I'd just would like to know what you think about domestic/familiar animals. Someone earlier mentioned horses, saying that "horse" is enough, that we didn't need more diversity. I guess the idea was the same for dogs, cats, cows...
Since no one reacted, I guess most of you agree with this point of view. I, on the other hand, could not disagree more.
Point A: Let's start at the beginning: why differentiate otherwise similar animals? Because for a dwarf they look obviously different, act different (one is aggressive, the other affectionate), have different use (one is good to eat, the other is a good working animal).
Point B: We should also think about the date of "creation" of the breed. A breed selected by the environment since millenia and a new breed developed during the twentieth century for industrial needs don't have the same place in a realistic, but wild universe (should we stay away from "created breeds"?).
If we take these points into account, we should obviously have draft horses (or its wild origin, the forest horse
) and ponies (
). A dwarf would not use them for the same purpose, would not meet them in the same biome. Point A: check. They existed and were different before man touched them, so they fulfill point B requirements.
For cows, if point A is obvious (milk cow vs meat, hardy breed vs fragile one), point B is open to discussion. Even for an old breed like highland cattle (
) it seems it was at one early point more or less developed by humans. If a cow geek could help me on this point...
Same thing with dogs. Some eastern sighthounds (borzoļ, afghan
...) seem to be extremely ancient. But they were "created" by humans, like all dogs. But then, why is there any dog at all in DF? World history doesn't explain this. There's dogs since the beginning of the world, while obviously it takes at least a few generation to domesticate wolves.
So if vanilla DF already have altered breeds like dogs, it wouldn't be an heresy to implement different dog (and by extension cow, horse...) breeds. And I don't think I have to explain the interest to make a difference between a harrier (good hunter, frail), a sled dog, a herding dog...