I’d choose a dog (most probably a German shepherd or a Belgian malinois) to do security around the cabin.
Befriend a wolf somehow and it’d do patrols outside the woodlands of any dangers and alert if needed. It can then communicate with the dog of any dangers ahead.
An eagle, to do aerial patrols around or beyond the woods like a scout.
Everyone keeps saying dogs. I hard disagree. Almost all dogs bark without needing to, giving positions away or false positives of foe, even well trained dogs are better but not so much so. They seem to be more resource drain than value.
I think goat, sheep, cow, horse, chickens, rabbits, donkeys maybe better than horses, camels maybe meh, are far superior for activities of all types like food generation, feed for live stock, produce, input vs output, compost, pelts/furs, usable materials to craft and build. Hunting and fishing are not novel concepts in which dogs excel paired with humans. Their main advantage is long running distance able to outwind deer and other species. Dogs are a high responsibility animal.
Hell a well trained larger cat species would be far hunting superior. Even a hawk, or any larger bird would be better than a dog. I suppose it depends on environment and conditions. Crows are good group workers.
I feel like you’re severely underestimating how much and how many ways dogs can be useful dogs can be useful in hunting.
Sure, they can give chase as persistence hunters, like you said
But they’re also useful for tracking, let’s say you shoot a deer, and unfortunately it’s not a clean kill, and it runs off into the woods. You might spend hours, even days trying to find that deer, following tracks and blood trails that may stop in places and be impossible for a human to pick back up, but a scent hound can follow that trail, saving a lot of time and energy .
Or of course just sniffing out an animal in the first place.
They can be retrievers, if you shoot a duck over the water, you now need to find a way to retrieve it from the pond. If you don’t have a boat, that basically leaves swimming out there, and if the weather is cold, that puts you at risk of hypothermia. Many retriever breeds are much better suited to cold water than we are and could swim out to retrieve them with no problem. Or if you shoot something in dense brush they may be better able to retrieve it than you would without having to bushwhack your way to where it went down.
Breeds like beagles are incredibly effective for small game, they can flush them out of hiding spots for their human to shoot, or to tree game
And dogs can be used to great effect driving deer, flushing them and chasing them towards the hunters. This was actually so effective that some places have laws on the books that you can’t use dogs to hunt deer because back in the days when commercial hunting was more of a thing, it drove some deer populations to near extinction.
For some dangerous game like boar and feral swine, their role might be more to catch and hold the animal for the hunter to dispatch safely.
And that’s not to mention the value they can have for herding and guarding livestock, especially if you’re otherwise trying to go it alone or with only a small group of people, because you’re likely going to have other tasks to see to besides just constantly watching over them. To some extent, donkeys can fill a livestock guardian role, but if you need to round up a flock of sheep, they’re not going to be much help with that.
In any of those cases, they’re not necessarily generating value on their own, but they can significantly improve how productive you can be with minimal effort on your part.
As for barking, that’s a mixed bag. Yes, if you’re trying to avoid detection, it can be a detriment. But in other cases it can be a deterrent, making intruders and predators wary of intruding into your territory knowing that there’s a dog around, and it can give you an alert when there is an intruder.
And in some cases and environments, they can be useful as small draft animals, dogs can pull small carts and of course sleds.
Not every dog can fill every role of course (although some can certainly fill multiple roles) and they may not make sense for every scenario, but I think they’re worth a lot more consideration than you’re giving them.
You got fair points and I wouldn’t try to dismiss them. I’ve trained dogs for hunting, tracking rabbits, coyotes, small game racoons where beagles will tree them or run rabbits to hunt, and of course obedience for normal people. Large to small breeds even Chihuahua mixes not all breeds of course and some are far better than worse basically any poodle variety but I say that to show my experience.
Beagles, heelers, shepherds, mutts, huskies, etc etc. Basically the useful breeds are like kids in responsibility high energy and can be total characters. Environmental/situational conditions dependant herd based dogs would be good, large framed dogs and the like as you mentioned.
I just feel the resource drain and output isn’t up to par with input, responsibility for what you get as they age and the level of care needed. A lot of survival is quiet survival outdoors or indoors. Where dogs are clumsy and noisy. There are exceptions of course. I do believe their ranked high just not number one. My best guess is most people are basing this on social and mental health. Which absolutely matter but you can still be in a shit mood and need to eat and get stuff done. I’d honestly like to reassess my animal picking and add monkey, chimpanzees as number one. They learn sign language, can use tools, understand time/scheduling. Similar diet, nutrition, health compatibility. That’d be my number one. Chimps assuming personality wasn’t a schizophrenic.
one thousand crows
Not a bad shout, I love crows,they’re smart too.
Other humans.
Seriously, we are a social animal for a reason. We have always existed in packs and are actually shit at surviving alone. We can do it for short stints and even some longer periods, but the work involved in gathering food and water, preparing meals, maintaining shelter, clothes, tools and everything else is immense. And then there is the whole issue of defense. We have archeological evidence of violent death going well back into the paleolithic era. You’re going to face packs of other people who want your stuff. No matter how good you think you are, you’re going to get overrun if you are alone. Your best defense is your own tribe.So ya, if I’m alone in the woods when a nuclear apocalypse happens, I’m going to do my level best to find and integrate into some sort of larger social structure while there are hopefully enough not terrible people around to be able to survive the attempt.
T rex. Koala for levity.
I don’t know how to tell you this, but the lead singer of T Rex died in '77. Not sure how they would have helped either, the living members have to be pretty old these days.
chickens and ducks
Realistically, what you need is dogs, plural. There’s a reason almost every culture in the world has a history with them.
And a pack of them, breeding as you go, is going to be the best way to keep surviving because they can be trained to be guards, alarms, hunters, fighters, hot water bottles, and they can be food in a real emergency. That last one sucks to think about, but sacrificing one or two so that you and the pack can keep alive is just what you have to do.
Don’t get hung up by thinking a given breed is ideal, because it won’t be generalist enough. You just get medium size and large-ish dogs, and train the succeeding generations as best fits their abilities rather than trying to breed for specific jobs.
Dogs are also imminently personable. You’ll be alone, or not able to trust other humans. Having animals that can fulfill our social needs is vital, and dogs are our best option for that long term, in a survival situation.
Now, if the apocalypse is a bit less dangerous daily, keeping a population of chickens, and goats is a good idea. They’ll serve as alarms easily, and can be food or food producers. They’re both easy to tame as well, if you start young.
The drawback to a pack of dogs is the food consumption. In a nuclear apocalypse rationing is going to be difficult already, maintaining stores of kibble or other dogfeed for a whole pack would be a real burden.
If its not nuclear then I guess there’s enough protein to go around.Id probably try to keep some horses too, if food and drink isn’t a worry. Maybe goats too, but now we’re going into animal husbandry
One word: owlbears.
Chester
A few friendly-to-me death claws, no question.
Definitely a couple of humans.
First of all, your ideas about an eagle and wolf are pretty far-fetched
Unless you’re raising it from a puppy, at best what you’re realistically gonna find with a wolf is one (or more realistically a pack) that tolerates your presence and doesn’t actively view you as a threat or prey and sort of provides passive security by chasing things out of what it views as its own territory. The amount of time, effort, and resources (giving it food and such) to get much beyond that just isn’t going to be feasible in any kind of apocalypse scenario. If food gets scarce, you, your pets, and your livestock are absolutely going to be on its menu, and it’s probably not gonna be communicating with your dogs in any meaningful way beyond “I’m in heat, wanna fuck?”
Nor is an eagle going to be acting as a scout. You can probably watch its behavior for signs of threats that you didn’t notice, and maybe it will see you and your home as a source of safety and come back to you and refuse to leave if it sees a threat, but it’s not really gonna go out on patrol and actively warn you about what’s out there. They can be useful for hunting, but pretty much anyone who actually does any sort of falconry will tell you that every time they let their bird go, they’re really just hoping that it actually comes back and doesn’t just fuck off and they get to watch as all that time and effort they spent training it fly off into the sunset.
Dogs- absolutely, there’s good reason that we’ve been keeping dogs around since time immemorial.
Malinois is a solid breed, smart, strong, motivated, reasonably healthy and free of major health issues compared to a lot of breeds (like German shepherds,) smaller than some similar breeds so a bit easier to feed, and very trainable if you have the time and know-how. I have one myself, she’s a rare lazy malinois (which still makes her smarter and more energetic than most other dogs you’ve probably ever met) and she’s definitely got very strong herding, guardian, and protection instincts, they can also be serviceable tracking/detection dogs (police and such use them extensively for that,) my girl has even shown some rudimentary pointing instincts, and for not being a breed known for having a soft mouth (quite the opposite) she can be remarkably gentle and has carried some delicate objects around with her without breaking them, so she could do retrieving work as well.
So a pretty solid pick for a do-it-all breed if you can only pick one.
Ideally you probably would have multiple dogs to fill different roles, there’s a reason we have bred so many different types of dogs- livestock guardians, herding dogs, sight hounds, scent hounds, retrievers, etc. they all excel at different things.
And ideally you’d want enough to have stable breeding pools without too much inbreeding. This would be a lot to manage, especially if you’re also trying to train them to be useful, a large pack of untrained dogs is more of a liability than anything.
Your relationship with them is also going to be different than with a normal family pet, most of them aren’t going to be coming inside to sleep in bed with you at night, they’re going to be outside working, and in apocalypse scenario, probably turned loose to forage for themselves since you can’t just go to Walmart for a bag of kibble, and they’re probably going to be bonding more strongly with the other dogs than with you.
Cats are useful for pest control. Again, this isn’t gonna be your spoiled housecat who sleeps on your keyboard all day, this is gonna be more of an outdoor barn cat that probably wants little to nothing to do with you most of the time, but it’s gonna keep rodents and such in check.
Chickens, turkeys, etc. are a solid homesteading option, eggs, meat, feathers you could probably use for pillows, mattresses, insulation in clothing and quilts, possibly for arrow fletching if you have or can make a bow and arrows.
Goats and/or sheep for meat, milk, and wool, smaller and easier to care for than cows, and in many cases will do just fine foraging for food.
Probably worth throwing a couple donkeys in as well. They make decent livestock guardians and can be put to work as pack or draft animals if needed.
Rabbits are also a solid, fairly low-effort meat animal and of course have nice fur.
Beyond that, I can’t think of many other animals that would be particularly useful, desirable, or realistic to keep in a survival situation.
sheep, goats, dogs
I’ve got my heeler, and I’d probably grab a few more dogs from the shelter I work at. Then I’d do some Disney princess shit and try befriend all the local animals around my cabin
I’d go for the best dog there is, the Azores Cattle Dog.
Well rounded for guard work, defense, herding and hunting, both on sight and track by scent. Loyal to the death and relentless fighters when push comes to shove. Love the outdoors but will gladly take a comfy spot inside.
I’d also work on taming birds. Corvids, if available, but any song bird is a good investment. Song birds going silent is a good warning sign something is wrong nearby.
If boars are available, having them patrol around my perimeter would be a plus. The animals are fiercely territorial and will attack if cornered or feeling threatened.
A dog is a great choice, but I’d get some kind of mutt. Some Labrador, German Shepherd and grizzly bear mixed in for flavour.
