Tasmanian tigers could definitely become companion animals if they are not extinct.

Robert Paddle, in his book The Last Tasmanian Tiger (published 2000) researches many historical accounts of Tasmanian tigers. In the book he notes that there were over 100 cases in which a Tasmanian tiger was kept alive by an owner.

In some cases these tigers were kept on dog chains in the yard. In other cases they were kept in fenced enclosures. In addition to these accounts - plus more documented by Col Bailey in his book Tiger Tales - Tasmanian tigers were, of course, kept in zoos. Before arriving at the zoo, a freshly captured Tasmanian tiger spent time in the captivity of the trapper - for example, in a traveling cage that might be mounted onto a rail carriage.

Above: Zoo thylacine interacting with keeper.

Through all of these instances where thylacines were kept in captivity, we begin to build up a bit of a picture about what the animal might have been like as a pet.

There is an article on my website which talks about the possibility of the Tasmanian tiger being kept as a pet - do read it as there are many fascinating accounts. Some of the most interesting that come to mind include the following:

• In one instance a Tasmanian tiger was kept on a dog chain in the yard. Children would play ball in the garden near it. In some cases the ball would actually go over to the thylacine and a young girl of about five or six years would simply go over and fetch the ball, fully within reach of the tiger - the tiger simply ignored the child.
• In another case a thylacine was kept by a trapper, at his hut in the wilderness. The trapper also kept pet dogs. You could reach the hut by walking along a gravel path - anyone walking on the path would, of course, make a crunching sound with each step on the gravel. The thylacine's owner noted that if he saw the thylacine raise its head to look toward the path, he would put the kettle onto the fire to boil water. It was only when the kettle began to boil, some minutes later, that his dogs would begin to bark in the direction of the path - at the sound of someone approaching. Apart from this story being an anecdote about a tiger being kept even in the presence of dogs, it is also testament to the thylacine's acute hearing abilities - it could detect the approach of a human *minutes* before the farm dogs would hear it.

One final interesting story is that of a family of thylacines known as the Mullins family group.

Above: The recently discovered photograph of the Mullins family group as part of my analysis showing that all three joeys (young) are present in the photo. You can see how all of the animals are cowering.

A mother thylacine was trapped with three pouch young by Walter John Mullins. Until 2017 this family group was known from a photograph, and documented accounts of the capture and subsequent sale of the animals, but in 2017 a previously unpublished photograph of the tigers came to light. Mullins' granddaughter, Rose Lewis, posted a photograph of the tigers on Facebook. The photograph in her possession was taken very soon after the capture. In that photograph we see the mother thylacine cowering in the back of a transport cage, its young hiding behind it. However in the more well-known photograph of this family of thylacines, taken some months later, the animals are seemingly very placid, sleeping right at the front of the cage within easy reach of the photographer and any onlooker. This sequence of photographs suggests that even tigers captured from the wild would become placid and accept their circumstance of captivity. This is a notion attested to by 'old timer' trappers, too, as recorded by Bailey in his book Tiger Tales.

You can read more about the discovery of this amazing photograph in my article on the Mullins family group of thylacines.

Indeed, if you have any historical information about Tasmanian tigers that might be new to the public, please consider getting in touch!

To your part of the question about whether thylacines could be an alternative to dogs, I would say yes. They would never be a replacement for dogs - just as cats are not a replacement for dogs and yet many people keep cats as pets.

Remember to check out the full article on Tasmanian tigers being kept as pets.

You can find out more about Tasmanian tigers - including the examination of the evidence for many sighting claims - at my website Where Light Meets Dark or follow along on Facebook Where Light Meets Dark.