rationalskepticism.org

Grimstad wrote:Seriously? Drivers license? You don’t have to be licensed to own a car, just to drive one. Driving a car quite literally involves endangering the lives of tens or hundreds of thousands of other people on a daily basis.

But raising a dog without training puts the lives of anyone it comes across at risk, and obviously with children if you fuck them up then you basically fuck up the future of the world. So whilst the damage to the individual may seem inconsequential, the cumulative effects could be catastrophic.

Grimstad wrote:

Taking care of a dog, or a child, requires a lot more training than learning how to drive a car and the potential for damage is arguably much greater than that of a car.

While disagreeing with the car analogy I’d like to point out that according to established standards it takes about 18 years of intense training with very small class sizes (depending on number of siblings). Typically this includes some training in animal husbandry.

Personal experience isn't training though. Stick me in a pitch black room with a gun and tell me to learn how to shoot it. If I'm lucky I'll survive, with only a few minor injuries, and at the end I may be able to fire off a few rounds with one or two potentially hitting somewhere near the target - but this isn't gun training. It is, as the saying goes, shooting in the dark.

Whilst parenting is a controversial topic as everyone likes to believe that any parenting style is fine and that you'll "learn" how to raise a child your own way, with dogs the issue becomes much clearer. Most dog owners are absolutely fucking terrible dog trainers who know jack all about their animal. Personally I think the comparison of dog owners and parents is apt.

Grimstad wrote:I think that 3 P sounds like a great resource for those wanting it. But state approved parenting isn’t even a slippery slope. Once you have that, you have bottomed out.
Back on the subject of pets, once someone has shown they lack the skills to adequately care for the safety of a pet, then perhaps we can discuss competency tests, just like we do with kids.

I don't understand what's so bad about competency tests for dogs and children? Training is given for any activity we partake in throughout our lives, especially those things we do that has the potential to negatively affect another person or thing's life, but we suddenly act all outraged at the prospect of needing training in, arguably, the most complicated and important task we will ever take in our lives. And the same applies to raising children.