“Pet” dogs and “stray” dogs – why the “toughness” difference?
I like dogs. In my home country, in the “poorer” parts (imagine a place where people primarily ride bicycles around, wear sandals instead of proper shoes and don’t bother to lock doors at night), there are many dogs running around. Some are stray but MOST belong to someone.
These dogs are given the freedom to run around the whole town and they never eat proper dog food (kibbles, canned etc.) They only eat scraps and leftovers from human meals.
The dogs have NO distinct breed. Because of their running around, they have become so mixed it’s impossible to tell their breed (but they are generally LABRADOR size).
My question is: Why are these dogs, with very poor living conditions, so strong? My grandmother’s dog lived to be ~16 (believe it or not) and he died from ancient age. Never once did he take medication to prevent heart worms or fleas or hook worms or any type of worm. He just ran around, ate scraps and rubbish and lived life. Occasionally, my grandpa would pick the ticks off the dog and that’ll be it.
Why do our pets get so sick easily? We spend heaps every month on quality kibble, worry about this and that, vaccinations, pills etc. And they only live to be 10 -14 or so (on average).
Tagged with: difference • dogs • stray • toughness
Filed under: Bicycle Shoes
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They have to fight for their food and only the strong survive so they are naturally strong and so are their offspring.
i reckon it is because they are like a feral dog nearly wild so they have a stronger immune system. they have to be strong to survive. thats all i can figure. excellent question!
Well living outside the dogs learn from each other. At first most are sweet until they realize they don’t get food or they don’t get excellent shelter from just sitting around. They realize they have to fight and work for it. From fighting and from seeing many things that other dogs do they become stronger, more confident, and in charge. They will eventually know the streets and who the new guy is. By knowing this they feel confident and strong and by fighting they gain muscle. By wandering the streets everyday they gain muscle. By eating natural food like vegetables out of someones garden or even by drinking street water it makes their immune system stronger and as they reproduce their babies are born stronger than regular well cared for dogs. My cousin has a 10 year ancient rabbit that has lived outside since he was small and is still very strong. Doctor said he was going to die at the age of two and he’s turning 11 in two months. He has befriended raccoons, snakes, opossums, rats, and everything else you can imagine including stray cats and dogs. Not once has he been attacked or anything because he’s street smart, in this case he’s ” backyard smart” but anyway, I guess its a way of life for them.
Stray dogs have to fight for practically everything on the contrary the pet dogs are taken excellent care of and get used to the luxuries of life and its hard for them to cope with diseases. stray dogs r used to eating food from garbage but we feed our pets proper food so it will be hard for them to survive like a stray dog.
My 5 year ancient Japanese Spitz has epilepsy ): i have done everything but he still gets those fits.
I hope u get the thought why there’s a difference.