Somewhat coincidentally, more dogs! And foxes. And wildness.

[urocyon]

I was just looking at the Wikipedia page on Carolina Dogs, and couldn't help but get simultaneously amused and irked. Yeah, it's Wikipedia, but the subject's treatment is irritatingly typical.


Apparently, Dr. I. Lehr Brisbin Jr. seeing some dogs constitutes "discovery". We also get suggestions of animal abuse thrown in: "Brisbin, who had seen many rural dogs chained to the back of porches and doghouses, assumed this was just a normal stray." (Hey, everybody knows how those rednecks chain dogs up to porches...) Very possibly he assumed this, in part, because of lot of these were the same dogs. What constitutes a "normal stray" depends very much upon where you're looking.

It goes on to say: "Also, fossils of the dogs of Native Americans exhibit similar bone structures to Carolina Dogs. Brisbin found a resemblance between 2,000-year-old skulls and those of the Carolina Dogs, but concluded that there was too large a difference to prove any connection.[4] Along with this, DNA testing have pointed to a link"

It's easy to conclude that both people and dogs are extinct, or nearly so. Especially since "[i]n the 1980s, most Carolina Dogs were removed to captivity for study." (Just try to round them all up.)

This site is a little more reasonable: "Carolina Dogs were Indian Dogs and were the First Domesticated Dog of the Americas. . .Many of these dogs were favored by Indians and used for various tasks such as herding. The Kentucky Shell Heap Dog and the Basketmaker Dog are examples of ancient pariahs on the North American continent."

Now we're getting somewhere, even with continued use of the past tense (and some other quibbles about origin). What we're still missing is the fact that this type of dog is not particularly rare, and is still kept. Frequently, IME, in the former stomping grounds of the Kentucky Shell Heap Dog.

Also, at least they're admitting that we were herding. Just an aside, also having to do with different ideas about what constitutes "domestication".

There is a lot of crossover between the "wild" and "domesticated" populations; I suspect this has pretty much always been the case. Dogs wander into the woods sometimes, and they also wander out--to lie on your porch, and get you to feed them and scratch their ears. I kept getting warned away from them, as a kid, until an adult checked them out! Some prefer to stay outside--and are more likely to wander back into the woods eventually, AFAICT--while others are less timid about coming in the house. My Nana got adopted by several this way, that I know of. I think they've probably been "semi-domesticated", a lot like urban foxes here in the UK, for a long time now.

I should probably add that this has had much less to do with habitat encroachment, than with both humans and dogs seeming fairly happy with the arrangement. The foxes are a slightly different matter.

Others are still more thoroughly domesticated, usually starting with "wild" dogs who have adopted humans. A lot of these have turned into feists, among other breeds. (No matter how much some people want to connect them to European terriers. This derivation of rat terriers from feists makes a lot more sense, looking at the dogs!) Nana was also fond of feists--and had a couple of feist-"wild" dog mixes, for that matter.

Ingvar and I were just talking about the "wild" vs. "domesticated" thing again, last night or the night before. The topic came up a little while ago, with this link about foxes. I still have trouble accepting the rigid division which some people want to draw there. We must be working from very different definitions and concepts, separating the human world from the rest of reality so sharply.

One of my objections here is that it's ludicrous to call the urban foxes "wild", in a lot of ways. (Somewhat similar to hands-off sea turtle management programs, when humans have been screwing with their nesting areas--God'll sort 'em out?!) The foxes have already become very dependent upon human sources of food and shelter. For a fox who seeks it out, a food bowl and a warm place to sleep (along with some parasite treatment!) can only be an improvement, leading to a healthier and happier fox. Some people would treat this as an obscene suggestion.

From a vet quoted in the fox article:

"It is nice to see people taking an interest in wildlife but you have to remember they are wild animals and have to be treated with respect," she said. "The are not mini-dogs, they are wildlife."

I'd suggest treating the dogs with respect, as well. I suspect we're using different versions of "respect", here.

Then again, there are a bunch of feral chickens where I'm from--couldn't find a reference, but there are scads closer to home--mostly because a lot of people still don't think it's right to keep them too tightly confined.

Comments

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

In horses the distinction between 'feral' and 'domesticated is pretty fluid, and I laugh at the myth of the American Mustang, because traditional horsekeeping in many European Countries - including the uplands of Britain - includes letting mares and stallions run wild, rounding them up once a year, and turning the colts into riding/driving/packing animals. And yes, they can be hellishly skittish when you start, but they soon get used to it - while even a horse that has grown up with frequent human contact, when thrown into a field and ignored for long enough, will often turn out to be just as difficult to get close to as a 'feral' horse.

Also, as far as I understand it, if you feed deer, keep them in enclosures, and give them wormer, they are no longer a wild animal, even if they're too skittish to be handled directly.