There doesn't seem to be any dogs in Bloomburrow. I'm sad.

In my first preview column for Bloomburrow, I talked about the two takes we could do for the anthropomorphic animal genre. Take #1 involved working around a biome, so it was limited to creatures of that biome. Take #2 allowed any animals we wanted as it wasn’t built around a biome. We obviously went with Take #1 which greatly shaped the animal selection options. Had we done Take #2, there probably would have been Dogs, but probably very little typal.

Has there ever been any thought to combining the Ox and Minotaur creature types? Such as simplifying both to simply "Cow?" I'm a huge fan of bovines in all forms and it would be nice if all of the Ox in magic worked alongside their more anthropomorphic cousins the Minotaur. As it is now we're lucky to really get cards of *either* type printed. There's resonance to the name Minotaur, no doubt, but it also has its share of baggage. It has Greek connotations and that's probably a big reason Minotaurs are almost strictly in Theros (although some favorites, such as Neheb, are from other planes). I was happy that Outlaws had more Ox cards, but it also highlights my dissatisfaction: Holy Cow is an *ox* not a cow, despite the name. It feels like a retread of the Hound or Naga debacle all over again. Hound was simplified to Dog and all Snakes, from rattlesnakes to Naga, are simply the type Snake now. This allows snakes and dogs of all walks benefit from a shared unity. Cats had it right, we didn't need Leonin as a separate type.I just feel like there's unnecessary separation being created by dividing Ox and Minotaur and it has the same resonance failings as all dogs being labeled "hounds" had. If it's important for a particular creature to *be* a minotaur then they can just *have* minotaur in their name, like ~30% of minotaurs already do. There's also the simple fact that Minotaur is a longer average creature type, limiting design space for other types to be included. It's hard to justify why a Minotaur is on a random plane, but much less so if it's simply a "Cow Warrior" for example. As for why I think "Cow" should just be the combined type name, I simply think it fits. Cow is a resonant name. Almost everyone, East to west, knows *of* cows if only because their milk is such a widely used commodity. We don't call it "Ox's milk" after all. More than that, it's fun! Cow is *funny* in the same way *squirrel* is funny. It's amusing to see "Squirrels you control" in this game full of fighting. In that vein, "Cows you control" is an amusing line that can help break up the seriousness of a setting. I know this is making a mountain out of a molehill, but magic is a game of different perspectives coming together and creating something new. Cows are my favorite animal and it's simply dissatisfying, to me, that my Holy Cow can't benefit from a Kragma Warcaller. That Angrath, colloquially named "Cow Dad" in the community, would have the creature type "Minotaur." The only downside I can see is that "Cow" *does* specifically refer to females of a bovine species. But that is a distinction few, if any, seriously take into consideration. If one sees a field of cows, they're not saying "I see lots of cows and 3 bulls!" They're going to say "I see cows!"So to bring the thesis back, has there been any discussion internally to simplifying the Minotaur and Ox creature types under a single banner, such as "Cow?" I would also happily settle for "Cattle" as the new type. I just feel the current Ox vs Minotaur divide has to go, for both flavor and mechanical reasons, and the sooner the better.

I have been on Team Cow (as I was on Team Dog) for many years. I even made Cows in Un-sets. I still believe Minotaur should be its own creature type though.

Are there any domestic animals on Bloomburrow, i.e. dogs or cats?

There aren’t any in Bloomburrow.

Are there any plans to add oracle text changes to make certain past creatures Detectives? Or at the very least make Dogged Detective from New Capenna one.

I don’t believe there are current plans to do so.

I think a Kobold version of you would be called Bark Rosewater.

Wouldn’t that be either a Dog or Treefolk version of me?

Since people are requesting batches…I’d like to request PETS: dogs, cats…maybe mice, ferrets? I am sure it would be poplular.

Maybe one day.

Hi Mark! About creature types. You’ve said before R&D is skittish about errataing creature types, but there’s been a lot of doing that anyway lately. Apart from changing the types of animal-people like viashino and cephalid to better synergize with their non-anthropomorphic counterparts, sloth was added to a few cards with Fallout, and now dragons from Kaladesh received the cat type. Efreet was phased out in favor of djinn, but not retroactively like naga - all the efreet cards are still efreet, but there won’t be new ones anymore. And lastly, despite both types entering the game around the same time, sloth gets added, detective doesn’t. Arboreal Grazer went from beast to sloth beast, but Dogged Detective stays merely a human rogue.  I’m fully in favor of the general direction that’s taken with creature types, and I also understand the risk of doing a lot of this in a game with paper cards. But the way it’s currently being handled feels extremely inconsistent, and the categorizer in me feels upset!
So, my question is: could you, or someone who is in charge of this, elaborate on the seemingly complex reasonings as to which creature type gets added, added but not errata’d, replaced, or phased out (perhaps in an article)? You’ve said before it’s not, but it really does seem scattershot, and I want to understand.Thank you!

Here’s the problem. It’s mostly done piecemeal which creates the inconsistency you’re talking about. Let me bring it up with the relevant people.

why are canids all split in different types (Dogs, wolves, Jackals, Foxes, and up to a certain point, Hounds), while all felines, no matter what variance in taxonomy, are typed as just Cat? It seems a bit unfair, specially if you are trying to do any sort of Canine kindred deck, as support for them is just scattered between all of these types.

It helps greatly that people refer to all felines as Cat (often jungle cat for the large ones).

Is there a reason there's a distinction between dogs, wolves, and werewolves but lions, tigers and leonin are still considered cats?

Vernacular speech. People call lions “cats” but not wolves “dogs”.

During the most recent creature type errata Naga are being changed to Snake. Jackals have fewer creatures than Nagas, so why weren't they changed to Dog? What's the criteria for a creature type errata if it's not based on creature types with fewer cards being rolled into larger ones?

The simple answer is Jackals aren’t Dogs in the vernacular of how people talk about them. We try to avoid using creature types that make for creative dissonance.