Free Ranging Dogs - Stray, Feral or Wild?

Free Ranging Dogs - Stray, Feral or Wild?

First edition

Copyright © 2015  Guillaume de Lavigne

All rights reserved

ISBN : 978-1-326-21952-9

This book is under licence Creative Commons - Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) which you can read here: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.5/deed.en

or write to :

Creative Commons

171 Second Street, Suite 300

San Francisco, California 94105, USA

http://www.lulu.com

Distribution by Lulu.com

Shared loneliness in a cruel world

Introduction

A while ago, our friend and we were discussing the tricky problem caused by all those abandoned and loose dogs wandering about in our village. Our friend Julie used the word stray dog; I said wandering dog and we debated on which term would fit best. It seemed the subject was much harder to circumscribe than we at first thought.

In Crete, where we live, dog lovers are challenged with two main difficulties: Being real dog lovers, we care for our dogs, take them regularly for a walk and take them with us wherever we go, be it in town, at the open market or at the beach. Older Greek persons once looked at us as if we were aliens and we have lived an epoch when people shouted at us on the beach and threatened us to call the police, which they did. In more than ten years’ time, they’ve learned to know us; their children obtained their permission to have a pet too; the law has drastically changed and we are not those crazy foreigners anymore. We’ve seen a huge change in mentality over the last years, particularly with younger adults and children.

Alas, nothing is perfect. Loose dogs, owned or not, lost dogs and abandoned dogs are legion and a real plague in the cities as well as in the smaller communities. The refuges are few and cannot keep up with the demands; most of the Greek people don’t want to give a dime to neuter their dog. Something should be done! Something is done. Some foreign and Greek volunteers do whatever they can to collect stray dogs, to neuter them and to find them a foster home, here or abroad.

The latest Greek law concerning animal care dates back from February 2014 and details as well as any other European law what can and what cannot be done with animals in general and with pets in particular. But the means are lacking to implement it; the police and the citizens consider it an unimportant matter.

Puzzled with all this, I decided to collect as much information as I could concerning stray, feral and wild dogs; where they live; where they come from and to look into some more philosophical subjects like animal ethics, animal welfare, etc.

Immediately I was faced with an obstacle: the majority of all those interesting subjects were of no interest at all for the local Greek people. What they needed was answers; answers to some simple questions like Is a dog dangerous for my child? Does it transmit diseases? Why should I neuter it? What’s this new thing called microchip? What does the law say in a clear language? What can I do with a dog? and much more.

I left my first documents aside and wrote an entire Greek book on the subject, aimed at and dedicated to the Greek local village people. It is finished, published, distributed. Time now to edit the English manuscript I’d left in my drawer.

I divided it in four parts: The first deals with definitions and subjects of general interest including the stray dogs. The second looks into the pariah dogs and the third into the wild dogs. I’ve included as many examples of dogs, cities and countries I have found to give an idea of the extent of the problem, which is not circumscribed to our immediate neighborhood, but which is huge and worldwide. The fourth describes animal ethics, comprising philosophical, legal and human aspects of the human-dog relationship and beyond.

You can find all these subjects on internet, but I assure you, you will lose yourself in the labyrinth of hyperlinks and you will abandon quickly. It is nicer reading a book in a cosy armchair than sitting in front of a screen and this book assembles everything you want to know in a clear and logical way. The table of contents will help you; it gives you a clear idea of what you can find so you won’t … wander aimlessly about.

Part I: Definitions

In common language we use the term stray dog. As a matter of fact, we should use the more global term free-ranging dog, which is any dog that is not contained. The term encompasses various loose categories relating to the ownership, behaviour, and descent of such dogs, including stray dogs, street dogs and village dogs, wild dogs, feral dogs, as well as dogs allowed to come and go freely by their owners. It sometimes overlaps with the polysemic term pariah dog. The term is used when distinctions of ownership are irrelevant.

A stray dog is any dog that is not contained. It may also refer to:

an urban street dog, unconfined dogs that live in cities,

a village dog,

a pariah dog, a dog with a pariah lifestyle.

Wild dog is a term broadly applied to canines which are either not domesticated or not owned. It may also refer to:

feral dogs, domestic dogs living as wild animals,

any of several wild canine species that are commonly called 'dogs' or 'wild dogs' but are not true dogs,

any wild canid, any member of the dog family of carnivores, Canidae, including wolves, jackals, coyotes, foxes, and many more that are commonly contrasted with 'dogs' in other contexts.

Probably everybody will agree about the term wild, imagining a Dingo, a wild African or Indian dog or even a wolf. The term stray though is not that obvious, even after having read the description of it. Indeed, in English the definition of stray is: any dog that is not contained, be it a dog which is not under immediate control of its owner, a lost dog or an abandoned dog. This touches me; this hurts me. Which dog owner and lover agrees when his dog, momentarily lost or out of sight, is called a stray? The English law states this: "A stray dog is any dog which is running free in a public place without its owner being present. Legally it makes no difference if the dog is loose accidentally, has been released without authority of the owner, or has been deliberately allowed to roam."

The French tongue uses different words for different situations. Loosely translated, it would be like this:

When you take your dog out for a walk and let it caper around on the public highway, in a field or park, … under eye control, it "divaguer", it wanders about.

When a hunting dog gets out of control and wanders about for hours or until the next day, it "vagabonder", it roams. .

When a dog is abandoned, walking aimlessly about, it is "errant, it’s a stray dog. (errant is translated wandering or roaming" in English!).

The pack theory

I will not discuss this in depth, but I’d like to insist on a common misbelief that a dog’s owner is a leader of a pack and has to act accordingly.

This myth dates back from the Middle Ages and rests on many preconceived ideas. In the past, the prevailing view on wolf packs was that they consisted of individuals competing with each other for dominance, with dominant wolves being referred to as the alpha male and female, and the subordinates as beta and omega wolves. This terminology was first used in 1947 by Rudolf Schenkel of the University of Basel, who based his findings on researching the behaviour of captive wolves. This view on wolf pack dynamics was later popularized by L. David Mech in his 1970 book The Wolf. He formally disavowed this terminology in 1999 (!), explaining that it was heavily based on the behaviour of captive packs consisting of unrelated individuals, an error reflecting the once prevailing view that wild pack formation occurred in winter among independent wolves. Later research on wild wolves revealed that the pack is usually a family consisting of a breeding pair and its offspring of the previous 1–3 years.

All previous dog education theories were based on this misbelief; modern theories, based on a scientific approach states that the pack-concept is false and outdated. Since wolves don’t live in packs and since dogs are direct descendants of wolves, dogs do not live or act in packs, neither are their owners pack-leaders. All references to the pack-concept in the following texts must be interpreted as nuclear family. We will retain a pack of sledge dogs, because it belongs to the traditional tongue.

Taxonomy of the Canidae

Before starting with the main subject, we need to have a glimpse at the taxonomy, the classification of the Canidae, to which all dogs belong.

FAMILY CANIDAE (Extant and recently extinct species) groups wolves, dogs, chacals, foxes and others.

Subfamily Caninae

A True dogs - Tribe Canini

1 Genus Canis

a Gray wolf, Canis lupus

b Domestic dog, Canis lupus familiaris

c Dingo, most often classified as Canis lupus dingo (sometimes considered a separate taxon) (many other subspecies)

d Coyote, Canis latrans (prairie wolf)

e Ethiopian wolf, Canis simensis (also called Abyssinian wolf, simien fox and simien jackal)

f Golden jackal, Canis aureus

g Side-striped jackal, Canis adustus

h Black-backed jackal, Canis mesomelas

2 Genus Cuon

Dhole, Cuon alpinus or Canis alpinus (also called Asian wild dog)

3 Genus Lycaon

African wild dog, Lycaon pictus (also called African hunting dog)

4 Genus Atelocynus

Short-eared dog, Atelocynus microtis

5 Genus Cerdocyon

Crab-eating fox, Cerdocyon thous

6 Genus Dusicyon †

Falklands wolf, Dusicyon australis †

7Genus Lycalopex (Pseudalopex)

8 Genus Chrysocyon

Maned wolf, Chrysocyon brachyurus

9 Genus Speothos

Bush dog, Speothos venaticus

B True foxes - Tribe Vulpini

1 Genus Vulpes

2 Genus Urocyon

C Basal Caninae

1 Genus Otocyon (probably a vulpine close to Urocyon)

Bat-eared fox, Otocyon megalotis

2 Genus Nyctereutes

Raccoon dog, Nyctereutes procyonoides

The domestic dog (Canis lupus familiaris) is a subspecies of the gray wolf (Canis lupus), a member of the Canidae family of the mammalian order Carnivora. The term domestic dog is generally used for both domesticated and feral varieties.

Canis lupus has 39 subspecies currently described, including two subspecies of domestic dog, Canis lupus dingo and Canis lupus familiaris, and many subspecies of wolf.

Canis lupus subspecies still existing are:

1 Eurasian wolf, Canis lulus lupus

2 Tundra wolf, Canis lupus albus

3 Arabian wolf, Canis lupus arabs

4 Arctic wolf, Canis lupus arctos

5 Mexican wolf, Canis lupus baileyi

6 Steppe wolf, Canis lupus campestris

7 Tibetan wolf, Canis lupus chanco

8 Vancouver Island wolf, Canis lupus crassodon

9 Dingo, Canis lupus dingo

10 Domestic dog, Canis lupus familiaris

11 Hudson Bay wolf, Canis lupus hudsonicus

12 Northern Rocky Mountains wolf, Canis lupus irremotus

13 Labrador wolf, Canis lupus labradorius

14 Alexander Archipelago wolf, Canis lupus ligoni

15 Astern wolf, Canis lupus lycaon

16 Mackenzie River wolf, Canis lupus mackenzii

17 Baffin Island wolf, Canis lupus manningi

18 Mackenzie Valley wolf, Canis lupus occidentalis

19 Greenland wolf, Canis lupus orion

20 Indian wolf, Canis lupus pallipes

21 Yukon wolf, Canis lupus pambasileus

22 Red wolf, Canis lupus rufus or Canis rufus

23 Alaskan Tundra wolf, Canis lupus tundrarum

Two subspecies not mentioned in the list above are the Italian Wolf (Canis lupus italicus - which occurs in the Italian Peninsula, Switzerland and Southern France) and the Iberian Wolf (Canis lupus signatus). The wolves of the Italian and Iberian peninsulas have morphologically distinct features from other Eurasian wolves and each are considered by their researchers to represent their own subspecies.

The genetic distinction of the Italian wolf subspecies was recently supported by analysis which consistently assigned all the wolf genotypes of a sample in Italy to a single group. This population also showed a unique mitochondrial DNA control-region haplotype, the absence of private alleles and lower heterozygosity at microsatellite loci, as compared to other wolf populations.

Recent genetic research suggests that the Indian Wolf populations in the Indian subcontinent may represent a distinct species from their conspecifics. Similar results were obtained for the Himalayan wolf, which is traditionally placed under the Tibetan wolf (Canis lupus chanco).

The Himalayan wolf (provisional name: "Canis himalayensis") has been suggested by several Indian biologists for recognition as a critically endangered canid species, distinct from Canis lupus. Results of mitochondrial DNA analysis suggests that the Himalayan wolf is phylogenetically distinct from the Tibetan wolf Canis lupus chanco.

The Russian wolf Canis lupus communis is a variety of the Canis lupus lupus and is not recognised as a subspecies.

Wolves show a great deal of polymorphism geographically, though they can interbreed. European, North American, Asian and African wolves differ greatly in their appearance, coat and behaviour. Japanese and Mongolian wolves are extinct.

Origin of the domestic dog

The origin of the domestic dog (Canis lupus familiaris) began with the domestication of the Grey Wolf (Canis lupus) several tens of thousands of years ago. Genetic and archaeological evidence shows that humans domesticated wolves on more than one occasion, with the present lineage of C. l. familiaris arising at the latest 15,000 years ago as evidenced by the Bonn-Oberkassel site and possibly as early as 33,000 years ago as evidenced by the mtDNA testing on a paleolithic dog's remains from the Razboinichya Cave (Altai Mountains).

Lineage

The earliest fossil carnivores that can be linked with some certainty to canids (wolves, foxes and dogs) are the Eocene Miacids some 38 to 56 million years ago. From the miacids evolved the cat-like (Feloidea) and dog-like (Canoidea) carnivores. The canoid line led from the coyote-sized Mesocyon of the Oligocene (38 to 24 million years ago) to the fox-like Leptocyon and the wolf-like Tomarctus that wandered North America some 10 million years ago.

Canis lepophagus, a small, narrow skulled North American canid of the Miocene era, led to the first true wolves at the end of the Blancan North American Stage such as Canis priscolatrans which evolved into Canis etruscus, then Canis mosbachensis, and in turn C. mosbachensis evolved to become Canis lupus, the Gray Wolf, immediate precursor to the domestic dogs. The particular subspecies of wolf that gave rise to the various lineages of domesticated dogs has yet to be elucidated, but it is thought that either an undiscovered extinct subspecies or Canis lupus pallipes, the Indian wolf, are the best candidates.

Domestication

How exactly the domestication of the Grey Wolf happened is unclear, but theories include the following:

Orphaned wolf-cubs

Studies have shown that some wolf pups taken at an early age and reared by humans are easily tamed and socialized. At least one study has demonstrated that adult wolves can be successfully socialized. However, according to other researchers attempts to socialize wolves after the pups reach 21 days of age are very time-consuming and seldom practical or reliable in achieving success. Many scientists believe that humans adopted orphaned wolf cubs and nursed them alongside human babies. Once these early adoptees started breeding among themselves, a new generation of tame wolf-like domestic animals would result which would, over generations of time, become more dog-like.

Promise of food/self-domestication

Early wolves would, as scavengers, be attracted to human field kills and refuse left at human campsites. Dr. Raymond Coppinger of Hampshire College (Massachusetts) argues that those wolves that were more successful at interacting with humans would pass these traits on to their offspring, eventually creating wolves with a greater propensity to be domesticated. The most social and least fearful wolves were the ones who were kept around the human living areas, helping to breed those traits that are still recognized in dogs today.

Coppinger believes that a behavioural characteristic called flight distance was crucial to the transformation from wild wolf to the ancestors of the modern dog. It represents how close an animal will allow humans (or anything else it perceives as dangerous) to get before it runs away. Animals with shorter flight distances will linger, and feed, when humans are close by; this behavioural trait would have been passed on to successive generations, and amplified, creating animals that are increasingly more comfortable around humans. My argument is that what domesticated or tame means is to be able to eat in the presence of human beings. That is the thing that wild wolves can't do.

Furthermore, selection for domesticity had the side effect of selecting genetically related physical characteristics, and behaviour such as barking. Hypothetically, wolves separated into two populations, the village-oriented scavengers and the packs of hunters. The next steps have not been defined, but selective pressure must have been present to sustain the divergence of these populations.

Experimental evidence

As an experiment in the domestication of wolves, the farm fox experiment of Russian scientist Dmitry Belyaev attempted to re-enact how domestication may have occurred. Researchers, working with wild silver foxes selectively bred over 35 generations and 40 years for the sole trait of friendliness to humans, created more dog-like animals. The domestic elite foxes are much more friendly to humans and actually seek human attention, but they also show new physical traits that parallel the selection for tameness, even though the physical traits were not originally selected for. They include spotted or black-and-white coats, floppy ears, tails that curl over their backs, the barking vocalization and earlier sexual maturity.

It was reported On average, the domestic foxes respond to sounds two days earlier and open their eyes one day earlier than their non-domesticated cousins. More striking is that their socialization period has greatly increased. Instead of developing a fear response at 6 weeks of age, the domesticated foxes don't show it until 9 weeks of age or later. The whimpering and tail wagging is a holdover from puppyhood, as are the foreshortened face and muzzle. Even the new coat colours can be explained by the altered timing of development. One researcher found that the migration of certain melanocytes (which determine colour) was delayed, resulting in a black and white 'star' pattern.

Archaeology

Archaeology has placed the earliest known domestication approximately 30,000 BC, and with certainty at 7,000 BC. Other evidence suggests that dogs were first domesticated in southern East Asia.

Due to the difficulty in assessing the structural differences in bones, the identification of a domestic dog based on cultural evidence is of special value. Perhaps the earliest clear evidence for this domestication is the first dog found buried together with human from 12,000 years ago in Israel and a burial site in Germany called Bonn-Oberkassel with joint human and dog interments dating to 14,000 years ago.

In 2008, re-examination of material excavated from Goyet Cave in Belgium in the late 19th century resulted in the identification of a 31,700 year old dog, a large and powerful animal which ate reindeer, musk oxen and horses. This dog was part of the Aurignacian culture that had produced the art in Chauvet Cave.

In 2010, the remains of a 33,000 year old dog were found in the Altai Mountains of southern Siberia. DNA analysis published in 2013 affirmed that it was more closely related to modern dogs than to wolves. In 2011, the skeleton of a 26,000 to 27,000 year old dog was found in the Czech Republic. It had been interred with a mammoth bone in its mouth—perhaps to assist its journey in the afterlife.

Domestication of the wolf over time has produced a number of physical or morphological changes. These include: a reduction in overall size; changes in coat colouration and markings; a shorter jaw initially with crowding of the teeth and, later, with the shrinking in size of the teeth; a reduction in brain size and thus in cranial capacity (particularly those areas relating to alertness and sensory processing, necessary in the wild); and the development of a pronounced stop, or vertical drop in front of the forehead (brachycephaly). Certain wolf-like behaviours, such as the regurgitation of partially digested food for the young, have also disappeared.

DNA evidence

Before DNA was used, researchers were divided into two schools of thought:

Most supposed that these early dogs were descendants of tamed wolves, which interbred and evolved into a domesticated species.

Other scientists, while believing wolves were the chief contributor, suspected that jackals or coyotes contributed to the dog's ancestry.

Carles Vilà, who has conducted the most extensive study to date, has shown that DNA evidence has ruled out any ancestor canine species except the wolf. Vilà's team analysed 162 different examples of wolf DNA from 27 populations in Europe, Asia, and North America. These results were compared with DNA from 140 individual dogs from 67 breeds gathered from around the world. Using blood or hair samples, DNA was extracted and genetic distance for mitochondrial DNA was estimated between individuals.

Based on this DNA evidence, most of the domesticated dogs were found to be members of one of four groups. The largest and most diverse group contains sequences found in the most ancient dog breeds, including the dingo of Australia, the New Guinea Singing Dog, and many modern breeds, like the collie and retriever. Other groups such as the German Shepherd Dog showed a closer relation to wolf sequences than to those of the main dog group, suggesting that such breeds had been produced by crossing dogs with wild wolves. It is also possible that this is evidence that dogs may have been domesticated from wolves on different occasions and at different places. Vilà is still uncertain whether domestication happened once–after which domesticated dogs bred with wolves from time to time or whether it happened more than once.

A 2002 study by Peter Savolainen et al. identified mitochondrial DNA evidence suggesting a common origin from a single southern East Asian gene pool for all dog populations. In 2010, a study by Bridgett vonHoldt et al., using a larger data set of nuclear markers, pointed to the Middle East as the source of most of the genetic diversity in the domestic dog and a more likely origin of domestication events. Z-L Ding et al. (2011) presented new Y-chromosome data from 151 dogs sampled worldwide, again pointing to a single domestication region south of the Yangtze river. The convergence of mtDNA and Y-chromosome variability in this region, the authors propose, indicate that a large number of wolves were domesticated, probably several hundred, as part of a sustained cultural practice.

The most puzzling fact of the DNA evidence is that the variability in molecular distance between dogs and wolves seems greater than the 10,000–20,000 years assigned to domestication. Yet the process and economics of domestication by humans only emerged later in this period in any case. Based upon the molecular clock studies conducted, it would seem that dogs separated from the wolf lineage approximately 100,000 years ago. While evidence for fossil dogs lessens considerably beyond 14,000 years ago and ending 33,000 years ago, there are fossils of wolf bones in association with early humans from well beyond 100,000 years ago.

Tamed wolves might have taken up with hunter-gatherers without changing in ways that the fossil record could clearly capture. The influx of new genes from those crossings could very well explain the extraordinarily high number of dog breeds that exist today, the researchers suggest. Dogs have much greater genetic variability than other domesticated animals, such as cats, asserts Vilà.

Once agriculture took hold, dogs would have been selected for different tasks, their wolf-like natures becoming a handicap as they became herders and guards. Molecular biologist Elaine Ostrander is of the view that When we became an agricultural society, what we needed dogs for changed enormously, and a further and irrevocable division occurred at that point. This may be the point that stands out in the fossil record, when dogs and wolves began to develop noticeably different morphologies.

A 2009 study of African dogs found a high level of mtDNA diversity. The authors suggest that a new view of the domestication of the dog may be needed. A study by the Kunming Institute of Zoology found that the domestic dog is descended from wolves tamed less than 16,300 years ago south of the Yangtse river in China. An older report said that all dog mitochondrial DNA came from three wild Asian female wolves

Specialization

As humans migrated around the planet, a variety of dog forms migrated with them. The agricultural revolution and subsequent urban revolution led to an increase in the dog population and a demand for specialization. These circumstances would provide the opportunity for selective breeding to create specialized types of working dogs and pets.

Neoteny in the rapid evolution of diverse dog breeds

This rapid evolution of dogs from wolves is an example of neoteny or paedomorphism. As with many species, young wolves are more social and less dominant than adults; therefore, the selection for these characteristics, whether deliberate or inadvertent, is more likely to result in a simple retention of juvenile characteristics into adulthood than to generate a complex of independent new changes in behaviour. (This is true of many domesticated animals.)

This paedomorphic selection naturally results in a retention of juvenile physical characteristics as well. Compared to wolves, many adult dog breeds retain such juvenile characteristics as soft fuzzy fur, round torsos, large heads and eyes, ears that hang down rather than stand erect, etc.; characteristics which are shared by most juvenile mammals, and therefore generally elicit some degree of protective and nurturing behaviour cross-species from most adult mammals, including humans, who term such characteristics cute or appealing.

The example of canine neoteny goes even further, in that the various breeds are differently neotenized according to the type of behaviour that was selected.

Herding dogs exhibit the controlled characteristics of hunting dogs. Members of this group, such as Border Collies, Belgian Malinois and German Shepherds, use tactics of hunter and prey to intimidate and keep control of herds and flocks. Their natural instinct to bring down an animal under their charge is muted by training. Other members of the group, including Welsh Corgis, Canaan dogs, and Cattle dogs, herd with a more aggressive demeanour (such as biting and nipping at the heels of the animals) and make use of body design to elude the defences of their charges.

Gun dog breeds used in hunting, that is, pointers, setters, spaniels, and retrievers, have an intermediate degree of paedomorphism; they are at the point where they share in the pack's hunting behaviour, but are still in a junior role, not participating in the actual attack. They identify potential prey and freeze into immobility, for instance, but then refrain from stalking the prey as an adult predator would do; this results in the pointing behaviour for which such dogs are bred. Similarly, they seize dead or wounded prey and bring it back to the pack, even though they did not attack it themselves, that is, retrieving behaviour. Their physical characteristics are closer to that of the mature wild canine than the sheepdog breeds, but they typically do not have erect ears, etc.

Scenthounds maintain an intermediate body type and behaviour pattern that causes them to actually pursue prey by tracking their scent, but tend to refrain from actual individual attacks in favour of vocally summoning the pack leaders (in this case, humans) to do the job. They often have a characteristic vocalization called a bay. Some examples are the Beagle, Bloodhound, Basset Hound, Coonhound, Dachshund, Fox Hound, Otter Hound, and Harrier.

Sighthounds, who pursue and attack perceived prey on sight, maintain the mature canine size and some features, such as narrow chest and lean bodies, but have largely lost the erect ears of the wolf and thick double layered coats. Some examples are the Afghan Hound, Borzoi, Saluki, Sloughi, Pharaoh Hound, Azawakh, Whippet, and Greyhound.

Mastiff-types are large dogs, both tall and massive with barrel-like chests, large bones, and thick skulls. They have traditionally been bred for war, protection, and guardian work.

Bulldog-types are medium sized dogs bred for combat against both wild and domesticated animals. These dogs have a massive, square skull and large bones with an extremely muscular build and broad shoulders.

Terriers similarly have adult aggressive behaviour, famously coupled with a lack of juvenile submission, and display correspondingly adult physical features such as erect ears, although many breeds have also been selected for size and sometimes dwarfed legs to enable them to pursue prey in their burrows.

The least paedomorphic behaviour pattern may be that of the basenji, bred in Africa to hunt alongside humans almost on a peer basis. This breed is often described as highly independent, neither needing nor appreciating a great deal of human attention or nurturing, often described as catlike in its behaviour. It too has the body plan of an adult canine predator.

Of course, dogs in general possess a significant ability to modify their behaviour according to experience, including adapting to the behaviour of humans. This allows them to be trained to behave in a way that is not specifically the most natural to their breed; nevertheless, the accumulated experience of thousands of years shows that some combinations of nature and nurture are quite daunting, for instance, training whippets to guard flocks of sheep.

Stray dog

Ecologists find it important at times to distinguish between urban free-ranging dogs and rural free-ranging dogs. The distinction can be important as the ecological impact of, and evolutionary pressures on, these groups can be quite different.

Free-ranging urban (street) dog

Street dogs, known in scientific literature as free-ranging urban dogs or urban free-ranging dogs, are unconfined dogs that live in cities. They live virtually wherever cities exist and the local human population allows. Street dogs may be pets which have strayed from or are simply allowed freedom by their owners, or may never have had an owner. Street dogs may be stray purebreds, true mixed-breed dogs, or not bred landraces such as the Indian pariah dog. Street dog overpopulation can cause problems for the societies in which they live, so campaigns to spay and neuter them are sometimes implemented. They tend to differ from rural free-ranging dogs in their skill sets, socialization, and ecological effects.

Origin

In European and American cities free-ranging dogs are known to come from the following main sources, listed in order of importance:

- Pet releases: too many owners let their pet go out freely early in the morning or in the evening. If for any reason at all it doesn’t come home, it joints the free-ranging dog population.

- Pet escapes: Dogs jump over fences or crawl underneath them; fence doors are left open allowing the dog to wander about in the streets.

- Breeding: Dogs mate; the puppies become free-ranging dogs.

- Pets abandoned by their owners: There are hundred reasons why owners abandon their favorite pet: they move; they cannot afford it anymore, they cannot handle it, …

- Pets stolen and afterwards abandoned: For the same reasons as the previous?

During the summer free-ranging dogs are observed in the early morning and late in the evening, because it’s at that time pets are released by their owners. Long-time free-ranging dogs avoid the heat during daytime and look for garbage in the evening. Their daily activity doesn’t change much during wintertime: hiding during daytime and sneaking out by sunset and sun dawn. Their main concern is food and they will be spotted in backstreets and lanes were restaurants and snacks are located. Free-ranging dogs have their home-range, a more or less wide area where they move around, eat, sleep and mate. They seem to concentrate more in the centre than on the periphery. There is none or little territorial behaviour, except from a female which has pups. Their appearances in alleys, streets and near shops mostly depend on the attitude of the inhabitants. It’s difficult to say if their bahaviour is inherent to their species or if it is related to human’s influence. In a confined space like a town, most probably both play an important interacting role.

In much of Africa and Eurasia, most free-roaming dogs are not true mixed-breed dogs, a literal mix of one or more purebred dogs. Instead, they are descended from the same original landrace of dogs from which purebred dogs were originally created and which have existed since humans started living in settlements. They have always been scavengers living on human cast-offs and handouts. In addition to scavenging, individual street dogs are widely kept as uncontained pets by urban slum households.

Outbreaks of rabies are often traced to unvaccinated street dogs, one the most common carriers of the painful and often fatal disease.

To survive, street dogs need to avoid conflict with humans. However, dog bites can occur when dogs are trying to mate or fighting among themselves, and pedestrians and other humans in the vicinity may be bitten by fighting dogs. In addition, females with pups are often protective and may bite people who approach their litter.

Barking and howling and dog fights which invariably take place over mating can be very disturbing to people, and the smell of dog urine which is an unsavory product of territory marking can become quite pungent, especially among unsprayed or neutered dogs, not to mention the presence of feces.

To survive in modern cities, street dogs must be able to