In some ways, dogs would be better off without people.
It's easy to look into the adoring eyes of our pampered pups and think they'd be totally helpless without us. Even the thought of a pet dog living out in the wild is enough to make some owners despair. But imagine if humans suddenly disappeared and dogs had to fend for themselves. In such an apocalyptic scenario, could dogs survive in a world without people?
Without humans, our former pets would likely roll back the clock on their domestication and live as wild species do. Not all dogs would survive this transition, though. There's a great variety of dog breeds today, and some are less equipped for the wild than others. For example, flat-faced dogs such as pugs and bulldogs are prone to various health problems, including those that restrict their breathing, which would hinder their ability to hunt.
These doomsday dogs would also interbreed with wolves to create hybrids where their ranges overlapped. Stray dogs and wolves already mix in Europe in countries such as Italy, according to a 2017 study published in the journal Global Ecology and Conservation . Friederike Range , an associate professor at the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna who studies both dogs and wolves, told Live Science that the main thing that really separates the two is us.
But even if dogs could get by in a humanless world, wouldn't they be miserable without any morning fetch or evening fuss? Neither Pierce nor Range see the dogs suffering psychologically without owners. Pierce noted that, in a domestic setting, humans suppress a lot of dog behaviors — such as roaming, digging and peeing — because we find them annoying.
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