Not totally related but I feel this is the right place to share this small event.
I was driving in a relaxed small town, saw a dog in the sidewalk. He turned to the crosswalk to cross the road and stopped there waiting.
I thought, why not? And stopped my car.
On the opposite side of the road, a trucker thought the same and also stopped.
As we both stood there, the dog crossed the road.
Me and the trucker looked into each other and smiled
This is a very strange piece of research because they admit they only observed the dogs during daytime, but they've still made broad statements claiming the dogs exhibit friendly and docile behavior at all times - despite a reputation for aggression that the researchers casually dismiss.<p>The reality is that street dogs in India are often more active, and sometimes far more aggressive, at nighttime. They often rest quietly during the day to avoid suffering from the extreme heat
In Cuzco Peru (very touristy) a few years ago I noticed that a lot of the feral dogs were outfitted with football (soccer) jerseys, often famous international teams. So, I think they would get a food donation advantage from fans of that team (e.g. Barcelona). I also saw dogs carefully waiting at stoplights to cross a street. It occurred to me that the angry/agressive dogs probably don't make it because its not an effective survival strategy. Probably an outlier situation from an international perspective, but interesting. A pack of dogs ran up to me at one point and I was pretty scared, but they just went past and kept going. They seemed to have a lot of agency, meaning that they survived without any "owner" as we think of it in the USA.
I had an encounter with a street dog in Sofia/Bulgaria that I will never forget.<p>We were at the outskirts of the city and decided to take a walk to the center along one of the main roads. After a while we noticed that a street dog was following us at a constant distance of maybe 15 meters. It looked quite friendly and we thought it may be hoping to get food from us, but we did not have any. We talked to it, also waved good bye several times, but it kept following us. Then, suddenly it came closer, maybe to 5 meter distance, and just after that a pack of other street dogs came from a side street, angrily barking and obviously having a problem with out dog being in their hood. But they were afraid of us humans and our dog suddenly acted as if it was our pet dog, walking really close to us. We continued walking and the pack of street dogs eventually gave up. Suddenly after that, our dog was gone. Obviously it had a plan right from the beginning: Using us as protection to get past that pack of dogs into the city center. And it perfectly executed the plan.
I once got cornered by a pack of dogs in Hyderabad in an early morning attempted walk to a coffee shop (what can I say, first time in Hyderabad, I didn't really grok that walking any significant distance is an adventure). Not sure if they'd have actually attacked, but they were making all the right sounds. Luckily there was a fence I could scale that they were unwilling or unable to go over.<p>But during the heat of the day? They did seem relaxed. Though I never tried to pet one or anything like that. Dogs getting agitated around humans in Hyderabad would probably be pretty exhausting.
Some dogs in Moscow have learned to use the metro system to navigate the city, hanging out with other dogs or a friendly person who they know will feed them at certain times of the day [0].<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_dogs_in_Moscow#Subway-dwelling_dogs" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_dogs_in_Moscow#Subway-d...</a>
I’ve developed a phobia from street dogs. Especially with the bad experiences i had with them when i was kid.
But what i have noticed. When the street is busy. They’re peaceful otherwise they will try to intimidate you as a group either you’re walking,cycling, biking, driving.
When i am in the car and i am safe. I play games with them. I stop the car. They stop and they wait for me to drive. So they can run and bark outloud. Seems like they’re just playing. I wish i had the same courage when i am walking/running
This reminds me of a documentary, "A Cow a Day", aired by BBC Radio Three a couple of years ago. The documentary was by the poet and radio producer Pejk Malinovski. Pejk follows a random street cow on the streets of Varanasi in India.<p>When I first heard about this documentary, I thought, what a ridiculous idea of following a stray cow for a day and making a documentary out of it! But when I listened to the audio documentary, it was one of the most engaging documentary I had listened to!
a number of years ago I was nearly attacked by a pack of feral dogs in the outskirts of rawalpindi, pakistan.<p>it was about 5:30 am before most of the city was awake and I was taking myself and luggage out to the nearest main road to get a taxi to catch an early flight.<p>it turns out that the tactic for scaring off a mountain lion also works with them, if you raise your arms over your head as high as you can reach while simultaneously screaming "YARRRGGGH!!!!!!" as loud as humanly possible, you can chase away a whole pack.<p>still was quite a sketchy situation.
I'll be honest, there doesn't seem to be much scientific reasoning here behind things.<p>Things like tracking distance the dogs travelled in a day would be pretty easy to do for a random sample. Or the breakdown of sex / estimated age / etc.<p>Maybe it's just a starting point but it doesn't give much info IMHO.
I adopted a pariah dog from Punjab 3 years ago. Described here: <a href="https://sevastray.com/blogs/news/rani" rel="nofollow">https://sevastray.com/blogs/news/rani</a>. She definitely snoozes midday in the hot Georgia summer and is super friendly.
The street dogs of India seem especially lethargic compared to ones I’ve seen elsewhere. I wonder if it’s the hot climate, the ease of finding food in an ultra-dense urban environment, or perhaps more exposure to parasites. It would be great do to some follow up studies to compare other countries.
I highly recommend the movie Stray <a href="https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/stray_2021" rel="nofollow">https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/stray_2021</a> It follows the life of some stray dogs in Istanbul.
my experience with street dogs in India was positive, they were never* agressive towards me, quite the opposite, in Goa beach they were protecting white (!) people on beach from locals, in morning when I sat on empty beach they even made circle around me and lay around me, but when (clearly) local came to beach they started bark at him immediately, I wonder if tourists treat them better than locals, so they behave accordingly at least in Goa<p>*only place in India where I was attacked by dogs was right at the southern gate of Taj Mahal, dog snapped after my leg but it seems he didnt bite, even guard checked my leg and mind saying when I travelled around Agra I saw in other location again younger boys attacked by street dogs, so seems Agra is really bad place with dogs, everywhere else in India was my experience with street dogs uneventful
Is this not how lions spend their days? Or jackals. Or wolves, or foxes: pack predators have good fight/flight/feed balance and just hang around, minimising energy cost. Dogs just do it more.. urbanely.