An ode to street dogs
It’s only taken 3 decades, 1 undergraduate Classics degree, and 2 masters degrees (MA Publishing +MSc Speech Pathology), for my Aha! moment to kick in. To course correct. But here I am, finally deep-diving into the subject that’s had my heart since memory serves: animal behaviour. Specifically, canine ethology and cognition. Even more specifically, street dogs. Academically speaking, urban free-ranging dogs.
And so while I complete my training in Canine Psychology and Behaviour with ISCP, I set up Ceylon Street Dog Project as a way to apply my learnings to what we know about street dogs (their natural behaviours, welfare, ethology, and so on). Here, I document my findings, consolidate my learnings and attempt to set myself clear goals. And as I turn a science lens on Sri Lankan street dogs, I invite people to join me on my scientific quest for the truth about these keenly intelligent, highly independent, and lovable domesticated canids.
In the process of my thesis research, it became apparent that there is scarce scientific data on street dogs in Sri Lanka. With a free-roaming dog population of 3 million island wide, this absence of study dumbfounded me. Particularly since this lack of understanding contributes to the ineffective, cruel ways street dog population management has been — and is still, handled. There must be a more humane, sustainable way to manage these animals; evidence-based strategies to keep humans and dogs safe and happy.
So! The aim of this earnest project is two-fold:
a) To better understand the Sri Lankan street dog through an ethological lens (in their 2 main environments: in the home and on the streets).
b) To better understand public & owner perceptions towards street dogs, so as to identify cultural/social barriers, with a view to finding humane solutions to the human-dog conflict prevalent in Sri Lanka.
There’s been intensive and extensive research on modern dog breeds, despite only having been created some 150 years ago in Victorian Britain* — and accounting for merely ¼ of the global domestic dog population.
People know what to expect in terms of physical attributes & temperament when they buy a pedigree golden retriever, pug, or rottweiler; shape, size, and coat characteristics specifically designed due to generations of selective breeding by humans. Behavioral traits have been selected based on humans’ use of dogs for herding, hunting, guarding, and companionship. Favourable characteristics are selected, the unfavourable bred out. Interestingly, scientists have found that behavioral traits may be linked to morphological characteristics — meaning, selecting for function may impact form. (Belyaev’s silver fox domestication syndrome experiment is currently being challenged but not ruled out due to a lack of evidence).
But street dogs? They breed naturally, by and large, outside of human interference. This is great, biologically-speaking as it results in a wider, stronger gene pool. But it also means they’re a bit of a question mark in terms of their behavioural traits, leaving a big gap in our knowledge of the majority of the domestic dog as a species. Biologist and renowned canine scientist Dr Raymond Coppinger** calls the 850 million street dogs worldwide ‘superbly adapted scavengers’, the closest thing to the proto-dog that emerged thousands of years ago. If over ¾ of the world’s dog population isn’t worth studying, then what is?
*For more on the business of modern dog breeds, see The Invention of the Modern dog: Breed and Blood in Victorian Britain (2018), by Prof. M Worboys, N. Pemberton & JM Strange.
** What is a Dog? (2016), Raymond & Lorna Coppinger
