History Main / AllAnimalsAreDomesticated

* ''WebVideo/BumReviews'': Lampshaded by Chester A. Bum when talking about ''WesternAnimation/KungFuPanda''.

* Pretty much every jurisdiction where cougars ([[IHaveManyNames pumas, mountain lions, catamounts, or whatever]]) are found has to vigorously remind people not to try to treat them like housecats. It doesn't help that there are some well-known Website/YouTube content creators that have actual pet cougars (like Russian pet cougar [[https://www.youtube.com/@Iampuma Messi]]). They are probably fairly easy to tame like cheetahs above, but are ''not nearly as docile'' in the wild.

* Pretty much every jurisdiction where cougars ([[IHaveManyNames pumas, mountain lions, catamounts, or whatever]]) are found has to vigorously remind people not to try to treat them like housecats. It doesn't help that there are some well-known Website/YouTube content creators that have actual pet cougars (like Russian pet cougar [[https://www.youtube.com/@Iampuma Messi]]).
-->'''Common idiom:''' If I am ever killed by a cougar, rest assured that my last words were "Here, kitty, kitty."

* Despite the protagonist of ''VideoGame/{{Stray}}'' being a feral cat born long after humanity is gone, they still interact with the robots of the City like a domestic housecat would with humans.

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
* One episode of ''Series/{{Endgame}}'' revolved around a man who keeps a polar bear as a pet. When the bear was just a cub everything was fine but the bear grew up and now is becoming a major problem. The bear is getting too big to be kept in the garage and the owner has gone broke trying to feed it. The protagonists [[spoiler: ultimately manage to keep everyone safe and have the bear transferred to wildlife refuge in the Arctic]]. At the end the owner still does not fully understand how stupid and unintentionally cruel he was.
* Many of the misguided exotic-animal owners on Animal Planet's ''Series/FatalAttractions2010'' are TruthInTelevision examples of how mistaking this trope for reality can get you killed or maimed. Unfortunately, the show ruins the reputation for people that actually can deal with such animals as pets, to the point the movement to ban ''all'' exotic pets -- even genuinely safe ones like boa constrictors or domesticated ferrets -- has gone way too far.
* ''Series/TheHardyBoysNancyDrewMysteries'' notably averts this in "Mystery of Witches Hollow", where a trained panther is guarding a missing man (Callie Shaw's uncle) that the Hardys are trying to find. A '''very''' nervous Joe Hardy tries to trap it (the cat snarling, attacking, and decidedly NOT cooperating) by working a broom under its collar, but only succeeds in making it angry and attacking until the uncle distracts the hungry panther with a piece of meat -- also warns both Frank & Joe to keep away and that it's not a house pet. Joe (i.e. the actor [[TeenIdol Shaun Cassidy]]) looks far too relieved when he finally succeeds -- EnforcedMethodActing, perhaps?
* Not far into Season 1 of ''Series/LostInSpace'', Penny adopts a chimpanzee-like alien whom she names Debbie. After they find the alien, the parents quickly acquiesce to Penny's request to adopt Debbie, as if it were as benign as letting her keep a pet goldfish or an ant farm. This in spite of the fact that the alien chimpanzee was wild, and that earth chimpanzees in real life have been known to attack and maim human beings when someone inadvertently presses their BerserkButton.
** In another Season 1 episode, Penny is also seen riding around on a turtle-like creature.
** For all their apparent lack of concern about potential harm from alien animals, the Robinsons (but not Dr. Smith) did play it safe about the fruit they found in the episode "The Oasis," which they forbade the children or anyone else to eat until it could be thoroughly tested.
[[/folder]]

* Laughing Kookaburras are often so tame that they will eat food out of people's hands, and allow belly rubs.

* The film ''WesternAnimation/HowToTrainYourDragon2010'' (as well as the spin-off series ''WesternAnimation/DragonsRidersOfBerk'') is a subversion of this. While the dragons can be trained/tamed, they are not domesticated and wild dragons are considered extremely dangerous. It actually takes Hiccup several days just to earn Toothless's trust before he could approach the dragon, much less ride him. This is helped by the fact that it seems like dragons -- particularly Toothless -- are [[AmplifiedAnimalAptitude smarter than real-life non-human animals]], making it less of a domestication and more of a partnership.

* The film ''WesternAnimation/HowToTrainYourDragon'' (as well as the spin-off series ''WesternAnimation/DragonsRidersOfBerk'') is a subversion of this. While the dragons can be trained/tamed, they are not domesticated and wild dragons are considered extremely dangerous. It actually takes Hiccup several days just to earn Toothless's trust before he could approach the dragon, much less ride him. This is helped by the fact that it seems like dragons -- particularly Toothless -- are [[AmplifiedAnimalAptitude smarter than real-life non-human animals]], making it less of a domestication and more of a partnership.

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpMsQLkfUYU "An Unlikely Friendship]]", an advertisement for Amazon Creator/PrimeVideo, has a zookeeper decide that a spotted hyena would be happier as his pet, so he sneaks it out of the zoo and into his home. They then live together happily, as if a hyena was [[AllAnimalsAreDogs nothing more than a dog that can laugh]].

In fiction, wild animals rarely act the way that they do in real life. Those hilarious PluckyComicRelief chimpanzees and their hilarious antics? Never once do they get violent, no matter what (they may get mad for the hero's benefit, though). When animals do get mad, they're usually easily calmed down if just given whatever MacGuffin is necessary. Is a bear rampaging through town? Just give it some honey and everything will be OK. Being a FriendToAllLivingThings can help, but surprisingly often it seems like nearly anyone can calm down a wild animal.

Another strong factor is the huge number of Website/YouTube videos available showing "wild" foxes (red, white, and yellow), other canines (coyotes, dingos, hybrids of all types), and smaller cats (up to lynx size, though you do find the occasional cougar) living in apparent domestic tranquility. There are also an increasingly large number of wildlife sanctuaries where you can go along and 'pet a wolf'. Again, most people tend to miss that these animals ''only behave like pets around people they know'', usually have their own 'play/sleep room' (that they trash), and are extremely difficult/expensive to look after. The domestication is usually only partial and not hereditary, and you're only seeing the successful cases. That ambassador wolf who shoves his head into your lap and rolls over begging for you to pet his tummy? Almost certainly 50% of the animals at such places would simply run away if given the chance, and 90% of the rest will eventually bite you. The keepers picked this one for a reason.

Unfortunately, there are a depressing number of people who think this is TruthInTelevision and are apparently under the impression that nature is just a bigger version of [[Ride/DisneyThemeParks Disneyland]]. This usually does not end well...

Note that "domesticated" means "genetically altered to meet human needs", '''not''' "tamed". Until very recently, this meant intentional or unintentional selective breeding. A feral housecat is domesticated, but a trained bear is not. Also, there ''are'' some animal species that can be somewhat successfully tamed or trained if not ''entirely'' domesticated, usually due to a combination of small size (meaning even if they do act out they generally aren't threatening to teen or adult human life), intelligence (meaning training can be successful), and/or partial breeding for those traits and friendliness to humans. Some good examples would be most small rodents (field or house mice, also including wild rats/prairie dogs/gophers/tree squirrels if [[RaisedByHumans raised from birth by humans]] and trained, though their natural instincts to dig and hoard need to be accounted for), skunks (if deodorized + spayed/neutered + vaccinated against rabies and having been raised with humans from birth), and some small monkeys (in their case, if raised properly alongside humans, which means ''no'' fear-based training, raising/training much as one would a human baby/toddler), with the one larger example being some wolf-hybrid dogs (those that have docility and intelligence bred as traits). Of course, most of these, with the exception of small rodents like mice, require specialized training for their trainers/owners as well in ''how'' to train and care for them, so you can't just go and pet a wild skunk or let your female dog mate with a wolf at random or bring that monkey stealing oranges from the fruit stand into your home, either.

* Defied in ''VideoGame/TheSims2'', where if your Sim tries to pet a skunk, he/she will get sprayed by said skunk.

* Occasionally appears in ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'', but mostly through Fluttershy -- a combination of strong Animal Affinity and a super-powered DeathGlare allow her to tame [[FriendToBugs bugs]], [[BearsAreBadNews bears]], and [[FantasyKitchenSink dragons]], to name a few.

* ''Film/Nope'' is a big aversion to this all the way through. Wild animals being used as entertainment and harming people is a major theme of the film, beginning with a chimpanzee freaking out and killing multiple people on the set of a popular sitcom and culminating with [[spoiler: an alien that resembles a classic flying saucer eating everyone at a rodeo because they all looked at it, which it interpreted as a threat]].

* The ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'' anime plays it straight most of the time but also averts it a lot, especially for particularly powerful or tempermental species (Gyarados is a common offender, as are species like Ursaring, Metagross, Crawdaunt, or Charizard), which are said to take a great level of skill to successfully train and will act feral if the Trainer isn't up to it. ''Especially'' holds true for OlympusMons. You'll never see Mewtwo, Lugia, Rayquaza, Arceus, or Zekrom even remotely act domesticated. However, the end of the Sinnoh arc introduced a one-shot character named Tobias, who somehow managed to tame a ''Darkrai and Latios'' and won the Sinnoh League with them.

Compare AllAnimalsAreDogs, which is about non-canine animals exhibiting doggy mannerisms. Also see DomesticatedDinosaurs for what happens when this trope is combined with EverythingsBetterWithDinosaurs. Contrast EverythingTryingToKillYou.

* Spotted hyenas are the second largest predators in Africa, and largely feared for their raids on towns, sometimes even killing small children. However in ''[[http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20161207-the-man-who-lives-with-hyenas Harar, Ethiopia]]'' they are invited into the community, as many believe their laughter frightens away evil spirits, with some residents even hand-feeding the hyenas bones from the butchers'.

* Chimpanzees are a very, ''very'' serious aversion of this trope. As infants, they can be tamed, and are generally ppqyful, friendly, and trainable. However, once they become sexually mature, they become incredibly strong, and in males, often very aggressive, which is why most trained chimps seen in movies and TV are invariably babies. An adult male chimp can inflict terrible damage onto people if suddenly provoked, most infamously with the case of Travis the chimpanzee who ''tore apart his owner's friend's face and arms off'' before being shot by police.

* With ''VideoGame/{{Rimworld}}'' being basically ''Dwarf Fortress'' [[RecycledInSpace in space]], animal handling works mostly identical. However, Earth-like animals found on the Rim are almost universally genetically modified variants of the creatures we're familiar with, with many of them being specifically tailored for ease of domestication so that future colonists would have an easier time getting settled in. The most common household and farm animals like horses, dromedaries, buffalo-esque muffalos and dogs are so docile that pretty much anyone can tame them. The most extreme examples, namely cows, sheep and goat, are literally incapable of surviving in the wild on their own, meaning they can only be acquired from traders and are never even met in a feral state. On the flipside, while almost any creature can be tamed eventually, most really don't like being bothered by pesky humans, and attempting to interact with them without extremely high animal handling skills will usually result in your colonists getting torn apart in no time flat.

* Many of the misguided exotic-animal owners on Animal Planet's ''Series/FatalAttractions'' are TruthInTelevision examples of how mistaking this trope for reality can get you killed or maimed. Unfortunately, the show ruins the reputation for people that actually can deal with such animals as pets, to the point the movement to ban ''all'' exotic pets -- even genuinely safe ones like boa constrictors or domesticated ferrets -- has gone way too far.

* Not far into Season 1 of "LostInSpace", Penny adopts a chimpanzee-like alien whom she names Debbie. After they find the alien, the parents quickly acquiesce to Penny's request to adopt Debbie, as if it were as benign as letting her keep a pet goldfish or an ant farm. This in spite of the fact that the alien chimpanzee was wild, and that earth chimpanzees in real life have been known to attack and maim human beings when someone inadvertently presses their BerserkButton.