Question:
We have a 96-acre horse farm in southern Maryland. It is surrounded by hundreds of acres of woods, fields and wetlands. There are packs of feral dogs living in the woods. I am interested in knowing if anyone has studied feral dogs or if there are any articles on the subject.
R.P., Silver Branch, Md Jun 06, 2004
Answer:
Dr. Alan Beck and I conducted studies on feral dogs in the 1970s and '80s. His book on them, "The Ecology of Stray Dogs: A Study of Free-Ranging Urban Animals," was reprinted by Purdue University Press in 2002 and is available from Amazon.com. There are also some references to feral dogs in my book "The Dog: Its Domestication and Behavior," reprinted by Krieger Publishing. "Lost Dogs Three," a children's book I wrote about a small pack of feral dogs that I studied in St. Louis, Mo., in the '70s, is unfortunately out of print. And there is a moving book about the plight of urban feral dogs called "The Man Who Talks to Dogs," by Melinda Roth. It will be published in paperback this July by St. Martin's Press, and is well worth reading. While feral dog packs may be interesting to study, I find research ethically questionable when their offspring are being born to suffer from disease and malnutrition, and when the animals are competing with wildlife for food, prey on livestock, and spread disease to wild carnivore.
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