Wild Dogs

I am taping the segments of Planet Earth from the Discovery Channel as they appear. And I am trying to watch them here and there when I have a chance.

This morning I watched a segment about wild dogs and their team work. I was amazed at just how much precision they had to carry out their assault. It reminded me of a football team and the results of their huddle on the field with their arms around each other and the quarterback telling different members who to do what. Only thing is they don’t talk and they don’t put their paws around each other. I wonder how the leader tells each member to do what? By pantomime?

The segment I watched this morning a big group of caribou were resting in some trees after they walked many miles. And the wild dogs quietly slipped in and took their positions. Then, a couple of the dogs made a ruckus which up started and the caribou and they panicked running in all directions, confused. The dogs took advantage of their hoofed ones confusion and chased them. They scattered their “safety in numbers” advantage to be no numbers together and one that they had their eye on they several closed in on and they gave chase. The several knew what their job was… the caribou is a better runner, so one dog led the chase and the rest ran behind at a slower speed, then when the lead dog got tired, then the next one took over, and they leaped frogged themselves like that, wearing the caribou out, physically. Then, after a long chase, it was about to give out and it found a body of water it jumped in, which the dogs didn’t want to get in the water, so it waited on the shore. They knew it would have to come out eventually.

Then the narrator said a miracle happened, the other dogs barked out announcing a kill, so they left the animal in the water. When they were gone it climbed out of the water and went on its way.

Miracle for whom?

I wonder how the wild dogs made their strategic plans and how did they pass the word along to each member of the pack so that it was a team work effort. I so how they announced they caught one.. they just barked or howled loudly, which meant and dog talk, “Come and get it!!!”

I am impressed with wild dogs. On another thing I was watching, I think it was the Alaska wild, they said they observed a wild dog of a pack being injured somehow, maybe a horned hoofed animal rammed those horns against him or something. The dog was injured and could not move. His pack members made a group effort and drug him back to their home and cared for him until he got better and even brought him food to gnaw on.

And they did not even charge him/her anything!!! That proves they are not completely civilized – they haven’t learned the art of fleecing yet.