Its entirely likely as animal sub-speciation (breeds) at human hands goes back a very long way.
> I know that Americans like to breed the most outrageous and strange
> breeds of dogs and indeed cats, but this isn't something that would seem
> at home in a bronze age sosiety, and among the orlanthi. As far as I
> understand the Orlanthi respect the Shadow Cat for it's independence, and
> don't try to mold it to their whim.
Greyhounds and their kin are as old as the Egypt of Ramesses II (and probably much older). Various species of hounds date back to late Republican Rome. I think we can assume that animals were bred for specific purposes as far back as we need for the purposes of this.
Heck, one of the first domesticated animals was the house-ferret (pole-cat) of early Greece for vermin control. It was replaced later by the domestic cat as they (apparently) didn't smell as much and were less vicious.
As to moulding the shadowcat by whim, I think it would just happen -- differenetiation between wild ones and village ones. Some cats would prefer the warm hearth and security of a tula and others would retain more of a wild tinge, refusing hospitality except to visit.
But all the tales *we* have of Yinkin seem to end up with him on a warm hearth, taking the rewards of a day well done...
> In the real world people used both leopards and cheetahs as hunting
> animals, they didn't create spesific breeds of them, nor did they breed
> felis sylvestris trying to bring out spesific traits.
Um, this may not be quiet the case. I do not have any information on leopards but from what I know of cheetah, they have *no* genentic diversity whatsoever and are apparently descended from a group of approximately 100 individuals about 300 years ago (!)
> I'm sorry, but this just seems like treating the sacred cat like a common
> dog.
I'd rather not treat the sacred cat like a lepoard or cheetah. It just doesn't seem to fit, somehow. Alynxes are, I suspect, too small to be truely dangerous (cougar/cheetah) and too large to truely dependant (housecats, etc)
> OTOH shadow cats can be useful with keeping sheep. Not so much keeping the
> herd together, but scaring away predators (Just imagine that POW 19 cat,
> big as a bix lynx... like Greebo it can just sit and grin at a pack of
> wolves until they get uneasy and leave :) )
I don't see cats herding things. It just seems very non-feline, to me. Much better if people just bring things to them -- as is the cat's rightful due.
The infamous Greebo'd just get intimidate some dogs into bringing him food, I'd be thinking.
Jeff "Still no interesting moniker" Kyer
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