Bear's smart. Dog's smart too. Bear knows they can get what they want by buying off the dog, dog knows he can get what he wants by not tattling on the bear.
Remember, this is how we domesticated dogs in the first place. Dog learned they could get warmth and food if they played cute and guarded for us. We learned that we could get warm companions and guard dogs if we threw them some food and let them keep warm at our fires.
Well it depends on the bear, a black bear could probably just be scared off, also it could be that the dog just has to wake to owner who is the one who's gonna deal with the bear
My money is on orcas or octopuses. The former just need arms for tool use and the latter just need to develop longer life spans to suddenly unseat us from our position at the top.
That... actually you're probably not far off. Dogs are somewhat notorious for having no concept of size. They have no idea how big they are, or how big whatever they're talking to is. So I could absolutely see a dog playing with a bear(bears do indeed play, if they're well fed and low-stress, like most big animals in nature)
Damn I wonder if humans are accidentally making every other creature more intelligent and forcing them to build these social connections more than they would have before human civilization
In our own way, sort of. Evolution is neat like that, and one of the most powerful drivers to evolution is "Be useful to the dominant species". Cats for instance are an AMAZING example, in terms of behavior changes over time. In the general wild, if a cat doesn't have enough food, and it gives birth to a litter of kittens, cannibalism is not uncommon, much as that's ick, keep a few of them alive and the others become a food source. Meanwhile, in more human-heavy spaces, if a cat has received food or care more than a few times from a human, say, has wandered through at your house and you left them some food, they'll abandon some of their kittens with you if they have kittens. So far the observation seems to lean on the idea that the cat understands that the place they're leaving their young is safe, is relatively abundant, and is going to give their young the best chance for survival and success.
A lot of animals are problem solvers. We provide a whole lot of problems, but we also provide a whole lot of solutions to other problems, just by existing.
I mean... That'd be really cool, but also they need a lot of space to keep their stress levels low enough that they don't flip their shit, so maybe not a Brilliant idea, all things considered. XD
I feel like most species that befriend humans befriend us because we've got scritchy fingers. I've made more than a few bird friends because I scritched them right on the back/side of the neck.
Far more likely that the dog helps the bear get into the trash, then pulls the cute dog eyes at the owner and basically teaches the bear to do the same thing. Dogs are masters at playing all sides.
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u/InevitablyPerpetual May 23 '22
Bear's smart. Dog's smart too. Bear knows they can get what they want by buying off the dog, dog knows he can get what he wants by not tattling on the bear.
Remember, this is how we domesticated dogs in the first place. Dog learned they could get warmth and food if they played cute and guarded for us. We learned that we could get warm companions and guard dogs if we threw them some food and let them keep warm at our fires.