Free-ranging urban dog refers to populations of stray dogs on the streets of urban areas, especially the cities of India, the former Soviet Union (except for Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania), the Balkans and Latin America .
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Stray dogs are domesticated dogs that lived with people at some point, usually as pets. They have either been abandoned or accidentally released into urban areas, and now fend for themselves. These dogs' offspring are also considered as strays, so the term "stray" may be applied to many generations removed from the original stray founder(s). The World Health Organization also called WHO estimates that there are more than 200 million stray dogs worldwide.
According to the Indian NGO Welfare for Stray Dogs (WSD): "Most free-roaming dogs belong to an ancient canine race known as the pariah dog, which has existed all over Asia and Africa ever since human beings started living in settlements. They are, and have always been, scavengers–that is, they live on garbage created by humans. In India the landrace has existed for perhaps 14,000 years or more. In addition to scavenging, they are widely kept as pets by rural and urban slum households.
Part of the urban stray population consists of mongrels or mix-breeds–descended from pure-breed dogs that have been allowed to interbreed with pariahs.
The size of stray dog populations always corresponds to the size and character of the human population of the area. Urban India has two features which create and sustain stray dog populations:
1) Large amounts of exposed garbage, which provide an abundant source of food.
2) A huge population of slum and street-dwellers, who often keep the dogs as free-roaming pets.
Mumbai has over 12 million human residents, of whom over half are slum-dwellers. At least 500 tons of garbage remain uncollected daily. Therefore, conditions are perfect for supporting a particularly large population of stray dogs."
According to W.S.D: "Haphazard urban planning and human overpopulation have led to a correspondingly huge population of stray dogs in most Indian cities. They cause the following problems:
Rabies can be a fatal disease which can be transmitted to humans. Although all placental mammals can get and transmit rabies, dogs are one the most common carriers. India has the highest number of human rabies deaths in the world (estimated at 35,000 per annum).
Dog bites can occur when dogs are trying to mate or fighting among themselves. Pedestrians and other humans in the vicinity may be bitten by the fighting dogs. Females with pups are often protective and may bite people who approach their litter.
Barking and howling is an accompaniment to dog fights which invariably take place over mating.
Urine smell is an unsavory product of territory marking.
In Romania free-ranging urban dogs are usually referred to as: câinii maidanezi, maidanezii (ownerless and stray dogs – the strays), câinii comunitari (community/communitarian dogs), câinii vagabonzi (vagabond dogs), or câinii străzii (street-dogs). The online Romanian Explicative Dictionary lists the word maidanez as a noun or adjective denoting both ownerless dogs and vagrant, stray dogs (câine fără stăpân, câine vagabond). According to the same source, there is also the word vagabond, which is a noun or an adjective referring to humans and animals alike. According to estimations in Bucharest, in the year 2000 there were 200,000 free-ranging urban dogs.
Free-ranging dogs are serious problem for safety of the residents of the Serbian cities and rural areas, where they attacking people (including children)[1][2][3] and killing other animals.[4][5] Every year, free-ranging dogs bite about 1,500 people in Serbia, or 4 per day by average.[6] The total number of free-ranging dogs in Serbia is estimated at several tens of thousands,[7] 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).[8][9]
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.
Viaţă de câine (A dog’s life) (1998), a Romanian documentary movie by Alexandru Solomon.
