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Street dogs, known in scientific literature as free-ranging urban dogs or urban free-ranging dogs, are unconfined dogs that live in cities. They live virtually wherever cities exist and the local human population allows, especially in the developing world and the former second world. Street dogs may be stray dogs, pets which have strayed from or are allowed freedom by their owners, or may be feral animals that have never been owned. Street dogs may be stray purebreds, true mixed-breed dogs, or unbred landraces such as the Indian pariah dog. Street dog overpopulation can cause problems for the societies in which they live, so campaigns to spay and neuter them are sometimes implemented. They tend to differ from rural free-ranging dogs in their skill sets, socialization, and ecological effects.
Contents
Disease
Outbreaks of rabies are often traced to unvaccinated street dogs, one of the most common carriers of the painful and deadly disease.
Bites
To survive, street dogs need to avoid conflict with humans. However, dog bites can occur when dogs are trying to mate or fighting among themselves, and pedestrians and other humans in the vicinity may be bitten by fighting dogs. In addition, females with pups are often protective and may bite people who approach their litter.
Quality of life
Barking and howling and dog fights over mating among dogs can be very disturbing to people, and the smell of dog urine which is an unsavory product of territory marking can become quite pungent, especially among unspayed or neutered dogs, not to mention the presence of feces.
Skills and adaptations
Dogs are known to be a highly adaptive and intelligent species. To survive in modern cities, street dogs must be able to navigate traffic.
Some of the stray dogs in Bucharest are seen crossing the large streets at pedestrian crosswalks. The dogs have probably noticed that when humans cross streets at such markings, cars tend to stop. The dogs have accustomed themselves to the flow of pedestrian and automobile traffic; they sit patiently with the people at the curb when they are stopped for a red light, and then cross with them as if a daily routine.
In cities in Russia and several other countries, street dogs are said to have been observed to learn to use subway and bus services.
Afghan
Nowzad is an organisation in Afghanistan that works to rescue stray dogs in that country. A group of stray dogs became famous in Afghanistan after confronting a suicide bomber, preventing fifty American soldiers from being killed. However, one of the surviving dogs, Target, was mistakenly euthanized when she was brought to the United States.
India
As a result of the virtual extermination by the veterinary drug diclofenac of the vultures which formerly ate animal carcasses and well as dead humans, urban India has two features which create and sustain street dog populations: large amounts of exposed animal carcasses, which provide an abundant source of food, and a huge population of slum and street-dwellers whose way of life includes keeping the dogs as free-roaming pets. For example, Mumbai has over 12 million human residents, of whom over half are slum-dwellers. At least five hundred tons of garbage remain uncollected daily. Therefore, conditions are perfect for supporting a particularly large population of stray dogs. India has the highest number of human rabies deaths in the world (estimated at 20,000 per annum).
In 2001, a law was passed in India that made the killing of stray dogs illegal, and residents often feed the animals as well. In August 2014, the Delhi Police recruited many of the city's stray dogs as police dogs, after training them.
Pakistan
In Pakistan, several dog breeds exist including the Gaddi Kutta, Indian pariah dog, Bully Kutta, among others. In the city of Lahore, the Public Health Department launched a campaign to kill 5,000 stray dogs. In 2009, 27,576 dogs were killed within the city of Lahore; in 2005, this number was 34,942. In 2012, after 900 dogs were killed in the city of Multan, the Animal Safety Organisation in Pakistan sent a letter to Chief Minister (CM) "Shahbaz Sharif recommending that stray dogs be vaccinated rather than killed."
Italy
Around 80% of abandoned dogs die early due to lack of survival skills.
Romania
In Romania, free-ranging urban dogs (called in Romanian câini maidanezi, literally "wasteland dogs", câini comunitari "community dogs", etc.) have been a huge problem in recent decades, especially in larger cities, with many people being bitten by dogs. The problem originates primarily in the systematization programme that took place in Communist Romania in the 1970s and 1980s under Nicolae Ceaușescu, who enacted a mass programme of demolition and reconstruction of existing villages, towns, and cities, in whole or in part, in order to build standardized blocks of flats (blocuri). The dogs from the yards of the demolished houses were abandoned on the streets, and reproduced, multiplying their numbers throughout the years. Estimations for Bucharest vary widely, but the number of stray dogs has been reduced drastically in 2014, after the death of 4-years old child in 2013 who was attacked by a dog. The Bucharest City Hall stated that over 51,200 stray dogs were captured from October 2013 to January 2015, with more than half being euthanized, about 23,000 being adopted, and 2,000 still residing in the municipality's shelters.
Russia
In Russia, stray dogs have been caught by doghunters' vans and destroyed since ca. 1900. Their sad lot was dramatised by Anton Chekhov in the famous short story Kashtanka, by Mikhail Bulgakov in the novella Heart of a Dog, and by Gavriil Troyepolsky in the novel White Bim Black Ear.
Serbia
Free-ranging dogs are serious problem of the Serbian cities and rural areas, where they are attacked by people, including children. The total number of free-ranging dogs in Serbia is estimated at several tens of thousands, of which the largest groups could be found in Belgrade (more than 17,000), Novi Sad (about 10,000), Niš (between 7,000 and 10,000), Subotica (about 8,000) and Kragujevac (about 5,000).
Puerto Rico
Philippines
Locally known as Askals, street dogs in the Philippines, while sometimes exhibiting mixing with breed dogs from elsewhere, are generally native unbred mongrel dogs.
Thailand
In culture
Viață de câine (A dog's life) (1998), a Romanian documentary movie by Alexandru Solomon.
Sag-e welgard (The Stray Dog) (1942), a fiction novel by Sadegh Hedayat.