Street dog

Street dogs at a crosswalk in Bucharest

Stray dogs in Slovenia

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, especially in the developing world and the former second world. Street dogs may be stray dogs, pets which have strayed from or are allowed freedom by their owners, or may be feral animals that have never been owned. Street dogs may be stray purebreds, true mixed-breed dogs, or unbred 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

Street dogs

A street dog

Street dogs

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.

Problems caused by street dogs

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Street dogs

Disease

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

Bites

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 and just bite

Quality of life

Barking and howling and dog fights which invariably take place over mating among dogs 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 unspayed or neutered dogs, not to mention the presence of feces.

Skills and adaptations

Dogs are known to be highly adaptive and intelligent species. To survive in modern cities, street dogs must be able to navigate traffic.

Street dog riding the subway

Some of the stray dogs in Bucharest are seen crossing the large streets at pedestrian crosswalks. The dogs have probably noticed that when humans cross streets at such markings, cars tend to stop. The dogs have accustomed themselves to the flow of pedestrian and automobile traffic; they sit patiently with the people at the curb when they are stopped for a red light, and then cross with them as if a daily routine.

In the metropolises and cities of Russia and several other countries; street dogs have been observed to "learn" to 'use' metro's and even other bus services.

Free-ranging urban dogs by country

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South Asia

An Indian pariah dog, a dog breed found in South Asia since ancient times

Afghanistan

Nowzad is an organisation in Afghanistan that works to rescue stray dogs in that country. A group of stray dogs became famous in Afghanistan after confronting a suicide bomber, preventing fifty American soldiers from being killed. However, one of the surviving dogs, Target, was mistakenly euthanized when she was brought to the United States.

India

See also: Indian vulture crisis and Street dogs in Chennai

In India, the local landrace, known as the Indian pariah dog, has been estimated to have existed for perhaps fourteen thousand years or more. Part of the urban population consists of mongrels or mix-breeds–descended from pure-breed dogs that have been allowed to interbreed with pariahs.

As a result of the virtual extermination by the veterinary drug diclofenac of the vultures which formerly ate animal carcasses and well as dead humans, urban India has two features which create and sustain street dog populations: large amounts of exposed animal carcasses, which provide an abundant source of food, and a huge population of slum and street-dwellers whose way of life includes keeping the dogs as free-roaming pets. For example, Mumbai has over 12 million human residents, of whom over half are slum-dwellers. At least five hundred tons of garbage remain uncollected daily. Therefore, conditions are perfect for supporting a particularly large population of stray dogs. India has the highest number of human rabies deaths in the world (estimated at 35,000 per annum).

In 2001, a law was passed in India that made the killing of stray dogs illegal, and residents often feed the animals as well. In August 2014, the Delhi Police recruited many of the city's stray dogs as police dogs, after training them.

Pakistan

In Pakistan, several dog breeds exist including the Gaddi Kutta, Indian pariah dog, Bully Kutta, among others. In the city of Lahore, the Public Health Department launched a campaign to kill 5,000 stray dogs. In 2009, 27,576 dogs were killed within the city of Lahore; in 2005, this number was 34,942. In 2012, after 900 dogs were killed in the city of Multan, the Animal Safety Organisation in Pakistan sent a letter to Chief Minister (CM) "Shahbaz Sharif recommending that stray dogs be vaccinated rather than killed."

Europe

Italy

Around 80% of abandoned dogs die early due to lack of survival skills.

Romania

Feral puppies in Bucharest

See also: Street dogs in Bucharest

In Romania, free-ranging urban dogs (called in Romanian câini maidanezi, literally "wasteland dogs", câini comunitari "community dogs", etc.) have become a huge problem especially in larger cities. Estimations for Bucharest vary widely, officials saying there are about 40,000 stray dogs or 60,000, while other sources push those estimates to 100,000 or even 200,000.

People are bitten and there have been reports of people mauled to death by stray dogs, which sometimes attack in packs.

Russia

Stray dog pups from Russia

See also: Stray dogs in Moscow

Serbia

Street dog in city of Valjevo,Serbia.

Free-ranging dogs are serious problem of the Serbian cities and rural areas, where they are attacked by people, including children. The total number of free-ranging dogs in Serbia is estimated at several tens of thousands, of which the largest groups could be found in Belgrade (more than 17,000), Novi Sad (about 10,000), Niš (between 7,000 and 10,000), Subotica (about 8,000) and Kragujevac (about 5,000).

North America

Puerto Rico

• Sato, street dogs of Puerto Rico

East Asia

Philippines

Locally known as Askals, street dogs in the Philippines, while sometimes exhibiting mixing with breed dogs from elsewhere, are generally native unbred mongrel dogs.

Thailand

• Stray dogs in Bangkok

In culture

Viață de câine (A dog's life) (1998), a Romanian documentary movie by Alexandru Solomon.

Sag-e welgard (The Stray Dog) (1942), a fiction novel by Sadegh Hedayat.

See also

• Formosan Mountain Dog
• Rez dog

Further reading

• Beck, Alan M .1973. The ecology of stray dogs: A study of free-ranging urban animals. West Lafayette, Indiana: Purdue University Press e-books.
• Ecollage. 2002. Dog Population Management & Canine Rabies Control. India's Official Dog Control Program in an international context. Pune. pp. 1–9
• Irvine, Leslie. 2003. "The Problem of Unwanted Pets: A Case Study in How Institutions "Think" about Clients' Needs" in Social Problems. Vol. 50, No. 4, pp. 550–566
• Kato Masahiko, Hideki Yamamoto, Yoshihide Inukai and Shohei Kira. 2203. "Survey of the Stray Dog Population and the Health Education Program on the Prevention of Dog Bites and Dog-Acquired Infections: A Comparative Study in Nepal and Okayama Prefecture, Japan" in Acta Med. Okayama, Vol. 57. No. 5, pp. 261–266

External links

• Straydogs.ro is a reference, news, and discussion site dedicated to the issue of stray dogs, especially in Romania.
• Final solution proposed for Bucharest's stray dogs press article, May 2010
• Beastsofthebalkans.com/bulgariandogs is a specific section on stray dogs from a website on "beasts, giants & creatures of nature in Bulgaria"
• Details about the stray dog population of Sofia/Bulgaria
• wsdindia.org is a Mumbai-based organization working to eradicate rabies and control the street dog population in a humane, scientific way.
• Account of stray dogs in Moscow, January 2010