Feral Dogs - A Potential Problem?

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=documented+feral+dog+attack+on+human&btnG=Search

The facts are that people need to spend their time and energy planning for real issues, not far fetched scenarios. On top of that, the worst thing that anyone can do, and what will most effect your chance of survival is panic. If people are getting trigger happy and randomly shooting their neighbors dogs or other pets they’ll become a prime target for the neighbor who’s also a bit panicked and trigger happy and now also pi**ed off. The quicker people are to start shooting, the faster that society will fail and chaos will start.

The stray dogs that have attacked people aren't the same as feral. They are not hungry, cold, wet and tired and they are not trying to eat people. The fight goes out of dogs pretty fast once they've been abandoned for even a few days or once they don't feel they have a home to protect any longer.

Katrina should be a good example. Thousands of abandoned dogs roaming the streets and starving and have you heard of one instance that a human was attacked? All the rescuers out there, as well as looters, etc. no one was attacked by a pack of dogs. I’m sure there were at least a few times during Katrina that dogs and other animals may have eaten dead humans, but even other humans will eat their dead if they are facing their own death. And probably several rescuers got bit while trying to save them, but that’s a far cry from packs of dogs hunting people. Feral dog packs hunting and eating people is very unrealistic. There are a lot more likely scenarios to consider and prepare for.

Lastly, chances are that IF ALL of the worst case scenarios happen, there is a possibility that a few dogs will survive and manage to find others. And a small percentage of those packs may actually survive a while and learn to hunt and then get up the nerve to try and grab a child. But given all that you have a better chance of winning the lottery than being eaten by a dog.

The PETS forum was started to help people prepare to care for pets during a possible pandemic not frighten each other with wild speculation. I hope we can spend more time on that subject.

First, these were not feral dogs they were pit bulls running loose (strays). Pit bulls are bred to be vicious but in most cases they still aren't mean until the people who own them make them mean. And abused pit bulls, who've recently run away from home are a far cry from abandoned house pets or feral dogs. This is very different as I wrote in my last message.