A Closer Look At Russian Feral Dogs

The end of the last article I read talked about the feral or stray dogs of Moscow, Russia. It was a very interesting look at the evolution of dogs and the possibility for future artificial selection. I was intrigued so I did a little more look into the topic and found a video clip ABC news taking a closer look at these amazing Russian dogs. 

It is believed that if artificial selection and humans were taken out of the equation for the evolution of dogs, that dogs would eventually regress and go back to looking like their ancestor, the wolf. But what about their behaviors, actions, and thoughts? Has something about artificially selecting certain physical traits subsequently affected intelligence? By selecting to breed the dogs that are easily trainable, listen, and obey well, have humans created a smarter dog population in general? Or at least give them the tools to think more like us?

The first thing to note is that the feral dogs of Moscow are not just lost Spots, Fidos, and Rexs. There are not "lost dog" signs hanging up around the city looking for them. These are dogs that were born and raised on the streets. The only thing that has been domesticated about these dogs is their ancestral genes. These feral dogs have lost the distinct characteristics of wagging tails, obey commands, perked up ears, and friendliness that separate domesticated pets from the wolf, but that does not make them a helpless, untamed beast of the wild. 

Biologist Andrei Poyarkov has estimated that only about 3% of these feral dogs breed. This creates strong selective pressures that would lead to what he believes is rapid evolution. During his 30 years of research, Andrei has identified 4 distinct types of behavior that the dogs have taken on. 

1. GUARD DOGS: these dogs follow around security personnel and treat them as the alpha dogs of their packs.
2. SCAVENGERS: roam the city for garbage and scraps. Hardly interact with people at all and prefer to fend for themselves.
3. WILD DOGS: these are the dogs that have regressed most back into the animalistic behaviors and act most wolf-life. These dogs hunt whatever they can find on the streets. 
4. BEGGARS: named for obvious reasons and the group of dogs that has been the most studied and considered the most "advanced".

In packs of beggars, the alpha dog is not the biggest, strongest, or toughest, but it's the smartest. It is not the dog that can hunt the most food, but the dog that can beg for the most food. These dogs are also called metro dogs. They have learned to use the Moscow subway system to help beg for scraps from the daily commuters. It sounds crazy, and almost impossible, but these dogs know one stop from another. Hard to tell if the dogs recognize the name over the loud speaker, the scent, or recognize the station, but the dogs can tell when they get back to where they got on. 

Wilcox, the author of the article, says that there seems to have been a shift in this population from "survival of the fittest" to "survival of the smartest". To me though, this seems to be the same concept. To have a high fitness you have to survive to reproductive again and to survive, especially as a feral dog, you would have to be smart enough to live in the human world but without humans. Being able to cross streets at the proper time to decrease the chances of getting hit by a car is one of the adaptions these dogs have made. In both the video and the article, it talks about dogs being spotted at stop lights at cross walks waiting for the light to turn green even when there are no humans around doing the same.

The ABC news clip, inserted above, talks about other adaptions and advantages these dogs have learned. A lot of these adaptions have been ways to become better or more efficient beggars. Some dogs know exactly where people are most likely to give them food so they camp out in certain spots every day. These dogs are considered "superior beggars". Dog packs have learned to end out smaller cuter dogs to beg for food to bring back to the pack. They have learned that the smaller dogs are less intimidating to humans. But that doesn't mean the bigger dogs don't pull their weight. Other dogs will come up behind a person who has food or is eating and will bark or growl and frighten them from behind. In doing so, the human would be startled and have a higher chance of dropping some, if not all of their food. These dogs are not worried about getting humans to like them or feel pity for them but simply focused on the task of finding food. 

The video also talked about some of the adaptions the metro dogs have made. These dogs are capable of dealing with loud noises and large crowds. These are both situations in which domesticated dogs cannot handle and would probably have anxiety in. These dogs feel safe around large crowds of humans and are definitely not stupid.  

Wilcox ends her article talking about wondering if the strong selection for intellect will make the Moscow metro dogs another species all together. If intelligence is going to make this group of feral dogs a new species, can intelligence then be the next artificially selected trait in dogs across the board? It seems that there is every combination of physical traits in dog breeds already, so is the next step to try and make these dogs smarter? Is it possible to make domesticated dogs as smart as these feral dogs or is the environmental pressure of living in a human world without humans what makes these dogs so smart? 

In the end, I think these Moscow dogs are truly amazing. It shows that the possibility of dogs thinking like us is possible. There is a possibility for dogs to survive in our world without us and without regressing back to their animalistic instincts. I also think that the idea of speciation being based off of intellect could become controversial. For years it seems, people have justified animals and humans being different is our intellect and ability to think at a higher level. But if we start to make new species based on their higher intellect than their close ancestors, will we then have grounds to only animal test on the dumbest of the populations? Part of me thinks that the majority of the human population thinks that dogs are already their own species so why not just make it across the board and speciate all dogs, not just the smart ones?