Dogs & Druids: Domesticated Animals Training (RPG Economics)
The Dark Ages
When many table top role playing games were first published, much of the common knowledge around animal training, particularly of dogs, was full of bad information. There were pioneers emerging in the field, and some of them use ancient techniques, but in the US during the 1980s and 1990s a lot of the things ordinary people thought they knew about animals were very wrong.
And most role playing games are set in medieval fantasy worlds, historical knowledge of animal training techniques from that era is incomplete, but at least some of it was very cruel. So RPG writers can easily be forgiven for thinking Druids would be mostly suspicious of humans and that powers like the ability to communicate with animals via animal telepathy or use healing touch on animals wouldn't change much.
However, this overlooks both the psychology of humans, animal behavior, and the economy of those times.
In the ancient world domesticated animals like chickens, ducks, goats, sheep, pigs, cows, horses, dogs and pigeons were the foundation of the global economy. Tamed animals like cats, falcons and elephants were also important. Animals were transportation from dogs pulling a travois or sled, to oxen pulling a cart, to horses pulling chariots or carriages. Sheep provided wool for clothing. Goats ate thorns to clear land for agriculture and provided milk and cheese. Cow manure was important fertilizer for farms. Pigeons were both a food source and a communication method.
And dogs are among the most versatile animals. A team of dogs can pull a cart or sled. They can be trained to hunt rats better than cats. They can track by smell. They can retrieve game. They can flush or point to game. They can guard and sound an alarm by barking. They can run messages or fight in war. They can help fishermen at sea. They can perform search and rescue. But dogs are even better than that in the modern era! They can smell diseases, drugs or explosives!
Doctor Doolittle
And this is where RPG games get it wrong. They often try to nerf druid abilities by making them temporary, apply only to the druid, limited number of animals per day, etc. But this doesn't matter. That dogs can smell diseases would immediately change the world. It doesn't even matter that druid abilities are temporary or only apply to druids. Modern humans don't have magic and still train dogs to detect diseases. Simply the knowledge that dogs CAN smell diseases would have changed the ancient world. Druids would have no reason to keep this information secret and would definitely use this power. It would foster respect between the human and animal kingdoms. This discovery would lead to dogs working for doctors and would also likely lead to the discovery of therapy dogs hundreds of years sooner than would otherwise happen.
And this principle can also be applied to dogs being able to smell drugs and other substances. This would be even easier to train dogs for than disease detection and anyone with a substance could train a dog to find it. Particularly in settings where exploration and adventure are prominent, training dogs to detect magic potions or certain rare substances would be popular.
And druids would pioneer positive reinforcement training techniques of course.
Animal Owners
One of the overlooked aspects of druid magic in a world is how much people love animals. If there were a person you could take your pet to and get an accurate translation people would definitely do that. Nobles would regularly go to druids with their favorite hunting dog and their favorite horse. Powerful village elders would bring their cat in for a visit. And once disease detecting dogs took off, druids would be sought out when the diagnosis was unclear. And of course any animal healing ability would be incredibly in demand. Prized breeding livestock, race horses and well trained dogs would be taken in for healing if they were injured. Druids would be respected, wealthy, powerful numbers of rural communities like veterinarians are today.
In adventure or in war, a druid would be extremely important. Mounted knights would recruit them to care for their animals and adventurers would recruit them to keep their dog teams healthy. Humans and dogs already get along great. Adding druids to a world would mean people would change the way they think about animals, the way they train animals, the way they care for animals. Druids would dramatically increase the utility, knowledge and importance of animals in society and the economy. Considering how crucial domesticated animals already were to human economies, it would make pets ubiquitous. Some of these settings have magic scrolls that can turn an animal into a familiar. The nobility would want familiars, the rare and more exotic the animal the better. But it is difficult to imagine there would be many people without a pet in a world where talking to pets is possible.
Dogs Have Thoughts
One other mistake I think RPGs make with regard to domesticated animals, especially dogs, is that dogs really, really like people. When games try to nerf druid abilities by saying they are only temporary and only apply to the druid I don't think dogs work that way. If you trained a dog by using animal empathy AFTER the dog did a trick, that dog would do that trick on command. Just like dogs perform tricks for years after you have stopped giving them food every time they do it, a druid trainer would be able to train animals far beyond what trainers today are capable of. We got our dog when she was eight years old and she had already been well trained. That we weren't her original trainers was quickly solved with some turkey. That another person trains the dog doesn't really matter to the dog. Not only would be druids be fantastic dog trainers, they could also lead training classes where a group of dog owners could be trained at once.
In conclusion, druids would bridge the world of domestic animals and humans, transforming any fantasy world far beyond what is typically portrayed.
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