Are dogs better than ostriches?

(This is another stupid thing from @JayTay)

Hats, the weather, are dogs better than ostriches?, jam, why ask Jeeves is better than Google, FarmVille, jam again.

He doesn’t go into any details as to the parameters I’m expected to use in order to determine which of the two are better, so I’ve used my own common sense to come up with some.

Of course, dogs come in many varieties and ostriches in very few, so comparisons need to take this into account. There’s no “average dog”, so instead I’ve decided to pick a dog at random to represent all dogs. I mean, how different can they be? Spinning the Wheel of Dogs[ref]Actually just this random breed generator.[/ref], I generated…

A Gordon Setter. A fine looking dog.

Representing ostriches, I chose the North African Ostrich simply because it’s the first one listed on Wikipedia and well, there are only four and they’re all the same anyway, aren’t they. Big birds. Can’t fly.

Anyway, Definitely Not Top Trumps:

Speed

I am unable to find how fast a Gordon Setter can run, but I did find a few references to “they’re not fast dogs”. Ostriches on the other hand, can run faster than 70 euromiles per hour (that’s about 43 normal miles per hour). Pretty sure that’s faster than “not fast”, and the faster an animal the better. Unless you’re trying to chase it, which of course, you wouldn’t.

Advantage: Ostriches.

Electrical Durability

It’s important to know just how many amps a potential pet can endure, but this sort of information is hard to come by. For some reason there isn’t a central resource that collects test results of this type.

Luckily, dogs are known to be 85% fur, and ostriches are 85% feathers[ref]Citation needed, I made it up[/ref], so the electrical resistance of each of these materials should be enough. The rest of each animal is meat and meat is just meat, right? So that shouldn’t differ.

As it turns out, fur and feathers have much the same electrical resistance as each other (Source: they both generate static when you rub them) so:

Advantage: Tie.

Cost

Naturally how much each animal costs is an important factor. Gordon Setter puppies will set you back around £850 each (Source: these adverts at time of going to press). Ostriches are, surprisingly, a lot cheaper at about £350 (Source: this place here). Of course, age and quality will cause the prices to vary, but that’s less than half the cost! Ostriches are clearly a bargain.

Advantage: Ostriches.

Chances of Surviving a Nuclear Apocalypse

We all know that come the inevitable (something even more inevitable in the post-facts, pro-hate world we’ve now found ourselves) Nuclear Apocalypse, we’ll need animals to provide us with food and labour. So which of the two species are most likely to continue after Britain becomes an irradiated wasteland?

Unfortunately, nuclear testing on this sort of scale has never been recorded, so my frame of reference is the Fallout series of videogames. In several of the games dogs quite clearly have survived the end of the world, and unlike most other creatures haven’t only mutated into massive monsters or grown extra heads or evolved to spit acid.

Ostriches, on the other hand, are nowhere to be seen in the Fallout universe. I think this is quite telling.

Advantage: Dogs.

Magic Powers

Everyone knows the best animals (unicorns, platypuses, snakes) have magic powers, so how do dog and ostrich magic powers stack up against each other?

Ostriches can magically bury their head in the sand (yes, this is a magic power), but lack any other arcane skills. Dogs lack even this basic skill, and can perform no magic at all. They can’t even tell you which card you picked. Even if you tell them.

Advantage: Ostriches.