Trek animal husbandry question--Cardassian riding hound

[Nerys Ghemor]

If I put this in the wrong section of the forum, I apologize, but I am trying to get as "technical" of an opinion as possible on this.

We know that Cardassians have animals called "riding hounds." The name, in my opinion, implies a large, predatory creature, large enough to support the weight of a full-grown man.

Here is my question: how would the domestication process occur with a predator of such size and power? How would those challenges compare to those faced by those who domesticated various Earth animals? How would the domestication process get to the point where such an animal could reliably accept a rider?

I have my own opinions on this, but I was curious to see if there are any animal/evolutionary biology experts who might have some slightly more educated ideas as to how this happened.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

Anyone have any ideas about this, or does this belong in a different section of the forum?

 

[T'Girl]

Well, riding hound suggests a canine of some kind. A English mastiff is just under three feet at the shoulder and commonly weigh about 200 pounds. The English breed them to be guardians.

The Mongolian pony, like Genghis Khan's hordes rode, were only about fifty percent bigger and twice the weight. They could carry a man with armor, weapons and all his field gear.

If the Cardasians were willing to spend a few thousand generations doing it, they could have breed a canine big enough to carry themselves. Canines are loyal, very protective and are useful in combat.

In the back of a canine's mouth there is a type of tooth called a carnassian, it's designed to tearing apart flesh and bone.

Carnassian = Cardassian. Maybe that's where the name comes from.

 

[Finn]

Perhaps they got domesticated in the same manner as the dog on Earth. Perhaps, the wild versions were a bit bigger..maybe twice as big as a Timber or Gray Wolf. Over the eons, Riding Hounds are the Great Danes of that domesticated creature.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

We do also have to remember that size is relative...even the canine group has had larger members (such as the dire wolf--no, not a mythological creature!), and some groups of mammals on Earth got MUCH larger than dogs. Perhaps animal sizes in general run larger on Cardassia? Or even just the therapsocanid group? (As I feel like naming it now.)

The question that I have, though, is this. Something that big could really, REALLY hurt you. And it also begs the question of--what is the benefit to the hound of allowing a Cardassian rider? (Or at least, what was it prior to real domestication?)

 

[Deranged Nasat]

The question that I have, though, is this. Something that big could really, REALLY hurt you. And it also begs the question of--what is the benefit to the hound of allowing a Cardassian rider? (Or at least, what was it prior to real domestication?)

Maybe if the prey animal dashed between rocks or into tight places to avoid the hounds, which are too big to follow, the riders could flush it out? Perhaps a nimble Cardassanid can serve a hound pack as a scout, or follow prey into more enclosed spaces, in exchange for a (no doubt) small share of the meat? Maybe a Cardassian can climb (if the domestication occurred prior to Cataclysm, there would be forests, I take it), to prevent escape up a tree. There's no escape from a hound pack "employing" Cardassians! Given the Cardassian's evolving intelligence, though, they could eventually "work their way up" the pack hierarchy from lesser scouts and hangers-on to the "power behind the throne"?

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

Hmm...you're thinking that a symbiotic relationship between the two species might've existed before sentience? Interesting!

What about after the Cardassians achieved sentience, though? How might taming/domestication occur then?

 

[Herbert1]

I would probably base the Cardassian riding hound on the Sarkastodon like Peter Jackson used them for the Wargs in The Lord of the Rings.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarkastodon

Sarkastodon was about the size of the modern Kodiak variety of bear.

Paintings of Sarkastodon: http://www.johnsibbick.com/window/andrew.asp and http://pds14.egloos.com/pds/200903/21/86/a0116786_49c4a6fdd38d2.jpg

Maybe this animal has a spoon-shaped indentation in its forehead like the Cardassian vole? It also might have more than four limbs, like the Cardassian vole's six legs?

Or I guess that they can look like Woola the calot from the John Carter of Mars series by Edgar Rice Burroughs:

http://www.tarstarkas.net/blog/2009/03/31/woola-concept-art-from-failed-john-carter-of-mars-film/

Maybe they were domesticated by the Cardassians like humans domesticated canines? Maybe they aren't mammals at all and "hound" is used to describe their general body shape? What if they come from eggs and at birth they imprint on the first creature they see?

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

Hmm...my own Cardassia is based on the idea of the Cardassians themselves, and the dominant form of animal, being therapsid rather than mammal or reptile (albeit rather mammaliforme, which is a subtype of therapsid).

The image I've got of them in my mind tends to look something like a scaled, ridged Borzoi, but larger and more muscular.

It's possible that some therapsids lay eggs. Others, though, may give live birth. The imprinting idea definitely makes sense if there are indeed hound eggs. (Which reminds me of a book I read when I was really, REALLY little called Space Brat...which included doglike animals hatched from eggs and something exactly like that happening! ) If I don't use that idea for the riding hound, I may use it for another Cardassian species.

In the case of live birth, though, I wonder what would be the incentive/method of domestication?

 

[ngc7293]

In the case of live birth, though, I wonder what would be the incentive/method of domestication?

In the case of incentive think of the riding hound vs the human horse/pony/camel etc. At a time when there is no industrial revolution, the riding hound is the only way of getting around just as the horse or what have you is the fastest way of getting around on earth.

Method of domestication is easy. Think of how it has been done on Earth. If you want something rougher and more alien, switch things around and add horns. Or at least that is the Klingon way of doing things.

We keep using human context for everything and yet obviously this is an alien world where things don't work out that way.

On the other hand it could be a simple fact that no matter where you go a certain animal is easy to domesticate.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

What makes this situation really alien, though, is that we're talking about domesticating a predator so large it could easily kill a Cardassian given its size and strength--a much greater disparity, say, than the one that existed between prehistoric humans and wolves. Horses and such can kill too, but they're prey animals.

That's where I'm stuck, a bit...why would this animal, so much stronger, faster, and probably more aggressive than a Cardassian, submit to allow a rider and accept commands from this physically weaker being?