# Feral dogs vs Wolves?



## Montana (Apr 10, 2011)

There are many opinions on how wolves survive to feral and stray dogs. I've heard the argument that wolves will hunt in packs to take down their prey, where dogs will only roam in solitary and scavenge.

This is true yes, as when I've been in developing countries where stray dogs are in abundance, I've mostly observed them by their lonesome, scavenging. However, (this is a very disturbing story, but is relevant) a friend of mine adopted a dog which was apart of a pack that resided on a native American reserve. This 'pack' of dogs behaved as a pack of wolves by hunting and killing prey together. They ended up hunting down and killing a child on the reserve. The elders wouldn't do anything about it because they felt these dogs were spirits of their ancestors. Outside rescue efforts ended up capturing some of these dogs and adopting them out.

Curious to your opinions and expertise knowledge on this subject! Do you think feral dogs take the road of convenience because we allow and provide them to scavenge, where as we wouldn't let a wolf roam around in public and pick through garbage?


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## candiceb (Jan 22, 2010)

I think there is definitely a behavioral difference between wolves and dogs, even if they are still genetically the same. 

If you look at dog behavior, including dog-to-dog interactions, they act very juvenile compared to their wolf ancestors. They also have developed other behaviors that wolves do not exhibit, such as mutual tail sniffing, barking, while largely losing other behaviors such as group howling. 

Dogs have also been conditioned for the last 14,000+ years to rely on others for food. Based on archaeological accounts and genetic studies, it's hypothesized that the first "dogs" were just wolves that hung around the garbage pits the most. Over time their gene pools separated a little, and as the bravest (or perhaps the hungriest) dogs overcame their fear of humans, they also began to physically change (Google the Russian Silver Fox study if you want to see a really cool modern example of this). 

Anyway, the point of all this is that it doesn't surprise me that dogs do have some behavioral differences from wolves. They are a subspecies after all, a genetically isolated population that has been changed in some respects over time. I think their tendency to scavenge is a behavioral advantage that has been ensuring their continued survival for the past 14,000 years. And if you think about it, scavenging solo is more productive than scavenging in groups, having to share your finds. But it does take multiple predators to bring down large game. And of course there are many occasions where packs of dogs bring down prey. We lost several lambs and goats to my neighbor's dogs growing up. My parents' dogs have collaboratively taken down a few deer. The instinct is there, for sure. Just some exhibit it more than others.


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## RawFedDogs (Jun 16, 2008)

I agree w/ Candice mostly. There are packs of wild feral dogs around and there are a lot of loners. The foxes in the study that she mentioned were the very meek among the foxes. You can read about it here http://www.floridalupine.org/publications/PDF/trut-fox-study.pdf There is also a Youtube movie of this experiment located here http://dogfoodchat.com/forum/raw-feeding/8057-feral-dogs-vs-wolves.html#post85527 

A few years ago there was a woman killed by a pack of feral dogs so I know they exist.


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## CavePaws (Jan 25, 2011)

I've also seen feral dogs live out their lives. I never saw hunting in groups, in fact, most of the time the dogs were on their own. Sometimes they would pack up and I would see them together, most of the time this was around when the females were coming into heat. What I saw was lots of scavenging. I never saw a dog actually kill something, but I did see them carrying about what looked like fresh kills - rabbits and birds. As I observed these dogs living around a lake, I often saw them eating washed up fish. Sometimes they would be brave enough to go through our trash, it was sort of rare because of how fearful of humans they really were.

I don't doubt that if they were all together, saw a prey item, and decided to go after it that they would take it down in a "pack". Do I think it would be as organized as wolves who rely on each other to take down huge animals like elk and moose? No, because dogs are more so opportunistic scavengers than they are active hunters. Wolves rely on a pack to keep themselves alive. Most "feral" dogs are able to rely somewhat on human resources. In my opinion, when a dog see's a rabbit it can chase down and kill and it see's an already dead very ripe fish - it's probably going to go for the fish. That is what survival is about, it's about being able to pump calories in while expending a minimal amount of energy. 

We don't know how long ago it was that dogs started branching off genetically away from wolves. It could have been almost 100,000 years ago. We started truly domesticating them about 14,000 years ago; making them the oldest domesticated animal. Obviously behavioral traits have changed. What happened was wolves which displayed the least amount of fear towards humans, typically very young ones, survived near human settlements and eventually branched out of packs - they didn't need other wolves for obtaining food when they had humans to help them out.


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## RawFedDogs (Jun 16, 2008)

One more quick thought. I don't think our dogs, whether living with us or feral, have the ability to hunt that wild wolves do. They don't have the strength or speed because of many generations of the easy life.


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## xxshaelxx (Mar 8, 2010)

Well, think of it this way: when wolves grow up in the wild, they're taught by the parents how to hunt. Dogs don't have this advantage. So when put into the wild, they do what they know best, which is to scavenge for food. If you took a dog and had a pack of wolves raise it, perhaps it would hunt like the best of them? Or if you took a wolf cub and had humans raise it, perhaps it would be more prone to scavenging?


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## xellil (Apr 4, 2011)

I can guarantee packs of dogs exist, and live very well. My family lived in an area alot of people dumped dogs - of course many died, some were saved, but the ones who weren't taken in by families or killed by something else formed a large pack that lived out there for years.

I was never sure whether they actually joined or mated with the coyotes, but when I left for work or school early in the morning I would very often see them, 15-20 dogs, hunting in the fields. Mostly, they were hunting rabbits and they would take turns running it down - definitely a pack mentality.

One was a Great Dane, and his children/grandchildren were easy to spot long after he was gone. You couldn't get close to any of them - I am sure the farmers probably killed them like they did coyotes, and when they put in the lake it got so populated out there they were either killed or died off.

If you talk to people who have been attacked by dogs, also, they will often tell you that while one is confronting you, another will sneak around and attack from behind. They definitely have a coordinated attack.

Edited to add: There was nothing to scavage out there. They had to be hunting.


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## xellil (Apr 4, 2011)

did anyone read Dances with Wolves? One of the most interesting things I took out of that book, and what flew in the face of what everyone thought about wolves at the time, was that 90% of their diet during the winter was mice.

Oh, it's not Dances with Wolves, it's Never Cry Wolf.


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## Sapphire-Light (Aug 8, 2010)

My father has a farm outside the city, and one of his neighbor has some dogs that he lets loose and they have killed many farm animals of the nearby farms but the owner don't care, in this month the dogs came to my father's farm and they killed 4 young cows, one of my father's workers called the neighbor but he didn't want them to be responsible for his dogs so the worker desided to shoot them.

I know is sad  but that's how things are on farms.


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## Chocx2 (Nov 16, 2009)

While hiking a trail in the Ocala Natl Forest I came upon several feral dogs that had taken down a dear, didn't see them kill it but they were defending it and eating it and very angry that I bothered them, but I always carry something to defend myself.


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## xellil (Apr 4, 2011)

Chocx2 said:


> While hiking a trail in the Ocala Natl Forest I came upon several feral dogs that had taken down a dear, didn't see them kill it but they were defending it and eating it and very angry that I bothered them, but I always carry something to defend myself.


I think dogs, like wolves, eat what is convenient. Wolves are scavengers also. It's easier to scavenge than to kill a rabbit, and easier to kill a rabbit than to kill a deer. But you do what you gotta do, to survive, and I think dogs do it just as well as wolves.


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## candiceb (Jan 22, 2010)

Sapphire-Light said:


> My father has a farm outside the city, and one of his neighbor has some dogs that he lets loose and they have killed many farm animals of the nearby farms but the owner don't care, in this month the dogs came to my father's farm and they killed 4 young cows, one of my father's workers called the neighbor but he didn't want them to be responsible for his dogs so the worker desided to shoot them.
> 
> I know is sad  but that's how things are on farms.


Yeah, that's how it is. Those neighbor dogs that killed some of our livestock, my dad ended up shooting one of them. We had tried talking to the neighbors about it time and time again, but they refused to fence in their dogs. In fact the husband got fairly ugly and scary, calling our house and berating us about how we "enslaved" our animals by fencing them in. Shortly thereafter was when, yet again, we caught them in the chicken coop, and my dad shot the one. The other came running up to him, wagging its tail, and he couldn't bear to shoot it. So instead he had animal control come pick it up. It didn't get put down, but the county judge ordered it a nuisance and it was given away to family of the neighbors, who I assume "enslaved" it and kept it behind a fence.


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## Herzo (Feb 5, 2011)

My sister lives on a Ranch in Montana, away from any large towns, they are next to a couple of Indian Reservations. They had a pack of wild dogs way back in the hills that must have come from the Reservation because they never fence or tie up there dogs. People would see them sometimes but never could get close to kill them. There was a white Pitbull or something like it that was the leader of the pack. There was an old Indian that would go out in the Hills but he was scared of them and said they were bad. My sister never did know exactly what he meant. But they were there for several years. They had to have hunted in a pack because I don't think they came close to any homes. She never really said that people complained about losing calves but I would think they would have had to.

The country has big hills and allot of timber and the only way they would find dead cattle is by many miles of horse back. I don't think any one has seen them in a couple of years so they must have been killed. Although you would have thought it would have been big talk. I'm going to have to ask her. Also they have Mountain Lions so I suppose something like that could have happen to some of them.


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## xellil (Apr 4, 2011)

I found this website - it says they live everywhere, and do it all - scavenge, forage, hunt both small and large prey.
Feral dog management and control



> Home ranges of feral dogs vary considerably in size and are probably influenced by the availability of food. Dog packs that are primarily dependent on garbage may remain in the immediate vicinity of a dump, while other packs that depend on livestock or wild game may forage over an area of 50 square miles (130 km2) or more.





> Like coyotes, feral dogs have catholic diets and are best described as opportunistic feeders. They can be efficient predators, preying on small and large animals, including domestic livestock. Many rely on carrion, particularly road-killed animals, crippled waterfowl, green vegetation, berries and other fruits, and refuse at garbage dumps.


Says they eat leaves and berries


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## Montana (Apr 10, 2011)

Yes! This is all exactly the opinions and information I was looking for! Thank you all! I don't know a lot about wolf anatomy and behavior or the history of domesticated dogs, so a lot of this will help especially when I have the raw diet "discussions" with people who think Science Diet and Hills are humans life giving gift to dogs.


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## Northwoods10 (Nov 22, 2010)

There are a lot of Native American reservations where I live. 

DH and I were just having a discussion the other day about how the dogs on the reservation are always just off wandering around. They don't believe in leashing or kenneling their dogs. They all roam free around the reservation ans scavenge off of whatever they can find. 

Perfect proof of this is the convenience store in town. The reservation borders town and its an easy jaunt into town for the dogs....they wander in and eat out of the dumpsters ALL the time. Trapping & fur selling is a big thing up here too, so there are tons of carcasses for them to eat off of. It did become so much of a problem that they had to start reducing the population. 

So wolves vs. feral dogs....yeah, I think theres a difference.


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