I’ve seen some odd dog and cat breeds over the years and some look like they would have a tough go of it if forced to fend for themselves in the wild.
Assuming you released 5 males and 5 females of a specific breed into a verdant North American (say State of Georgia) woodland and came back in 50 years. Assuming there were no other domesticated dog or cat breeds (other than naturally occuring ones (ie coyotes, wolves, bobcats, pumas etc.) in the woods, which breeds would make a go of it, and which would not?
Breeds I can’t see surviving
Bulldogs
Persian cats
Daushaunds
Ragdoll cats
Saint Bernards
A lot of domestic cats wouldn’t make it. Unless a kitten is taught to hunt by its mother, many of them never learn how to hunt successfully enough to survive. Most feral cats rely on dumpster, garbage cans or kind people to survive.
I’m fairly certain my pugs wouldn’t survive a night outside on my deck, with their kennels, soft deck chairs to sit on, and a bowl of food and water. They seem to think that a couch is necessary for survival.
Any dog, I think, bred to have a flat face, a trait that does not lend itself to survival in the wild. It precludes rooting, effective fighting and the successfully competitive tearing of flesh.
And I mean a summer night. The winter? They’ve almost convinced me that they can’t possibly survive going outside in the snow long enough to do their business.
Gotta disagree about dachshunds (sp?). As comical as they look, those are hunting dogs who can dash into foxholes. They are vicious. They’d do okay in the wild.
any of the long haired dogs, the ones that just keep growing hair. can you imagine a wild poodle at age 3 or 4?
I think most normal cats (those without ultra flat faces or extra long hair) would probably do ok for the most part, as long as they knew how to hunt.
I thought some (many?) of those flatfaced dogs were that way to allow them to fight better. Cecil had a column about why bulldogs look the way they do and part of it was so they could breath when they were chewing on some unfortunate bull or dog or whatever.
I’d have a hard time imagining them hunting though. They don’t seem capable of taking a rabbit or squirrel by stealth or speed and, as you said, they’re not made to root for smaller rodents.
I was told by a breeder many years ago that English bulldogs usually require assistance to copulate and are usually delivered by C-section. Seems like a recipe for extinction in the wild.
I guess…but every cat I’ve ever known has pretty much pieced the “learn how to hunt” thing together pretty well. I certainly never taught either of my first two cats how to hunt and they were amazingly successful hunters.
By not being able to hunt, I meant not being able to hunt successfully enough to survive - i.e. getting enough to eat. Many cats can bring down the odd chipmunk or stupid bird, but being able to do it on a regular basis is a different story.
I’m sure mine wouldn’t survive. " Raw meat? What do you think we are - savages?"
I used to own a cat that was born in my house and its mother was gone a few weeks later (story not worth getting into). He wasn’t taught to hunt by his mother but surely learned it well enough to bring home mice and birds (and on one occassion a fully grown rabbit) on a near nightly basis. I’ll accept that he may not have been the norm but I’d give domesticated cats as a whole an overall benefit of the doubt when it comes to survival of the species in the wild. I’m sure there’s individual breeds though that would suffer and die off and I’d wonder about their ability to survive a northern winter without the benefit of human shelter and heat sources.
I think we’re talking about BREEDS, though, not individuals. Obviously, most cat breeds do include individuals with considerable hunting ability. I owned a Maine Coon once that could kill a dozen animals on a good day.
In the case of Maine Coons, or American tabbies, or Russian blues, or Siamese, or what hve you, presumably some individuals could hunt successfully, would breed and raise kittens that would learn to hunt. Ergo, the breeds would survive, though of course in short order they’d interbreed and the “Breeds” would mix and become unrecognizable… but their genetic code would live on all the same.