Differences in the Behavior of Landraces and Breeds of Dogs - Genetics and the Behavior of Domestic Animals - page 200

Mexico City dump are well fed, suggesting that something other than food
was limiting the population. The niche of the village dog, like the niche of
any species, has a lush center which declines in abundance toward the
margins.
Reproduction
There is little to no manipulation of dog breeding claimed by Zanzibaris,
except for one hunter who had a favorite female. Like foraging, reproduction
is the responsibility of the dog. Female and male dogs are promiscuous
( Daniels, 1983; Ghosh et al., 1984/1985 ). In Zulu-Natal, the Mexico City
dump, and Mucuch ´ es, males were observed to line up and breed a female
sequentially, with little aggression between them. This kind of promiscuity is
common in our studies. Indeed when one sees a “pack” of dogs it is almost
always a bitch in heat followed by any number of males. Litters of pups can
have multiple fathers.
Females raise their own puppies independently of humans, and the litera-
ture suggests that no help is provided by male dogs or other members of a
group ( Lord et al., 2013 ). Pups begin to follow their mother to food sources
at about 8 weeks. Pups often beg for food from people but for all practical
purposes pups are competing (poorly) with adults from the post-nursing stage
( Lord et al., 2013 ).
The reproductive success of village dogs was discussed by Beck (1973) ,
Boitani et al. (1995, 2006) , Macdonald and Carr (1995) , and Pal (2001) .
These studies note little “successful” reproduction. Mortality of juveniles
was high for a variety of reasons, but partly because these populations are
pests and harassed by humans. Reece et al. (2008) estimated that in spite of
the harassment, village dogs in Jaipur sustained an average fecundity of 1.33
female pups per year, which suggests growing populations. Chawla and
Reece (2002) found that the dog population in this area was growing with
the human population (about 4% per year). This increase is likely lower than
normal as both Reece et al. (2008) and Chawla and Reece (2002) were
performing these studies to assess an attempt to control this city's dog popu-
lation through surgical sterilization. Similarly, on Pemba, it was reported that
when the population of dogs gets too high it has to be culled. However, since
there are no household dogs to restock this population, we must conclude
that reproduction among village dogs is self-sustaining no matter how high
puppy mortality is in any given year ( Lord et al., 2013 ).
Hazard Avoidance
A striking difference between village dogs and wild canids lies in the avoid-
ance of people. That avoidance is called “flight distance.” The onset of flight
in village dogs is initiated only at short distances and the flight is just ade-
quate to prevent capture; it ceases with the achievement of the minimum