Comment by colechristensen
14 days ago
Let’s not. A feral dog is behaviorally very different than a coyote or a wolf.
A wolf pup raised by humans won’t be anything like a tame dog.
People whose animal experiences are limited to pets and zoos have many wrong ideas about how real wild animals are.
What about dingoes? The best guess is they were domesticated and then went feral some 5-8k years ago. These days, in places like Fraser island in Australia, you have big fences for campers to not get eaten by packs of those and you need to drive everywhere, they would not hesitate for a second if given a chance.
The aborigines (till they themself were domisticated) had dingos as dogs and my interactions with them on Fraser Island were in a way like with wild dogs who wanted to get BBQ.
So definitely dangerous, but not in a Wolf way.
Wouldn’t wolves generally be significantly less dangerous because they are generally more skittish and avoid being near humans?
One of the main issues with feral/wild dogs (or wolf hybrids) is that they are much less afraid of humans and therefore are more likely to attack livestock, pets or even actual people when given the opportunity. Under normal circumstances actual wolf attacks are (and probably were historically) and feral/hybrid dogs are just attributed to them.
2 replies →
Behaviorally very different. In other words, in just a few generations the distinctions we make ("dogs" "coyotes") are irrelevant.
> People whose animal experiences are limited to pets and zoos have many wrong ideas about how real wild animals are.
How are they? Really shy and prefer cermonial fights?
I would guess a stray dog is a bigger threat than a wild wolf that have not got its instincts breed away to have the fur in a special way.
(Note, I don't mean I'd rather be in room with a wolf than a stray dog. But that the wolf would bail 1 mile away from me.)
It's really interesting topic to discuss