Eli5: Why can’t you make a pet out of a wolf, a bear or a lion?
In: Biology
Wolves, bears, and lions are dangerous because they are wild animals that could hunt and kill you. They are wild, their mommy and daddy were wild, and their grandma and grampa were wild too. So it is in their blood to be wild and hunt people.
Dogs and cats are not wild animals. They are pets and are nice to humans. Their mommies and daddies were nice to humans and their grandma and grampa before that. It’s in their blood to be nice to humans.
A long long time ago someone was nice to a wild wolf and wanted to be friends with it. That wolf was less mean than other wolves but it was still dangerous. But people kept trying. When that wild wolf had puppies, they took the nicest one of those puppies and trained it, but it was still mostly wild. Then that wolf had puppies and they again took the nicest one to try and train. After many years and lots of puppies, eventually they had a dog who wasn’t wild anymore and who was nice to people. It takes many generations to get an animal to stop acting wild.
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