Rats, mice, and ferrets are all pets but we’re leaving the cutest rodent on the table! Why?
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“Tame” and “domesticated” are two different things. I’m not an expert, but domestication involves selective breeding over generations to produce desirable traits for human use or companionship. “Tamed” just means an individual member of a wild species has come to tolerate, accept, or enjoy human contact and control, usually having been reared by humans from infancy.
Humans have domesticated a surprisingly few species of animals on the planet. I read Jared Diamond’s book *Guns, Germs, and Steel* years ago, and there was a whole chapter on the topic. Things I remember include:
– Domesticatable animals generally share similar traits of having some kind of social behavior that they can recognize in human leadership (horses, dogs), manageable breeding/gestation, low cost of investment/risk vs reward
– Loads of animals that are selectively bred for certain desirable traits are actually not ‘domesticated’ in the sense that their behavior is too far from their wild ancestors (sheep, cows, pigs, chickens)
– Zebras are assholes. While individual zebras might be tamed, as a species they are not worth the effort. I read somewhere else that more zookeepers are bitten by zebras than any other animal
– The only species of deer to be domesticated is the reindeer, which are behaviorally similar to horses. Other deer species either don’t have a herd mentality, can leap ridiculous heights, and have a tendency to panic and break their own silly necks when enclosed. Impala, for example, can leap 3m vertically and 10m horizontally. Moose, on the other hand, can and will stomp you into paste whilst you’re trying to gather your breeding stock.
– Elephants take too damn long to breed, live too long, and are too smart. Tamed Asian elephants are used in some places for hauling and other heavy work, but are not domesticated.
– The ancient Egyptians attempted to domesticate cheetahs and had tame ones, but were unsuccessful in selective breeding. This is because for a female cheetah to ovulate, she has to be chased at top speed (I might be remembering this part wrong, but basically the sheer difficulty of selectively breeding animals that are this fast is too high). Fun fact: cheetahs in zoos are often anxious and easily stressed, so they’re often reared with an emotional support puppy/dog.
Edit because I forgot you asked about squirrels: Domestic breeds of rabbits, rats, and other rodents generally retain most of their wild attributes while no longer being able to survive in the wild. While you probably could embark on a program to selectively breed squirrels… What traits would you be aiming for? What are the benefits to humans to engage in this process? I mean, if you just wanted fancy-colored squirrels, I guess you could, but they would wreck your house with chewing. The downsides of having squirrels in the house would outweigh their cuteness as potential pets, so there’s no economic incentive.
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