wild?
On a fun note regarding foxes:
So would bioengineered humans be further self-domestication of humanity, or the first domesticated humans?
Humaniyy is already domesticated. After all, we are domestic animals
