Dingo Information & Dog Breed Facts

Introduction

The Dingo, Canis lupus dingo, is a wild dog that is said to be descended from the Indian Wolf (Canis lupus pallipes). It is usually referred to as an Australian wild dog, but it is not native to Australia and was not developed there.

Dingoes can be found in isolated pockets of residual natural forest across Southeast Asia, as well as on mainland Australia, notably towards the north.

They have characteristics of both wolves and modern dogs and are thought to be the descendants of an early ancestor of modern dogs that have remained relatively unmodified.

The word Dingo is derived from the Eora Aboriginal language, which was spoken by the first occupants of Sydney. The Dingo is sometimes known as a warrigal.

Origins

The oldest known Dingo skulls were discovered in Vietnam about 5500 years ago. Dingo remains dating back from 5000 to 2500 years have been discovered in various parts of Southeast Asia, with the earliest Dingo fossil record in Australia dating back to 3,500 years.

Dingo-like bones reaching back to 14,000 years have also been discovered in Israel and the West Bank.

Moreover, the Dingo's exact origins are unknown, but it is thought to be connected to the wolves of southwest Asia, and it evolved in that region around the same time as people began to establish agriculture.

Furthermore, current dogs are thought to be the product of the intentional selection of numerous qualities from a single grey wolf domestication around 15,000 years ago and the modern Dingo looks to be a relatively pure-bred descendant of one of the early domestications.

Introduction to Australia

Dingoes did not arrive in Australia with the Aborigines around 50,000 years ago but were likely introduced much later by Austronesian traders.

According to a study of Dingo mitochondrial DNA published in 2004, their arrival was around 3000 BC, and it suggests that just one tiny group could be the ancestors of all present Australian Dingoes.

Moreover, the Dingo spread quickly across Australia, probably with human assistance, and is estimated to have occupied the entire continent in a short period of time.

The precise extent of the ecological shift caused by the introduction of the Dingo is unknown, although it has been suspected of being the cause of a number of extinctions, most notably of marsupial carnivores, including the last remaining great predator, the Thylacine, though this extinction is disputed.

However, the Dingoes' cooperative pack behavior is likely to have provided them with a significant competitive edge over more solitary marsupial carnivores, especially during Australia's regular droughts.

Relationship with humans

The Dingo became a companion animal for Aboriginal people all over Australia, who used the breed to help them hunt and keep warm on chilly nights.

The terms "two-dog night" and "three-dog night" are thought to be Aboriginal idioms for the temperature at night. Dingoes were tolerated, even welcomed, when European settlers first arrived in Australia.

However, when sheep became a significant element of the white economy, this quickly altered. Dingoes were captured, shot on sight, and poisoned, whether they were actually wild or belonged to Aboriginal people.

The construction of the enormous Dingo Fence began in the 1880s.

The Dingo Fence was built to keep Dingoes out of the comparatively fertile southeast corner of the continent, where they had been nearly eradicated, and to preserve southern Queensland's sheep farms.

It would eventually stretch 8500 kilometers, from near Toowoomba to the Great Australian Bight, making it the world’s largest man-made structure at the time.

It was only partially successful as Dingoes may still be found in areas of the southern states, and while the fence helped reduce sheep losses to predators, increasing pasture competition from rabbits and kangaroos counterbalanced this.

Moreover, Dingoes have gotten terrible publicity in recent years, thanks to the high-profile disappearance of Azaria Chamberlain and Dingo attacks on Queensland's Fraser Island.

Around 200 Dingoes lived on the island in 2001, and in the previous 6 years, 20 people had been assaulted. One similar attack on Waddy Point on Fraser Island in April 2001 claimed the life of a 9-year-old child.

As a result, animals that were legally protected were slaughtered. A legal injunction was filed by the island's owners, the Ngulungbara people, to stop the cull.

There were a total of 65 Dingoes killed in the end. Moreover, in 2004 more legal battles began after a Dingo entered a bedroom in Kingfisher Bay resort were two young children were present.

Keeping the breed as a companion

In Australia, the rules governing the keeping of Dingoes as pets vary from state to state. If Dingoes are to be kept as pets, it is suggested that they be adopted at a young age to help them bond with humans.

However, Dingos are wild dogs with strong hunting instincts. They have been known to kill birds and small animals, as well as get into fights with raccoons.

When hunting larger animals, Dingoes hassle or annoy their prey until the prey is off balance or tired, and the Dingoes can attack.

They will do the same thing when playing or interacting with other domestic dogs and often domestic dogs misunderstand this behavior, resulting in dog fights and the appearance of the Dingo as an aggressive animal.

Moreover, Dingoes, like other hunting dogs, require a lot of exercises and a lot of space to be happy.

They cannot be trusted when they are not on a leash, and they will not like spending the day on the couch. Overall, the breed does not make a suitable domestic pet because of its wild hunter nature and great intelligence.

Potential extinction

The purebred Dingo gene pool is being flooded as a result of interbreeding with canines introduced by European immigrants.

By the early 1990s, roughly a third of all wild Dingoes in the south-east of the continent was Dingo/domestic dog crosses, and while interbreeding is less advanced in more isolated locations, the subspecies' extinction in the wild is considered inevitable.

Although protection within Federal National Parks, World Heritage areas, Aboriginal reserves, and the Australian Capital Territory is available for Dingoes, they are at the same time classified as a pest in other areas.

Since a lack of country-wide protection means they may be trapped or poisoned in many areas, in conjunction with the hybridization with domestic dogs the taxon was assessed as 'Vulnerable' in 2004.