Our pets are not natural. In nature, predators like canines and felines practice natural population control. They start breeding later than domestic animals, have fewer and smaller litters, do not become pregnant again while still raising young, and, in fact, many individuals never breed at all. The abundance of food readily available to domestic animals has altered these more natural reproductive patterns. Just as the genetic differences we have affected in toy poodles would prevent one from being able to fend for itself in the wilderness, the reproductive differences we have affected would be disastrous to the survival of a wild species and its ecosystem.