My students and I have studied domesticated dogs for many decades in vastly different settings ranging from "homed" dogs to free-ranging and feral dogs.
Among the most important conclusions that stemmed from these diverse research projects is that the dogs with whom the vast majority of people are familiar—those who live in homes—are not representative of the great variation in behavior that is observed in different social and ecological settings. In other words, there is no universal prototypical "dog" and we must be very careful in assuming there is and using them as a guide to what we think is normal dog-appropriate species-typical behavior.
This is one of the major points Jessica Pierce and I make in our book A Dog's World: Imagining the Lives of Dogs in a World Without Humans and I stress in Dogs Demystified: An A-to-Z Guide to All Things Canine. For this and other reasons, I was very pleased to learn about a recent paper titled "Cross-Cultural Encounters With Free-Living Dogs as Epistemic Disruption in Western Dog Training Expertise" published in the journal Anthrozoös by Dr. Daniel Ramp, Kapil V. Patwardhan, and Rosalie S. Chapple.
Marc Bekoff: Why did you write “Cross-Cultural Encounters With Free-Living Dogs as Epistemic Disruption in Western Dog Training Expertise?”
Dan Ramp: Although I research free-living dingoes in Australia, my first experience of free-living dogs in urban settings was in India. While observing them, I was struck by how strongly the history of domestication shapes our assumptions that dogs are dependent on us, and that control and ownership are necessary to fulfill our duty of care. With my background in compassionate conservation, I wanted to understand how these dogs lived.
Our collaborator, and now Ph.D. student, Kapil Patwardhan, was organizing a tour of India for dog behavior professionals from the United States, Europe, and Australia, giving many of them their first direct experience of free-living dogs like me.
I realized that these encounters, and the perceptions of the participants, could help us understand how dog behavior experts draw on their existing knowledge to interpret dog behavior and welfare. We wanted to know what happens when experienced dog behavior professionals encounter dogs living in ways that do not fit the assumptions underpinning much Western dog training and welfare expertise. In writing the paper, we wished to share what led some to reconsider how culture shapes expert ideas about care and safety, and about what makes a dog’s life good.
MB: How does this study fit in with your research interests?
DR: This study brings those interests into the everyday world of dogs. Dogs are among the animals we know most intimately, but intimacy does not necessarily mean we see them clearly. Our love is often expressed through protection and control. We decide when pet dogs eat, eliminate, sleep, socialize, exercise, reproduce, and explore. These decisions can protect dogs from harm, but they can also restrict choice and agency. Free-living dogs make that tension visible. They invite us to ask not whether street dogs or pet dogs have “better” lives, but which conditions allow different dogs to live well.
MB: Who do you hope to reach?
DR: We hope to reach dog guardians, trainers, behavior specialists, veterinarians, animal welfare organizations, researchers, and anyone interested in how dogs experience the worlds they inhabit.
Our research is not an argument against caring for pet dogs, nor a romantic portrait of life on the street. Free-living dogs face serious risks, including disease, injury, hunger, and conflict with people. Pet dogs may receive affection, shelter, food, and veterinary care that free-living dogs do not.
Our argument is that welfare cannot be understood through safety alone. A good life also involves opportunities to choose, explore, communicate, form relationships, avoid unwanted interactions, and develop competence. We hope readers will reflect on how their own cultural expectations influence what they see as normal or necessary for dogs.
MB: What are some of your main messages?
DR: First, there is no single template for a good dog life. Welfare depends on the individual dog, the relationships available to them, and the social and ecological setting in which they live.
Second, care and control are not synonymous. Human care can be essential, but greater control does not automatically produce greater wellbeing. Pet dogs may be physically protected while having little control over movement, social contact, or daily routines.
Third, agency matters. The free-living dogs observed by participants chose where to go, whom to approach, when to rest, and how to negotiate encounters. Agency does not remove risk, but its presence should be part of how we evaluate quality of life.
Finally, behavior that appears problematic in one setting may be adaptive communication in another. Participants became more aware of how pet dogs can be pushed towards an industry-created standard of sociability and obedience, while signs of discomfort, avoidance, or fear are ignored or suppressed. Listening to people who live alongside free-living dogs, and paying close attention to the dogs themselves, can broaden canine science and practice.
MB: How does your work differ from that of others with similar interests?
DR: There is important research on free-living dogs, canine cognition, behavior, welfare, and agency. Our contribution is to focus on an encounter between knowledge systems: what happened to Western-trained professionals’ expertise when they observed dogs living beyond the familiar model of ownership and intensive management.
Rather than using pet dogs as the norm and treating free-living dogs as deviations, our participants asked what these dogs could teach them about the limits of their own frameworks. The study therefore concerns both dogs and how humans produce knowledge about dogs. It is cross-cultural not simply because it occurred in India, but because participants had to confront the cultural foundations of ideas they may previously have understood as objective or universal.
MB: Do you hope that, as people understand this work, they will stop talking about “the dog” as though dogs are all pretty much the same?
DR: Of course. “The dog” is a convenient abstraction, but it can obscure the individuality and diverse lives of dogs. Every dog is a unique individual, with their own interests and personality. Their social lives are especially fascinating when they have opportunities to exercise autonomy and agency—capabilities that can be constrained when we isolate and control them.
Even broad categories such as “pet dog” and “free-living dog” conceal meaning. Some pet dogs have rich social lives and considerable choice; others are isolated or highly constrained. Some free-living dogs have enduring relationships with people and reliable access to resources; others live precariously. We should resist turning either group into a stereotype.
If our work encourages people to observe dogs more carefully, tolerate a wider range of behavior, and provide more meaningful choices, it will have achieved something worthwhile.