Deadly Dogs – Who’s To Blame?

An absolutely horrific crime occurred in a quiet part of Georgia a few days ago. An elderly couple were mauled to death by a pack of “wild” dogs. I don’t want to get into detail about the attack itself – that’s not the main thrust of this article – but let me give you a quick synopsis.

Sherry Schweder was taking an evening stroll when she was attacked by a pack of about 20 dogs. When she didn’t return home her husband, Lothar, a retired professor, went looking for her, only to meet the same grisly fate.

At this time, most of the dogs have been rounded up and are being euthanized. No-one seems to know where they came from, though a neighbor of the Schweder’s had been feeding the animals. The man told the sheriff’s department that the dogs had never behaved aggressively toward him and he didn’t believe they had killed Sherry and Lothar.

One of the 16 dogs captured after allegedly killing Sherry and Lothar Schweder. (AP Photo/Athens Banner-Herald, David Manning).

As rare as “death by dog” is, the neighbor is deluding himself in believing the dogs could not have mauled the couple so savagely and decisively. Dogs are inherently predators, and prey drive (the instinctive behavior of a carnivore to pursue and capture prey) can vary from dog to dog and breed to breed as a result of years of domestication.

Hungry domesticated dogs will quickly revert to killers in the wild, particularly if they integrate themselves into packs of feral dogs. These animals are opportunistic feeders, willing to eat anything from garbage, berries or carrion to fresh kill such as rodents, livestock and, in extreme cases, humans. Let’s face it, when it comes to survival, hasn’t our own species been known to do the same?

Estimates put the world population of domestic dogs in excess of 600 million. A large, though uncertain, percentage of those dogs are feral. The critical point here is that these feral dogs were once domestic or are descended from domestic dogs, as opposed to wild. In my book that means at least some responsibility for the consequences of their behavior rests with man.

In the case of the Schweders, if the neighbor is to be believed, it seems that many of the dogs had some level of comfort around people, which leads me to believe they might well have been someone’s pet at some time. And while it’s possible that one or two of them were beloved family members who were lost, it’s more likely the majority were abandoned or perhaps escapees from abuse and neglect. As awful as it is, what they did to the Schweders was instinctive and opportunistic. What man has done to the dogs (and by proxy to the Schwebers) is deliberate, callous and completely unacceptable.

Although there is a greater chance of being struck by lightening than being killed by a dog, the fact is we can have far greater control of the latter than the former. Abandonment of a dog should be harshly prosecuted. Unless and until the punishment fits the crime (I suggest very heavy fines and long-term community service at least) there is still too great a possibility that more dogs will be abandoned to the wild and even one more person may die.

“And not only did he learn by experience, but instincts long dead became alive again. The domesticated generations fell from him. In vague ways he remembered back to the youth of the breed, to the time the wild dogs ranged in packs through the primeval forest and killed their meat as they ran it down.” ~ Jack London.

As a footnote, I wonder if any of the dogs in this particular pack were rabid? It might have contributed to the apparent viciousness of the attack.