11/06/2014

Are aboriginal dogs feral?


A lot of people are a bit confused about the landraces and their wild/domesticated/feral status. I'm trying here to bust what I consider a myth or, at the very least, an uninformed belief: in my experience, aboriginal dogs are, in their overwhelming majority, NOT feral.

What is a feral dog? "an animal that has escaped and become wild".



Although West Africans don't traditionally keep their dogs chained, crated, penned, behind walls or inside their houses, I'm yet to see a dog here that doesn't have an owner or that isn't attached to a household. In cities, I've seen litters being abandoned far from where the owner of the bitch lives, but it is by no means the traditional way. I fear these puppies usually don't survive, or the few which do attach themselves to other people.

Indeed, dogs, like poultry, goats, sheep, and children, have here much more freedom to move and roam than in Western countries, but it doesn't mean they are "wild" or "feral".


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