Working animal

From Freepedia

A working animal is a domesticated animal that is kept by humans and often trained to perform various tasks, regardless whether they are also used for consumption of meat and milk or for other products (such as leather). Domesticated species are often bred in several types of breeds suitable for different uses and conditions, not counting keeping as a mere pet. This is especially the case with horses and working dogs. Different types of animals are used around the world depending on the conditions and the intended use of the animal.

Contents 1 Types 1.1 Pack animals 1.2 An intermediate use 2 Other draught animals 3 Retrieval and similar largely sensorial tasks 3.1 Hunting and fishing animals 3.2 Man hunt 3.3 Other gathering 3.4 Rescue 4 Security and defense 5 Human toil

Types

A draught animal is a domesticated animal used for its physical power, as in transport and haulage, such as pulling carts, hauling goods, and plowing fields.

Animal-powered transport for movement of people and goods is a major category of working animals. People ride some of the larger of these animals directly as mounts, use them as pack animals to carry goods, or harness one or a team to pull vehicles. Such animals are sometimes known as beasts of burden'.

Riding animals or mounts include equines such as horses, ponies, donkeys, and mules. Dromedaries (Arabian camels) are very common in arid areas, including North Africa and the Middle East, and are used for both transportation and haulage. The bactrian camel, the world's only remaining other camel, is far rarer than the dromedary and inhabits central and east Asia, where it is also used for transportation and haulage.

• Elephants
• Some mythical creatures are believed to act as mounts, such as haruda

Pack animals

Often these belong to the same species as mounts, though breeds may be specialized (such as pack-horses. Other species are more exclusively used to carry loads, such as llamas in the Andes.

Bovines include water buffalo (as distinct from bison), oxen, bullocks, and yaks (the latter adapted to extreme conditions in the Himalayas).

Carrier pigeons may be considered a type of working animal.

An intermediate use

This is to harness them, singly or in teams, to pull (or haul) sleds or wheeled vehicles.

• Traditionally, in the United States and for military use, mules have been considered excellent draught animals but are also very expensive since they cannot breed
• Draught horses are commonly used but are often not considered the best animals for heavy pulling
• Dogs are used in some countries for pulling light carts (e.g. sled dog)
• Reindeer are used in cold climates (as Nordic countries and Siberia)

Other draught animals

Animal power is also used to drive various machines and heavy devises that are not mere loads, and for plaughing: especially oxen (often considered the best animals for heavy work, especially where surefootedness is necessary or if wet conditions prevail but they are required in numbers that make them expensive to procure and they are generally hard to raise in more arid climates) and water buffalo (in tropical or very wet subtropical areas, often used in rice-growing). Often the same species as beasts of burden, especially in a tread-mill, e.g. to grind or to pump, but other kinds can also be put to work.

Retrieval and similar largely sensorial tasks

Hunting and fishing animals

As predatory species are naturally equipped to catch prey, this is also an interesting economical use whenever man manages to 'harvest' their prey if of value to man) and substitute it with cheaper feed; the same can also be done either for sport (reviled by many as cruelty to animals) or to control the population of prey species that are considered harmful to crops, animal breeding or the very environment

• hounds and various other dogs are used to find, drive, kill and fetch prey, and various breeds are specialized in one of these tasks, sometimes reflected in the very terminology of dog classification, such as pointer, setter
• in falconry, birds of prey are used as complete hunters in the air
• Ferret
• aquatic birds, such as cormorants in China, can be used to do the same except the prey is fish

Man hunt

Mainly hounds are used to find and catch or eliminate human 'prey', such as escaped prisoners- in human ethical terms this is a different matter, for the predatory animal just another prey species

Other gathering

• various breeds of dogs and other species with better sensorial functions then man are used to find and harvest other valuable products, such as truffles (a very expensive deep subterranean mushroom; in France mainly pigs are used, in Italy mainly dogs)

Rescue

• Mainly dogs are used to find and help people who get lost (e.g. the St.Bernard was bred for this job in the mountains) are trapped, e.g. in avalanches or collapsed buildings (as in case of earthquake)

Security and defense

The sensorial functions and natural defensive and offensive means (such as fangs and claws) of various species can be used to protect or -mainly in the case of predatory species- to attack humans.

• The guard dog in no way has a monopoly as watchman (e.g. geese)
• Fight dogs (here: dogs of war, not for entertainment and betting) and battle elephants are living weapons, used as soldiers in all but conscious motivation
• Sniffer dogs aren't only suited for man-hunt (above) but also to find contraband, such as illegal drugs
• Dolphins to carry markers to attach to detected mines
• On lands, dogs and various other species, even insects, can be trained to find or even disable landmines

Human toil

While the primate species known as man (Homo sapiens sapiens; the Latin scientific name, sapiens meaning 'wise' or knowledgeable, is a somewhat presumptive declaration of genetic superiority justified only by its high intelligence) tends to forget it still is biologically 100% an animal (the ultimate consequence of the creationist rejection of Evolution can even be to deny it completely), it is usually considered a reproach or insult to equate human labor with working animals.

Nevertheless, in terms of natural history, the period that culture allowed humans to live significantly different than animals (hunting and gathering is essentially animal subsistence) is still a very short experiment.

Even in historical times humans have not only continue to toil 'like beasts' but often been (ab)used against their will as working animals in all but time, often subject to corporal punishment (adversaries generally consider it inhuman and degrading) if productivity is not deemed satisfactory, either as a punishment (see penal labor) or in an institutional, legally sometimes rightless state as slave (in the broad sense of the term), e.g. the convicted galley slave was often deliberately treated crueler than any beast of burden.