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A free-ranging dog is any dog that is not contained. The term encompasses various loose categories relating to the ownership, behavior, and descent of such dogs, including wild dogs, feral dogs, stray dogs, street dogs, and village dogs, as well as dogs allowed to come and go freely by their owners. It sometimes overlaps with the polysemic term pariah dog. The term is used when distinctions of ownership are irrelevant.

Stray dogs
Ecologists find it important at times to distinguish among urban free-ranging dogs, rural free-ranging dogs, and feral or wild dogs. The distinction can be important as the ecological impact of, and evolutionary pressures on, the two groups can be quite different.

Village dogs Rural free-ranging dogs that rarely if ever leave a settlement are called village dogs. They are considered neither wild nor feral, and have less impact on the surrounding ecosystem than other rural free-ranging dogs. They pose a different set of environmental pressures than feral or wild dogs, or even free-ranging farm dogs. Experts on the behavior of early and primitive dogs have also noted interesting physical and behavioral differences between village dogs and other more feral free-ranging dogs. For example, village dogs tend to be smaller and to be found more often alone or in pairs.

Feral dogs
The term "pariah dog" has been used inconsistently, but is sometimes synonymous with "free-ranging dog". Originally referring to the landrace of free-ranging dogs native to India and other Asian countries, it later came to be used for free-ranging dogs in general. The United Kennel Club uses it for a category of dogs also known as primitive dogs, which includes wild dogs, distinctive local free-ranging landraces, breeds recently developed from free-ranging populations, and very ancient breeds. There is also a specific breed called the Indian pariah dog, which is being bred from the free-ranging landrace by the same name.

Experts in the area of free-ranging dog control sometimes distinguish between stray dogs and feral dogs. The former is used to refer to lost and abandoned pets or others that had been socialized to humans before taking to the free-ranging life, and the latter to those who have lived all their lives apart from people. This distinction is important to them because stray dogs can be relatively easily taken into captivity, whereas feral dogs are more fearful and difficult to keep as pets, and so are more often captured, spayed or neutered, and released back into in the parks, vacant lots, and other hiding places on the margins of human society where they are most commonly found.

Wild dogs The term "wild dog" may refer to wild and feral domestic dogs; to any of several wild canine species commonly called called "dogs" or "wild dogs" but which are not true dogs; or even, in the broadest sense, to any wild canid - any member of the dog family of carnivores, the Canidae; including wolves, jackals, coyotes, foxes, and many more which are commonly contrasted with "dogs" in other contexts. It is also used as a common name for several specific canine species which are not true dogs; and may sometimes refer to any wild canine.

In scientific literature, free-ranging dogs such as Australian dingoes are considered to be " wild" rather than "feral" to the extent to which they are not "commensal": dependent on handouts and cast-offs from humans; and instead hunt and scavenge in the wild. Ecologically, wild dogs are integrated into the ecosystem, often as top predators. Evolutionarily, wild dogs are more profoundly changed by many generations apart from people. Both wild dogs and adult feral dogs are less easily kept as pets than free-ranging or captive dogs that have been socialized to humans. Unlike feral dogs, however, wild dogs tend to maintain their wild nature even when taken in as puppies.

As a technical term, “wild dogs” is not used in scientific literature to refer to domestic dogs sub-classified as Canis lupus familiaris, no matter how feral or wild they may be. It is reserved exclusively for dogs classified as Canis lupus dingo or Canis lupus dingo X Canis lupus familiaris'' which are wild rather than feral: New Guinea singing dogs; Australian dingoes; some Australian dingo/dog hybrids; and others from Southeast Asia and Australasia. While still listed taxonomically as “domestic dogs", they are considered wild rather than feral domesticated animals, even when raised in captivity.