There has been much discussion regarding the environmental impacts of pets.
Sometimes I feel that these debates serve as displacement of guilt and responsibility.
That is to say, our natural habitats have shrunken to the point that one footstep off the trail is damaging to a significant portion of our ‘wild resources’.
Also, cats and dogs can be destructive to dens and nests where there is not sufficient space for denning and nesting (where animals cannot choose a secure, secluded site).
Many habitats are so highly polluted and suffer such high levels of eutrophication that any additional input (especially, of excessive nutrient content as characteristic to domestic pet food end-products and pet urine) can be detrimental.
Additionally, our pets should be able to consume organic, high quality food and to receive natural treatment that does not contain harsh chemicals and toxins damaging to the environment.
Thus, I find that we should first and foremost the issues that are related to space allocated to natural habitats, pollution and pet welfare.
But it is also true that pets can be very damaging to vulnerable habitats even if these habitats occupy vast space and are relatively pristine.
Those are mainly wetland habitats and other habitats that rely on minimum macronutrient input as well as are comprised of easily damaged plants (e.g., bryophytes) with shallow root system or no root system at all.
These habitats typically represent microhabitat structure (the species communities consist of tiny plants, tiny organisms and the patches are very small creating a mosaic of diverse environments).
I am not going to address these issues in more detail at the moment but I agree that pet owners should be considerate of what types of habitats surround them and also accommodate requests by wildlife-conservationists because regardless of actual causes and blame factors, wildlife species deserve a chance and we can be the ‘bigger people’ and ‘bigger dogs/cats’ giving that chance to these species.
I would like to discuss one of the reasons behind habitat damage by dogs.
In this post, I am referring to pet dogs (not free-ranging dogs without owners).
I believe that pet dogs who consume high quality food and who are provided shelter as well as prevented from work and free reproduction (including pup care), accumulate levels of energy that cannot be spent within the restricted space of the apartment, houseyard or (in some cases) even the local dog park (where it exists).
Dog owners are usually responsible and they play with their dogs as well as take them out for walks.
However, if we compare energy expenditure of, for example, dog’s wild relative, the gray wolf, and our house dog, we might come to conclusions that it would take a considerable investment on behalf of the dog owners to exercise their dogs properly.
For example, wolves can eat on average 4.5 kg of meat per day (although they do not get to eat every day but this estimate is an average of, e.g., weekly or monthly consumption).
Gray wolf average weight is ca. 36 – 39 kg (Europe, North America).
This would mean that the gray wolf consumes approximately 0.12 kg per 1 kg of weight or 12% of wolf’s body weight.
Dogs are not recommended such high uptake (at moderate activity level, recommended daily uptake: 2 – 3% of body weight).
However, wolves also have far higher energy costs.
They can travel for up to 50 km / day or more at average speed 8 km per hour.
Hunting activity is even more demanding and it occurs at speeds of 60 km per hour.
Wolves also play and interact within the group.
While feeding on kills, they have to fend off scavengers.
They must sleep outdoors bearing the thermoregulation costs.
They endure daily stress related to provisioning, defense, pup care etc.
Reproductive season bears its own toll regarding lactation, hormonal production, pup defense, social tension etc.
Many of wolf activities demand high cognitive functioning (coordinated hunting, social interactions, interactions outside of the group, interactions with other species, space navigation) and brain is a significant energy consumer.
While wolves eat relatively more (ca. 4 times more), it is not easily concluded that their energy expenditure does not exceed that of the dogs who in many cases do not have to perform any of the aforementioned activities.
We have adjusted the energy uptake in dogs so that our dogs did not develop obesity and so that they were fed in accordance with their activity level.
However, I believe that we should account for the dogs’ ancestry and its high activity levels.
I do not have hard data behind my claims but I have been observing dogs and I find that their destructiveness in natural habitats stems from two issues:
- community issues (dogs have not been provided adequate public space for walks and play which does not overlap with important habitats and not all dog owners can ensure such space);
- the accumulated potential of dogs that cannot be spent in the restricted space and with the limit tasks that the dogs are normally given.
Some dogs might accumulate physical energy which is then spent in running once the dog is finally ‘free’ to invest himself/herself in play, racing etc.
It would be difficult for any dog owner to play and to walk and run with the dog on daily basis to the degree that the dog’s energy investment would begin to resemble that of dog’s wild relatives.
But there is not enough space anymore for the dog to run around freely without harming other species.
Forests, grasslands, riparian habitats become the arena where the dog can hope to spend himself/herself physically because small yards and crowded parks can no longer provide the space needed.
Thus, the wild habitats bear the toll.
On the other hand, I also believe that, just like wolves, dogs, too, need to invest themselves on a cognitive level.
Their activity has to have a meaning.
Some of that meaning is acquired through keeping company to the owner and making the owner happy/proud.
When it is not enough (e.g., when the owner does not pay enough attention to the dog during walks because their smartphone is more interesting), dogs might exert other types of destructive behaviour that are already directed at objects.
They could start digging, extracting branches or other objects from the habitats, chasing other species etc.
I think that it is hard for dogs to have a good life and not to be able to put that life to its full purpose (realizing the potential).
I believe that one of the solutions to these problems lies with socializing the dogs (also other cognitive activities but I fill focus on socializing in this instance).
I refer to socializing with dogs that do not live in the same household (for the purposes of engaging more of the cognitive, active, functioning).
As I have mentioned before, brain activity is very costly energy-wise.
It has been stated, for example, that human brain requests as much as 20% of our total energy needs.
Cognitive exercises (social interactions being one such category) can provide the sought-for activity+purpose combination and they can supplement physical pathways of energy expenditure so that the dog does not have to spend all of his/her energy in physical activities, exclusively.
Thereby, the toll on habitats might be lessened and the public spaces available to the dogs could be more adequate to the dogs’ needs if physical exercise was combined with cognitive involvement (spending some of the energy on brain activity, as well, and not attempting to spend all energy on physical activity alone).
The need to invest themselves might even be detrimental to dogs if they only exerted physical prowess because dogs are not wolves and their bodies have been modified through breeding and interbreeding.
Such high physical activity levels that might be necessary for the dog to feel ‘worn out’ could not be supported by the dog’s physical constitution any longer.
Through combining physical + cognitive activities (as in playful interactions with a dog that is unfamiliar or somewhat familiar or ‘the buddy from the park’), dogs might lessen the impact both on natural environment and on their own organisms.
I believe that social interactions with other dogs (from other households) are preferable to play with the owner or the other housepet alone because dogs come from a highly social species but they have lost this social capacity respective to other dogs.
Free-ranging dogs no longer form such cooperative groups like wolves do.
They form groups and they perform cooperative defense but their cooperation levels are limited and their societies are despotic rather than based on reconciliation, appeasement, bonding etc.
On one hand, this means that it is not that easy for dogs (that do not live in the same house) to interact with other dogs.
The cognitive costs might be thereby higher and more energy might be spent during such interactions.
On the other hand, dogs clearly have not lost the cooperative, socially interactive potential altogether (see my other post: Why do free-ranging dogs represent social systems very different from those of wolves if many other aspects of their behaviour and cognition are still similar?).
Social interactions with other dogs might provide a certain ‘healing and empowerment’ mechanism allowing the dogs to make their own decisions regarding their future sociality (where these decisions used to be made for them by humans).
I believe that combining social interactions with physical exercise (and also combining them during a simultaneous activity) is an answer (one of the answers) to environmental damage inflicted by dogs.
It would provide greater energy expenditure and a more wholesome, integrated energy investment under conditions of limited space.
It would also spare the dog physically because not all of the energy becomes applied into purely physical activity.
It might be unhealthy for dogs to attempt to exert all of their accumulated energy in solely physical activities.
I have partly based my theory on the observations I had as a child in the village where I grew up.
It was a very small village and several dogs (most of which had very conscientious owners) spent a lot of time on the streets and public lawns.
The entire area I am referring to covers the grounds of 2 apartment buildings (18 ap. + 8 ap.) and their front lawns as well as a small section of private vegetable gardens / orchards.
These dogs had not made huge friends with one another but they obviously took notice of one another and I, personally, believe that this gave significance to their private efforts.
Namely, they were involved each in their own activity (not performing them together as a team) but the awareness of the other dog potentially watching contributed to the sense of importance and individuality (this is where I sleep when I am eating my bone; this is how I greet my owner; this is where I am going now etc.).
Interestingly, while the apartment buildings were very close to the local riparian habitat (which was far more exciting than the yards and the roads in front of the houses), I never once saw a solitary dog without his/her owner roaming there and bothering birds, squirrels, beavers or other species.
They could have sneaked there easily and some of the dogs were left unsupervised for the entire day (until the owners came back home from work).
Apparently, the dogs were occupied enough in the small space by the apartment buildings and did not feel the need to stray and to seek adventures in the wilderness.
My conclusion is that their social interactions (which were not very direct but rather observational) sufficed to engage them so that they did not have to satisfy their curiosity or spend their energy elsewhere (they were also taken for walks, of course).
I am not stating support of unsupervised ‘street dogs’.
The village environment was rather unique and cannot be replicated easily (the settlement was very sheltered from external influences such as high traffic roads; there were very few if any strangers; everyone knew one another and did not object to the existing order; nobody had fear of dogs etc.).
Yet what I learned was that social interactions (even very basic and minimally involved) provide meaningful pastimes for dogs lowering their impact on natural habitats and allowing them to have full lives in a more limited space.
Notes by Ieva 