Alright, so this is a small book, most of it is answering the "quality of life" question, if you don't want to read all of that, the part past the Star Wars guys is about my opinion on cockapoo breeding lol.
Well, what is your opinion? Do you think those feral dogs are well off? I may be just so immersed in my own culture and my own experience and history with dogs, that I have a hard time thinking this is the optimum life for them....even though it is what they've been doing for a very long time. It is their specific niche and they apparently thrive in it. But since there are so many feral dogs (and cats)...it seems silly to breed more mixed breed dogs which will probably not be spayed/neutered and probably will wind up mixing with these, producing more puppies and on and on.
The optimum life for them? Surely it isn’t, I don’t think ANYONE would argue that point. But then very few dogs, even in Western societies have optimum living conditions. Very few living things do, period lol.
Now there are some aspects of that life for a dog that I think are absolutely optimum. They have a job to do (find food) to keep busy and they are surrounded by their kin, all day long. They certainly don’t want for exercise or social interaction or fresh air. Where they live on a beach (in Goa) or by a river (Varanasi) they can wade into the water and cool off at will, they can nap in a nice sunny spot or in the shade… anywhere they want. When they see a cat or a monkey or some bird that they want to chase, they can chase it, they aren’t subjected to the frustration that comes with confinement. Their bodies haven’t been bred for any look, so (with a few exceptions I’m sure) they don’t have problems with great nasty mats in their fur, breathing issues, or problems running and jumping. I’m willing to bet they as a whole they are fairly (genetically) healthy and don’t get genetic health problems in their populations to the same degree that dogs which have the pleasure of being kept and bred by humans have. They certainly don’t have the opportunity to eat themselves to the state of gross obesity that many Westerners keep their dogs in. They aren’t fed Pedigree or some other highly processed crap, but they find scraps of “real†food and probably the odd monkey or cat or other tasty creature they can catch.
More obvious are the downsides… if they get sick, injured, if they can’t enough food. Females have litter after litter which is hard on them and leads to control methods like Renee posted (although I think they are probably just shot or poisoned, as opposed to shipped off as food…). Some people are nasty and cruel and will get away with abusing them. Not that I’ve been to South Asia but from pictures, I don’t see any emaciated dogs. Certainly thin, but not starving to death. There are studies that show that slightly underweight dogs are better off than even “ideal†type dogs. And remember when we talk traffic, we aren’t talking about American cities here. Lots of cities in South Asia weren’t built for cars and so there are large portions of them that only see pedestrians, cyclists, and vespas. The cities are also pretty congested, it seems. It might not pose the same threat, as, say, Seattle, where there are cars everywhere and they are all moving quickly.
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By:
Robert Francisco
I don’t live in an area with stray dogs, much less some ancient colony of feral dogs in South Asia, so I don’t know how many of these dogs are suffering, how many are underweight to the degree that it is detrimental to them. I’m not sure how to really compare their quality of life/death to, say, a dog in the US that is alpha rolled, dumped at a shelter when it growls, locked in a cage until it goes semi-neurotic, then euthanized, which may or may not be peaceful. A great life here might be being owned by a Chazzer, but a dog could have a great life as a feral too. I need to see some bell curves or something lol.
I would need to see some studies or at least visit the places we are talking about before I came to a solid conclusion on just how well off these dogs are. They certainly have a lot of things that I think dogs “value†and that enrich dogs’ lives, which most dogs over here will never experience.
You say that we have a duty of stewardship to dogs, and I think you were implying we have a greater obligation towards them because we have domesticated them. I think the logic behind this is that domestication has hindered the dog’s ability to survive without stewardship, and so we have put the species at an unfair disadvantage. This would certainly be the case with, say, letting a white rabbit go into the bush, but I’m not so sure this is the case for these dogs. Like you said, they are series of populations adapted to a special little niche.
We have feral horses and burros roaming the Americas, and they are both, of course, domesticated species. I’m sure some suffer and some starve, and yet I think most people would adamantly oppose rounding up the mustangs and sending them all off to stables (if it were possible), or even just sterilizing the current ones so they die out.
Or how about pigeons. As you’re probably aware, they are not native to the Americas and the populations we have today are all descended from previously domesticated birds. They were eaten, but in large part they were kept for their message carrying abilities. There was Cher Ami (“Dear Friendâ€), a pigeon which delivered a message which saved about 200 soldiers in WWI, despite being very badly shot. GI Joe was another; he saved about 1000 people, including Allied soldiers from friendly fire in WWII when their radio failed. Both pigeons got medals; actually, I think there are more pigeons with Dickens medals than dogs lol. They are responsible for saving thousands of people. Nowadays in the US and Canada, despite being relatively benign little things and a domesticated species which once provided a great service to mankind, they are seen as “flying rats,†offered little or no protection and are exterminated as pests. Not many people crying about that though.
What I’m trying to say is that it’s accepted that some animals go feral. I would need to see that lack of human intervention is negatively affecting these dogs more than lack of human intervention is negatively affecting feral horses or pigeons or any wild animal really, before I would agree that these dogs need to be rounded up into loving homes. What I think might be appropriate is some sterilization, to keep the numbers down to a level where mass culls aren’t necessary.
:fighting0040:
ALL of that said, LOL I know it was a lot, I still think that question of quality of life in feral dogs in Pakistan is irrelevant when considering the issue of breeding pet dogs.
There are needy dogs in US, this is common knowledge. We had a thread not that long ago about breeding vs rescue, and the general consensus seemed to me to be this: we are not obligated to settle for a dog that doesn’t fit our needs, just because there are needy dogs out there. Almost everyone thought buying from a breeder was acceptable. People want/need predictable traits, like size, trainability, stability, etc., right down to superficial traits like cuteness or beauty. Some people said they wouldn’t own a dog if they couldn’t get these traits, and that no shelter dog provided them, so they weren’t “taking a home away from a shelter dog†(and taking a home from one equates to killing, if not that dog, another that could take its place).
Now look at the objections to breeding a cockapoo in this thread… they shouldn’t be bred because they’re just mutts, and your desire for a mutt dog can be fulfilled by an identical mutt that would die in a shelter. That’s a fine resolution for the US dog situation, but not for the Pakistani situation. In Pakistan, people are looking for smallish pet dogs. There is no abundance of these mutts (and these are totally different mutts than the ferals), you cannot go to a shelter and get a cockapoo any easier than you can get a pb maltese. So as long as Pakistanis are looking for dogs born and raised in a house, with good temperaments, long hair, and a small adult size, and there is no surplus of them, why not? Surely if it is acceptable for Chazzers to go to a breeder so they can get a dog that fits the standard well, it is acceptable for Pakistanis to go to a breeder to get a socialized, small, fluffy dog... maybe to live in an apartment with a 20 lb weight limit? Feral dogs don’t fill that demand so well. As you said, and I agree, they are fairly homogeneous in type… they look to be 30-60 lbs? Probably most are pretty shy… Pakistan certainly doesn’t have the selection of needy dogs that we have to choose from! And yet they should adopt a feral before buying a small pet dog, to save it, whereas we can buy a dog for pretty much any reason, when I would argue we have less cause to.
Now, personally, I would TOTALLY opt for one of those ferals over most purebred and all designer dogs. They would probably make for a neat dog.
