Feral dogs question

What % of feral dogs are born in the wild, relative to the % released/escaped?

  • 0% born in the wild to 2 already-feral parents

    Votes: 2 5.6%

  • 1-10% born in the wild

    Votes: 10 27.8%

  • 11-20% born in the wild

    Votes: 9 25.0%

  • 21-30% born in the wild

    Votes: 2 5.6%

  • 31-40% born in the wild

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • 41-50% born in the wild

    Votes: 2 5.6%

  • 51-60% born in the wild

    Votes: 4 11.1%

  • 61-70% born in the wild

    Votes: 1 2.8%

  • 71-80% born in the wild

    Votes: 2 5.6%

  • 81% or more born in the wild

    Votes: 4 11.1%
  • Total voters
    36
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Dr. Tad Hussein Winslow

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Apparently in some areas, there's an awful lot of these, and they can become a fairly sizeable problem. I'm wondering, if you know, to what extent are these animals *truly* feral, meaning a sustaining population outside of the reliance upon continued human stupidity and negligence. See Poll.
 
In south west Arkansas where I use to live there were/are hog farmers and a lot of them have let their animals run loose for years except during deer season. Some of the hog would stick around the farm, some would stray away never to return. These are the ones that became feral. They just multiplied from there. There are also those that would trap hogs, then place them on private land and charge people to hunt them. Those that didn't get shot, multiplied and have been wild. They will destroy wildlife habitat. They eat pretty much the same things deer and turkey eat, leaving the deer herd, little food. They also raid farm fields destroying crops. They will destroy turkey habitat as well. The one good thing is if you have hogs running around on your hunting territory, you will have few snakes. Game and Fish commission in Arkansas along with the timber companies have taken the attitude of having them shot on site. At the hunting camp where I hunted, I've seen deer seasons where we killed more hogs that we did deer. Some I've seen shot weighed in the 400lb range with rather large tusks.
 
And that relates to feral DOGS how? :D

Feral HOGS have been in Texas for centuries, ain't a new thing. And, I don't know about Arkansas, but I have many hogs and many rattlers on my place. :D

I also have occasional feral DOGS on my place. It's a problem, for sure. They kill wildlife. I have taken 'em out before along with a few coyotes . I was watching a deal on deer management on the outdoor channel the other day. A game biologist says that coyote research shows they are a far greater problem for deer populations than previously thought. He suggested control as in professional trappers as one option. I'd never thought coyotes that big a problem, but I guess so. They will certainly take out fawns if they find 'em. He was saying they can account for as much as a 75 percent mortality of newborn fawns in some areas. I would suspect dogs would perhaps be even worse since they will kill even when they aren't hungry.
 
GodGuns&Guitars wrote:


Some I've seen shot weighed in the 400lb range with rather large tusks.
Click to expand...


I can see where that would make Feral DOGS a serious problem.

We have a few FD's around here....but nothing like that (thank goodness). :D ;)
 
400lb dogs just got to be to slow to catch much to eat. Darn them suckers might stand like a bear, and feral dogs, eeeeeee, off spring?. Back to the question. Most of the feral dogs we had back in sw fl after they broke bad and the fish and game along with the sheriffs dept gave open season on them, did not last long,, maybe two years total time time gone. Can't be many pups made it to grown size. They did hang near the county dump at night for a free dinner and then run during the days to eat your chickens pups ,small dogs, cats and scare the heck out of the people that lived around the area.
 
We have got them bad where I live. Our property borders my hunting clubs land and all together we have about 2,000 acres combined and there are many, like twenty or thirty, wild dogs that roam the property. They can be a problem and some of the guys in my club shoot them. We have yet to have one attack anyone but I wouldn't be suprised if they did because when there is just one or two of them they run from you but when there is a pack of quite a few they will stand there ground and growl at you.
 
Oops, My mistake on the hog/dog. It was too early this morning when I read it, and the chemo drug must have been taking effect. Sorry about that. MY mistake.
 
Feral dogs aren't really an issue around here.

Feral children aren't, either.

But in certain "blue states", feral children run rampant. I think that most of them are born to two feral parents, though.
 
Some are what ya call "free range" dogs, some wild, some run off. Most without collars. Since the county has a leash law on the books where I live, if it doesn't have a collar, it's fair game.

I had one charge me one day down in a creek bottom, some sort of chow mix. Drew down on it with a shotgun and it must have sensed it better places to be, I let it run off.

I see let out dogs once and awhile on the interstate. Saw the prettiest little blue tick one morning heading to a job. It was still there in the same area about 5 hours later on the way back. Still regret not picking it up from time to time.
 
Usually happens before the first cuppa coffee is over, for me. ;)

I am glad that chow mix that charged me didn't weigh in at 400 lbs though. I only had 5 shells for 10 ga that day, might have turned out very different. :D
 
Well the hog commentary was helpful really - I enjoyed it. :)

Widely varying opinions as to how many whelped in the wild....
 
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Feral vs. Domestic...

I saw a National Geographic special called "The Science of Dogs" and it was very interesting regarding this topic. If you turn your pet dog out it will NEVER become feral. We've bred domesticity into them so well that it'll have to breed with wild dogs to produce wild or free-ranging offspring. When Rover gets let go he'll just go try to scrounge through garbage or starve or, most likely, become a meal for real feral dogs. Additionally, it'll be most likely be the domestic females that mate with the feral dogs. If a domestic male approached a feral female the pack would kill it. Vicious dogs and feral dogs are two different things. Vicious dogs may attack humans or otherwise be aggressive (like the chow mix by the previous poster), but they're still not feral. Feral dogs avoid human contact and hunt and socialize with a pack mentality (like coyotes or wolves). Mean domestic dogs will travel primarily alone and will confront a human. So the answer to the poll question is 100% are born from feral parents. Interestingly, this is not true with pigs. If a pig from a farm is turned out into the wild it will immediately begin to grow tusks and within about two weeks will be completely feral.

http://icwdm.org/handbook/carnivor/FeralDog.asp
 
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It's all good just good natured bit of fun, hehe. You do'n rounds of chemo? If so hang in there. I have been known to put foot in mouth once in a while to.
 
An older gentleman on my mail route would walk down to the "creek" that bordered the east side of town where I worked. Each day, weather, his health and creek levels permitting he would grab is pole, some bait and a bucket and head out. Most days he would have just returned from his trip when I would go by his house and he would share with me how many he had caught that day. One day he was running up the path which led to the creek, he was out breath and scared to death! He said that a pack of wild dogs had "treed" him right after daybreak that morning and he had been up the tree all morning! He said that he thought they had all left and had climbed down and started out to home, but at least five had tried to get him. He managed to beat them off with his pole and bucket until he got almost out of the woods and to the clearing leading to his house. Thats when I saw him running and hollering! Later I loaned him a 20ga pump and a couple boxes of #6s and between him and his teen grandson(who had a 22 semi rifle) killed sixteen large mixed breed wild dogs! From that day forward he would never go fishing with out a gun! He would hardly go alone either! I heard other such stories from other guys who fished that creek!

Jimmy K
 
I'm hanging in. Feeling pretty good and going to take one of the grandsons into the mountains tomorrow. Stuff does suck, but it's better than the alternative and it seems to be working. Gaining weight back and all cell counts are good.

Now if I could just get back to the hog/dog killin'. I apologize for hi jacking the thread.
 
OLD208X3A, one problem with the National Geographic's statement about "never feral": It doesn't explain collared dogs which have been shot during sheep killing, and the dogs had been home in town some three miles away, that morning. Georgetown, Texas, 1973; a co-worker of mine did the shooting. And there are similar stories from across the country...

Words like "always" or "never" are about like poison pills, seems like.
 
Some expletive deleted city people take their unwanted pet dogs out in the country and abandon them. They end up crazy and wild, either starving or going after livestock.

My stepdad had use his .22 rifle to drive off some free running dogs harassing a neighbor's horses inside a fenced property.

My son and I rescued from a gully a puppy some --- person had let out of their car on the country road. We had been in the woods and when we heard the car stop on the road near our car then drive off, we thought it would be wise to check our vehicle. We found the puppy which was as tame and friendly as could be. We decided to drop it off at the animal shelter in town and got to see it adopted that afternoon. Some abandoned dog stories do end right.
 
Way back in the late 70s feral dogs were pretty numerous in parts of Alabama. Auburn University wildlife biologists did a study on a few packs, including some radio-tagging. They mostly ate small stuff like rats and rabbits, some would hang out at open dumps. During hunting season they picked up gut-piles and unrecovered deer. Those that tried to run adult deer didn't do well- overall they didn't get enough food to pay for the energy expended. On the other hand, free-range dogs could run deer for hours, then go back to their owners for food and recuperation. I don't think we have as many feral dogs in Alabama now-- the coyotes have displaced them.
 
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