Well, yes, but obviously the non-human animals on Rick's world ought to have gone a bit beyond that. I mean they have opposable thumbs and should have been able to make fire and weapons like humans did. They also ought to have been able to create buildings or other structures of their own. So why are they now pets? Did they never fully develop their own technologies? Did humans coming into their areas enslave them or commit genocide? Is there a country of "pets" that has its own society and government? I mean I suppose that you're right and some might not create societies on their own. Still, it's an unusual situation.

I assume that in HPC's world, humans simply outdid animals, just like europeans outdid africans and native indians, interrupting their development. The animals that later would have become pets at the time decided it was more convenient to live as domesticated rather than being forced into ferality. Yes, I guess it must have been a long and bloody fight between the species to achieve such a result.
Being intelligent is not enough, though; without a proper education and a constant access to technologies, ferals simply cannot create a developed society. I guess that somewhere in the world the toughest of them formed tribal societies with a basic form of technology. Could they wage war with humans? Yes and no: at this point it would be simply useless risking extinction out of a principle. But I can imagine human activists working into politics and economics to help ferals gaining a higher level of dignity.
Pets, no. As the term itself implies, they are our constant companions and coworkers, they are educated and have a greater social potential, but at best the most political conscious of them form an underground society, reading themselves for public recognition.
City ferals are way too busy on their day-to-day living to care for politics and such.
All in all, intelligent animals outnumber humans. They could overthrow them. But then HPC's world would turn into something totally different and way darker. I don't think this was what Rick intended, but exploring, a bit at a time, the depths of what we all elaborated so far, would surely help this comic live for a looooong time.
Wurf!

Well possibly, and even on today's world there are still many primitive societies and even warring regions. I'm really not sure how humans outdid the anthros since in reality most cultures started in the hunter-gatherer state. Unless the anthros were a fairly recent development or, like other places, simply started developing their own technologies long after humans acquired gun powder or such. Of course their status could be something that's existed for ages. Slavery is one of the oldest things humans did towards one another. I'm not sure non-ferals didn't see the advantages Fox pointed out and willingly serve and help humans in exchange for other services and help. Of course, over time, this could have lead to its own problems with humans taking advantage of - or even abusing - those anthros that willingly came to live with them.
As I mention below, I suspect some of the darkest aspects may be kept out of the comic since it's supposed to be PG - but there can be hints or history or similar of what has happened to bring things to the current state of affairs.



Well yes, I'm just trying to point out the fact that there are a lot of convoluted twists that can come if you examine things too in-depth. I'm sure if Rick has any answers to these we'll see them in the comic. I wouldn't be surprised, though, if he never really took much of this into consideration. It's hard to do a truly realistic comic with anthros since so much of huan society ought to have changed as well. HP isn't a dark comic and while I think it will explore deeper areas now and again I don't think we will see such issues addressed since they really don't belong.

to remain in the depths of this world's dark side:

With time, as animal rights progressed in the western world, most of the cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries must have commissioned their experiments to countries such as China, arab countries and other places where animal and/or human rights are blatantly ignored. I imagine some US and European industries using 'guinea pigs' on a strictly voluntary basis, with economical benefits.
surely furcoats must have been banned for some time now.
I'm wondering about the zoos... Are their animals prisoners or guests on a rotation basis?

But don't take my word for it.

(Oh, and naturally, the follow-up.)

OK, certain questions are popping randomly into my mind as I'm translating the strip, so here's one (begging for your pardon if someone already answered it): why are pets forced to the humiliation of the rectal termometer, since they are perfectly conscious and can be asked to stand still whil, for example, mouth and/or ears can be used as orifices?

Answer: For the sake of comedy

I'm getting a head of a headache here, Rick!
Snakes, birds, horses (can I assume other ungulates as well?) are sentient, intelligent. It's a biological impossibility that man could have arisen as earth-ruler, unless

1) sentients are result of a genetic accident after man had already imposed his dominion
2) something happened in the past so that humans became 'roommates' with the other species. They currently rule certain portions of the planet with prohibition to expand beyond predefined borders

At this point, for now we can be sure that humans here must either have developed a well-grown synthetic products industry or they are some hard-heartened I love you. I mean, one thing is the slaughter of non-humanlike beings for food and pelts, the other is a fully verbal interaction. It would be the closest thing to cannibalism one could imagine, not to mention that there is no reason why animals would accept being killed without a fight.
I *must* believe that this world is, socially speaking, far more complex than we could imagine at first.

At this point, for now we can be sure that humans here must either have developed a well-grown synthetic products industry or they are some hard-heartened *******. I mean, one thing is the slaughter of non-humanlike beings for food and pelts, the other is a fully verbal interaction. It would be the closest thing to cannibalism one could imagine, not to mention that there is no reason why animals would accept being killed without a fight.
I *must* believe that this world is, socially speaking, far more complex than we could imagine at first.[/quote]


Cow are pretty dumb to start with, whenever there is a flood you will find the horses up on a hill an all the cows drowned floating all around them in the water.

So it is possiable that the cows don't know there being raised for food, until they go to the slaughterhouse where they meat with there big surprise.

Meat.... hehehhehe.... meat... Slaughterhouser.... hehheh....

evil pun if I ever saw one

Cows, sheep, turkeys especially, are stupid. Remember the zoo arc...

"If their underwater, how can we hear them?"
"They communicate telepathically."
"Cool!"
"Yeah, except that doesn't translate into intelligence."

In other words, animals may be sentient, but not smart.

We don't know much about the pre-history of this world, but I do have a theory as to why humans are dominant: Pure luck. They must of just gotten their sentience first or something, or it's possible that humans simply advanced faster than other species, maybe it was just some kinda random mutation or something, and, of course, survival instinct causes them to put their species first. I have a plausible theory as to how pawed mammals are the bipedal...basically there's the whole idea of a common ancestor with the evolution thing? In our world, the whole bipedal trait is, well, rare. Of the top of my head, humans, monkeys and maybe kangaroos are the only species with the trait. But in the Housepets world, the trait is simply much more common. The idea here being that a branch of the evolutionary tree has a trait rather than just a twig.

In addition, it seems that domestic pets get some kind, even if little, education, which separates them from ferals. What exactly this education is (although I'd guess obedience training and learning about human etiquette/mannerisms) we don't know, but we do know they go through it, do to Rick's answer of one of Keeshah's questions: And this comic. As you can see, Pap (the puppy) doesn't have a collar or dog-tags, probably because he hasn't graduated pet school yet.

There's probably another idea of how similar the animals are; think about the animals we farm for food: they all have hooves! Pigs, cows, sheep, even deer are all non-morphic, and thus, humans don't identify with them and feel they're eating and animal, not a miniature, slightly different version of themselves. If all animals were morphic, then there'd be controversial problems like the ones you mentioned, Valerio, but even worse. In all, this was a well played move by Rick...

All in all, we know that:
Humans are dominant
The pets are completely natural

And there's no hidden meaning behind it. The pets aren't genetically modified, humans have freakn' zoos! If humans "shared" the planet, there would most definitely be wars over zoos, although other species would probably call them "Human entertainment prison camps."

Furthermore, we don't know if ferals have their own types of societies or communities. For all we know, there could be lions in Africa farming antelope just as humans farm cows.

/end speculation

I like that speculations.
I have to point out, though, that animals in our own world are already intelligent. With that, I mean that they are intelligent and skillful enough to survive and reproduce. Evolution so far proved that a winning quality is transmitted to other generations: 'being smart' is NOT an evolutionary quality. If creatures in HPC' world are intelligent enough to craft weapons (lions, hyenas, cheetahs), it means that they ARE already smart enough to give us so much trouble in the hunting and territorial competition. Plus, they have evident phsyical advantages: our African ancestors couldn't have a chance over a pride of well-built lions or a pack of hyenas with our same intelligence, or worse against cheetahs (who, I can assume, are the fast-runners we know).
In such a mercurial environment, I can also imagine that at one point humans decided to retreat into a well-secured area and grow and raise their food undisturbed, rather than keeping 'emselves on an endless competion. That could have helped them grow in numbers without further interference, until they could move in massive numbers from a region to the other, while the alliance that would lead to domestication loomed at the horizon (see thread 'questions to rick')

But Pridelands is fiction. You can't use that for a logically constructed argument!

When it comes down to it, we don't know how wild ferals act. Heck, we really don't even know how stray pets would act. Rick hasn't given us the specific details.

yup, so far its' feeble as clue, but considering the level of intelligence proven by the zoo mammals I wouldn't rule it out as pure fantasy scenario (with the excpetion of magic and such of course) unless Rick himself says so.

Hey Rick, why do round pizzas come in square boxes?

cause the square pizzas don't fit in the round boxes!

The concept of the comic is a logical nightmare as far as how they actually got to be pets. I've decided I'm not going to think about it too much and enjoy the comic for what it is which is witty, adorable, and relatable.

new question...!

Are the pets digitigrade (walking on natural animal legs) or plantigrade (human style legs)

Rick updated the Cast page recently to include some full-body pictures, so you can see how they stand, as well as a few other interesting tidbits.

YOU LIE

The cast page has been like that for a couple of 3-4 MONTHS IT'S BEEN LIKE THAT ALREADY YOU GOT MY HOPES UP FOR NOTHING am I the only one who checks these things? Seriously.

Seriously.

And for good measure, one more "Seriously."

I keep intending to add more, plus headshots

Yay!

Uh.... boom?

Wouldn't headshots violate the g rating?

Why do they call it 'after dark' when its really 'after light'?

Okay Rick, when you have time I'd like to know the answers to the following:

1) Can people own exotic pets as they do in reality?

2) Would an 'owned' exotic pet be able to wander like pets do or would they be required to stay indoors or similar (and if the latter, why, since they are at least as intelligent as their pet counterparts)?

3) You say wild animals have no rights, but have there been any movements to gain recognition (or at least to stop people from shooting them down from helicopters in the name of 'sport')?

4) Are there any non-human nations? I ask because, logically, some species like wolves and lions would probably try to form their own nations (similar to Native American or native Africans) and, given their opposable thumbs and ability to understand human motivation ought to succeed (assuming, of course, humans simply didn't do what they've traditionally done with natives and attempt genocide).

The following are guesses from an unqualified source (me):

1) Yes.

2) Probably wander around, but at their own risk; they are strange pets after all.

3) A.S.P.C.A and P.T.E.A. have been confirmed to exist, so there are probably groups that support leaving wild animals alone.

4) Two words: Wildlife Reserves.

-_-

muffins and cookies it Elby. What's that, spelling mistake #4? I've been caught on? WHY DO PEOPLE INSIST ON THIS?!?! You know I'm bad at spelling! ARGH
And yes I know it's "Ebly" but I need to bug you back

Heh.. "Elby". :3

wut evr, elby. :>