Free-ranging dog
State governments, animal rights organizations, veterinarians and NGOs have been involved in managing free-ranging dogs around the world.
Feral dogs are not reproductively self-sustaining, suffer from high rates of juvenile mortality, and depend indirectly on humans for their food, their space, and the supply of co-optable individuals.
[18] The first British colonists to arrive in Australia established a settlement at Port Jackson in 1788 and recorded dingoes living there with indigenous Australians.
There exist dogs that live with their human families but are unsocialized and will treat strangers aggressively and defensively as might a wild wolf.
There also exists a number of cases where wild wolves have approached people in remote places, attempting to get them to play and to form companionship.
[citation needed] In Paraguay, in 2017, Diana Vicezar established a community-based organisation designed to tackle the issue of abandoned, unsheltered dogs, as well as plastic pollution.
Bites can also happen if dogs are unwell due to illness or injury, are playing, or are experiencing hunger, thirst, abuse, or a lack of caretakers.
Additionally, the fear of dog bites and attacks can cause anxiety and affect people's mobility and outdoor activities.
The dogs rest close to their resource sites in their territory, choosing a place that enables maximum visibility of the surroundings.
[47] Free-ranging dogs who have been in this state for generations have developed certain traits through natural selection in order to be able to survive in their respective environments.
Wild dogs are attracted to places where they can scavenge food, and deliberately or inadvertently feeding them can make them dependent on humans.
Wild dingoes in remote areas live in packs, often of 3–12 animals, with a dominant (alpha) male and female controlling breeding.
[49] According to Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, wild dogs can be found on grazing land, on the fringes of towns, in rural-residential estates, or in forests and woodlands—anywhere there is food, water and shelter.
They will hunt for live prey, or will eat road-killed animals, dead livestock, and scraps from compost heaps or rubbish.
[51] In 2024, the World Health Organization reported that dog bites and scratches caused 99% of the human rabies cases, and that 40% of victims were children under 15.
In 2019, a woman from Norway died of rabies after she contracted the virus while on holiday in the Philippines, where she was bitten by a stray puppy that she and her friends had rescued.
[61] A group of stray dogs became famous in Afghanistan after confronting a suicide bomber, preventing fifty American soldiers from being killed.
[66] Stray dogs have also historically poised a problem for tourists in Bhutan, who have complained about the disturbance caused by nightly howls.
Similarly, initiatives like World Veterinary Service's (WVS) Mission Rabies have successfully vaccinated and sterilized 70% of dogs in Goa, making it the first state in India to become rabies-free.
These approaches align with global health recommendations, emphasizing vaccination and sterilization over culling to effectively manage rabies and street dog populations.
The Bucharest City Hall stated that over 51,200 stray dogs were captured from October 2013 to January 2015, with more than half being euthanized, about 23,000 being adopted, and 2,000 still residing in the municipality's shelters.
[88] Many stray dogs in Romania are adopted abroad, with the most common receiving countries being Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Belgium.
In Russia, street dogs are accepted by the common people and are even fed by the local population, including in the capital city of Moscow.
Their sad lot was dramatized by Anton Chekhov in the famous short story Kashtanka, by Mikhail Bulgakov in the novella Heart of a Dog, and by Gavriil Troyepolsky in the novel White Bim Black Ear.
[98] While many developing countries harbor high numbers of stray dogs as a result of neglect, Turkey’s problem is a little different.
Istanbul, the most populous city of the country, is home to one of the highest concentrations of stray animals, with an estimated 400,000 to 600,000 dogs roaming the streets.
[117] A policy of "Catch-Neuter-Vaccinate-Return", where the stray dogs are captured, sterilized, vaccinated and then released back on the street, is advocated by animal rights organizations such as Four Paws.
[118] However, where this cannot be achieved, a simplified and cheaper version of only sterilizing the dogs is adopted, which helps reduce their numbers in time, but slows down the rabies eradication efforts.
[120][121][122] Lack of awareness of health hazards associated with free-ranging dogs can result in injury and even death among tourists.
[129] In 2022, in the UK, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs enacted a temporary ban on importing dogs from from Ukraine, Belarus, Romania and Poland.
