Talk:Wild dog (disambiguation)

Dhol
The wild dog may also refer to the Indian Wild dog or "Dhol" as it is referred to in India. This is a species similar to the African wild dogs except that they are different in color and a bit smaller in size. Just as the African wild dogs will fight even a Lion, the Indian Wild Dogs are credited with having fought and killed Tigers. Someone please add some more details.

test edit
minor test edit, fixing hyphen--Ocaasi (talk) 14:17, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Proposed de-disambiguation
I propose making this an article on the general idea of the wild dog, and moving the handful of other meanings to a "foo (disambiguation)" page. bd2412 T 14:16, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Personally I see no reason for even having this article. The term "wild dog" is defined by any dictionary a person picks up. osm20Oldsingerman20 (talk) 15:37, 11 May 2011 (UTC)


 * If someone types "w-i-l-d-_-d-o-g" into that search box, something should happen. But what?  I think that this page has to do the job of helping the person find what they are looking for.  They might be looking for one of the characters or novels and such, or they might be looking for article about the Dhole, which in India I gather is called that way.  They might be looking for an article about wild dogs in the broad sense; such as Canids.  Maybe we offer the person might not be looking for those dogs but to learn about feral dogs on the other hand.  As it stands now, anyone who searches for feral dog gets sent here, so there is no one article about feral dogs and I think there should be.  We do have several articles about different dogs that are clearly feral, but also ones like the Australian dingo which are probably better called a wild dog than a feral dog.  It's not like there is a clear line between them.  Maybe this article is the place where we explain the difference between a wild dog and a feral dog and explain all about the grey area between the two in as exhastive yet as brief way as appropriate.  We should put ourselves in the mind of a person who just typed in "wild dog" and think about how best to serve him or her and offer all the articles that he could be looking for and no others.  Chrisrus (talk) 18:38, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

The nature of this page.
There needs to be disambiguation done, but this page by it's nature might need to be something more than the usual disambiguation page. It may need to explain some things to the user so that he or she can get where s/he wants to go.

There is the comic book and the character, that's no problem.

There are the species called "Wild dogs"

Then there is a problem. We don't have any article about domestic dogs gone wild. Also, originally, and still in many places, few dogs are owned as pets. Most of them are stray, and in some places stray dogs are considered wild, but in other places, and originally, that's the normal life for a dog and they aren't considered wild, just stray. Then there are domestic dogs that have gone really wild. There is no article that explains this. We need an article about feral dogs more than the sub-standard article about the free-ranging urban dog. some work could be done there. Christus (talk) 14:01, 16 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Well, there are two options. One is to turn this page into an article on dogs-gone-wild, and move the ambiguous meanings (like the comic book) to Wild dog (disambiguation). The other is to make an article at a separate title like Feral dogs (which currently redirects here, for no particularly good reason that I can see) and add a link to it in this article. bd2412  T 15:25, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I am not trying to be difficult about this page, but if you want to include more material than this, the thing to do is write an article under a separate title. Cheers! bd2412  T 03:18, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Please tell us what is wrong with this page right now so it can be fixed. osm20Oldsingerman20 (talk) 08:48, 19 May 2011 (UTC)
 * There is nothing wrong with the page right now, as a disambiguation page. A disambig page is not intended to be particularly informative; it is almost like an error message, an indication that you've reached the wrong place by accident and were probably looking for one of the listed links, giving the reader just enough information to find the right one. The problem is that Wikipedia presently has no article specifically on feral dogs, so one needs to be written in order for this page to have a target to point toward. bd2412  T 12:51, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

I see. Well then, why don't one of you folks who knows what to do initially start writing an article on feral dogs and the rest of us can contribute? osm20Oldsingerman20 (talk) 15:58, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Ok. I'd like to start with an inventory of the articles about stray dogs.

First, there is Stray dogs in Bangkok and also Stray dogs in Moscow. If you read them, they're probably two different referents in an evolutionary way. Just to take the most obvious example, those in Bangkok have short hair and are adapted to hot weather, while in Moscow they're ready for the snow. They are examples of local never-bred landraces, but the Russian ones show more signs of interbreeding with pure-bred dogs, so they might be to a greater extent true mixed breed dogs.

The Thai ones, on the other hand, seem to be pure Canis lupus dingo to experts. MSW3, probably the most cited authority on mammals in Wikipedia, says that Corbet and Hill have written persuasively that the domestic dog be treated as this separate C.l. dingo taxon in island and peninsular southeast Asia, and Oceana. I they are talking about the fact that Corbet believes the dog evolved more than once, and one of those places is roughly Thailand/Southern China on a modern map. Corbet talks about this in his book I have here, The Dingo in Australia and in Asia. It's pretty interesting, but let's leave that for now.

That's it, there are no other articles called "Stray dogs in (this particular place)". There is, however, this, Free-ranging urban dog. In this paragraph, I'd like to talk about that article. One might expect the referent of an article called "Free-ranging urban dogs" to be an article about stray dogs in general. Instead, it is about the stray dogs of India, the Balkans, and the former Soviet Union.

Then there is this article, Sato. It's about a local landrace that seems pretty uniform, almost like a breed. These live in Puerto Rico, and pretty much nowhere else, but there are very many of them on Puerto Rico. Some people say they don't make bad pets, but they are very well adapted to life as strays, and dogs that are well adapted to that type of life don't tend to do as well as breeds selected for their suitability to life as a pet. So says the article mixed breed dog and the article I'd like to discuss next, and have referred to above, Canis lupus dingo.

Within the article Canis lupus dingo can be found information about Stray dogs in Malaysia, Java, and other Indonesian Islands. There is the coastal village dogs of Papua New Guinea, and also some information about the Thai dog and some others. It links to the highland New Guinea Singing Dog and the Australian Dingo, two types who may be better described as true Wild dogs, whereas the others are more stray or feral. Breeds such as the Talomian and the Thai Ridgeback which have been created from C.l.dingo stock are mentioned and linked to, as is the case with the Shiba Inu, which some think might be of Canis lupus dingo stock. Of course, just because you're Canis lupus dingo doesn't mean you are stray, feral, or wild, but there are things there we might want to use to assemble this article.

The article Askal seems to be about the stray dogs of the Philippines, or if not that, one particular type of stray dog they have there, and how it is being bred into a true breed. Have a look, I haven't read it closely but plan to.

There are probably more, but that's all I can find at the moment. I think we need to recruit an expert in this area to help us. Chrisrus (talk) 01:34, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

So, we're looking at doing an article specifically on feral dogs? Then will the words 'feral" and "stray" to be used as meaning the same thing? I think not because a dog can be a stray who is looking for his home again as in the movie "Milo & Otis" and has not turned feral.  A feral dog is one who has truly left humankind in favor of an independent lifestyle or at least a lifestyle free of humans.  Not a bad idea, really,considered how humans have harmed animals down through the ages. In regard to the articles you've mentioned Chrisrus, we'll have to first decide which pertain to "strays" and which pertain to "feral dogs".  Then do an article that "mentions" the various feral dogs in some manner and has a brief description of each, but leaves an in depth study to the articles individually devoted to each particular animal? So does wiki have an article on stray dogs? Yes, it does. So then do we just want to leave the article "Stray dogs" alone and concentrate on a "feral dog" article? I'll have to read it again, but the article called "stray dogs" should link with any wiki article about stray dogs, not feral dogs because I think they are two different things. I think strays may become feral, but they go to feral in stages, not just instantly as soon as they escape or get lost or whatever. There are big differences between stray and feral dogs. " The term "Feral Dog" refers to any canine gone wild, completely wild. In some feral dog populations, there may be members in various stages of feralization.  Some members may be newly lost or strayed.  Others may may have been strayed for quite some time and are slowly being integrated into the feral mainstream, while others may be have been born as a feral, perhaps 10th generation feral.  One of the deciding differences when deciding whether a dog is "feral" or "wild" is the degree of isolation and/or the degree of landrace characteristics.  In other words, a feral population will be in flux because of constantly acquiring new members from the world of domestication whereas a wild population is stabilized for whatever reason and in not accepting new members, has, in fact, become a race of it's own.  Scientifically, this group, landrace or race could also be called a "breed" although the name "breed" is generally reserved for naming "domesticated breeds of dog".. So then basically, if a dog is lost, say for example, it becomes instantly a lost or strayed dog. It then is a stray. If it continues to be lost or strayed for a period of time it may become feral, that is severing bonds with human kind and living independently. Now then, if it continues as a feral beast for a long period of time and in some manner is able to isolate itself from outside hybridization, then it will eventually become a "wild" dog having attained a niche all its own on the taxonomic charts. What to do? osm20Oldsingerman20 (talk) 16:57, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I think we should definitely have an article on feral dogs, and the distinction between stray, feral, and "wild" can be teased out there. Presumably, feral dogs generally either start out as strays, or are descended from them. bd2412  T 17:57, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Well, in my way of thinking ferals can either start off as a stray or lost dog and then go feral or down the road, a feral dog will whelp feral pus and after about 3,000 years they can be called "wild" dogs instead of feral dogs. At least, that's my take on things. osm20Oldsingerman20 (talk) 04:08, 21 May 2011 (UTC)


 * In contexts like the article Stray dogs in Moscow, you can tell from reading it that in intended referent of the term is a dog without an owner and not in captivity, but still never far from and dependant on human society. A dog with an owner who gets lost for awhile might be a "stray" in some sense, but I think we can leave lost dogs that do have owners out of the referent of "stray".
 * In the article about Laika (dog), the first astronaut, he is called a "stray". Used that way, even if a dog is taken in, in this usage, he's still a "stray".  Which is an odd usage to me, because the way I use the word, if you take in a stray dog, he's not a stray anymore.  I guess in Russia the translated word "stray" for what Laika was, in that context referred to a bloodline, that of the random-bred, or never-bred street dog population that has lived there since practically forever seems like.
 * The article Feral, have you all read it? It has some mention of dogs, specifically the Australian Dingo and the Carolina Dog.  One thing is clear, it's never used for animals that have no domestic ancestors.  Places like Hawaii have trouble with feral populations of goats and pigs and dogs and cats and so on because people brought their domestic animals with them to Hawaii but they escaped and started a breeding population apart from us.  The thing is, there may be a difference between a feral dog that sticks around the village and people and such animals as the Carolina dog and Australian Dingo, which can and often do live more like wolves and give people a wide berth.  Unlike pigs and goats and such, which can be counted on to head for the hills when they get away, dogs are interested in people by nature and it would take an extraordinary set of circumstances to make them change that nature and run from people by nature.
 * Another article of interest is the article Pariah dog. It's about the Indian street dogs, too, but there are articles about dogs bred from that stock, such as one confusingly called The Indian Pariah Dog.  There has been some progress on that article,  but it still conflates different referents of the same name, one of which is simply "stray".  Have a look, it might be useful or have good references. Chrisrus (talk) 08:07, 21 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh, I forgot. There is also this little article, have a look: estray. Chrisrus (talk) 08:18, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

In my way of thinking the Moscow dogs are strays for a time and then if they're not taken in and given a home, they become feral. They might evolve into a kind of landrace, but never into a breed of their own because they have constant influxes of new blood from new strays. If no strays were ever allowed to happen in Moscow, then the feral population would evolve into a landrace and into a breed. Village dogs or dogs that hang around villages, are feral. Village dogs that have no specific owner, but that live in the village and live among the residents are actually owned, perhaps not by one individual, but the villagers and dogs own one another. They are not strays. If the village dogs leave the village and get away from human contact then they move through the state of stray to the state of feral. They again will never evolve into a real landrace or breed because their bloodlines are constantly infused with new blood. Only the dogs isolated, such as AU Dingoes and NGSD have had the ability to move from POSSIBLE stray to POSSIBLE feral to landrace to breed. The same crux is that no one has yet to prove that AU Dingoes or NGSDs were ever tamed or domesticated at all. I still need to reread Pariah, and Indian Pariah and the estray articles. osm20Oldsingerman20 (talk) 19:52, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
 * We have a lot of material here now - certainly enough to build an article - but no references. We need some sources indicating that these are technically correct distinctions, and not just matters of opinion. bd2412  T 21:59, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Most of what I've stated are simply dictionary definitions. Where will you locate the article in order to work on it?osm20Oldsingerman20 (talk) 06:55, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

To continue what I was doing before, if this navigation page is to help the reader more, we could send them to the category "feral dogs" and make sure that all these articles having to do with feral, wild, or stray dogs, both that I have linked to above and others that Wikipedia might already have, Category:Feral Dogs. We might say words to the effect of "sorry, we have no article, but we do have this catecory page, Category:Feral dogs, which we can send you to and good luck when you get there! But I don't know if WP:MOSDAB guidelines feel about having category pages on disambiguation page lists.

To respond to your discussion, yes, a dictionary citation might be a helpful thing to get started on an article that could sit where the redirect to this page at the link feral dog sits now. Google scholar searches generally result in only reliable sources as defined by wikipedia, but few results for "feral dog" that I got when I seached it seem to speak in general terms about them. They most speak about the effect of feral dogs on the environment in one specific situation or diseases they can have, or some such. A good dictionary citation would be a good thing to find, as would this article here if we could see it: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0304376282901419. You could help by searching Google Books or Google Scholar for more. Chrisrus (talk) 08:08, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I think the thing to do is begin to draft an article at Feral dog using the information on this page and whatever sources we can come up with on short order. There is some useful information on feral dogs in James Serpell, The Domestic Dog: Its Evolution, Behaviour, and Interactions With People (1995), p. 241-242. So far as I recall, MOSDAB provides for links to categories and special page searches. Cheers! bd2412  T 16:13, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Hey, you guys: I found something that might help resolve this issue. Check it out, | http://snr.missouri.edu/fw/faculty/pdf/gompper/intraguild-competition.pdf. A. T. Vanak and M. E. Gompper say that “Free-ranging dog” is used by experts to refer to those that subsist on human society but are not confined but are still “comesaral” with humans, which means “eating from the same table as” humans. The urban free-ranging dogs are often discussed separately from rural free-ranging dogs because the latter have a much greater effect on wildlife, so there could be a place for two articles there. The “villiage dog”s are free-ranging, but rarely leave their rural village, which is their territory and they defend it from outsiders, so don't mix with the feral ones as much. Villiage dogs are at least tolerated by the local people for some reason and comesaral.  Experts tend to use the term “feral dogs” as dogs become less comesaral, more independent of humans for food.  They hunt and scavange in wild places and revert back to being more of a wild animal, hunting and scavaging on their own.  This hapChrisrus (talk) 03:37, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
 * We certainly have enough material to put together an article at this point. bd2412  T 17:54, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, I agree. Let's move this to the discussion page for the user page you created for assembling the article.  Chrisrus (talk) 04:52, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
 * That is a fine idea. bd2412  T 15:35, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Links to references about feral dogs
I'll just start making a list of articles I find for us to review for possible use. osm20Oldsingerman20 (talk) 13:16, 26 May 2011 (UTC) http://www.bestfriends.org/theanimals/pdfs/dogs/feraldogs.pdf http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/08/0821_030821_straydogs.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by Oldsingerman20 (talk • contribs) 17:12, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Good idea. Consider using Google Scholar when you search, as it pretty much only returns WP:RS stuff, the highest quality.  If you just use regular Google you tend to get alot more blogs and such.  You have to hit the "more" choice at the top of the Google page to find Scholar.  Chrisrus (talk) 18:01, 8 August 2011 (UTC)