4 ms·
To be fair most of the questions were rhetorical, not naive, the answers were a few paragraphs lower. As for eating it's not so simple. Stray dogs are still de
by ajuc 5y ago
To be fair most of the questions were rhetorical, not naive, the answers were a few paragraphs lower.
As for eating it's not so simple. Stray dogs are still depending on humans for food in many ways, either by random people feeding them occasionally, them eating our trash, or hunting prey that human hunters feed so they can shoot it (at least in my country hunters are notorious for feeding wild animals in the winter which causes overpopulation which in the spring and summer they use as an excuse to shoot most of them).
I've had 2 stray dogs adopted - a medium size mongrel that was doing pretty well in the wild (hunting and begging random people for food), and then an irish setter abandoned in the woods and living in the wild for months. She was barely alive when my sister (who is a vet) found her, I've never seen dog that was so starved, despite being a hunting dog supposedly.
- mabub24 5y agoIn general, the death rate of wild dogs/abandoned dogs is very high, especially as puppies. Dogs evolved to have a willingness to essentially eat almost anything. They are obsessed with food sources out of necessity of survival. Wild dogs will eat basically anything they think is edible and keep eating it if they find that it is edible. Abandoned dogs are less conditioned to eat just anything, so they are much less able to survive in the wild (that's dependant on age of abandonment, though). By evolving to also be extremely open to human partnership, they have much longer lives when living with humans because humans are extremely consistent and persistent food sources. Their "loyalty" and "love" is, instinctually, to our supply of food.