They're not regular "dogs" by any means. Whether you call them wild dogs, painted dogs, spotted dogs, or anything else, they bear little resemblance to our domesticated pets...at least in their behavior. And watching them hunt was incredible.
When I first heard about wild dogs before my safari, I thought they were the "consolation prize" tourists saw if they didn't get to see lions. Little did I know how rare wild dogs are. There are only approximately 800 of them in existence. During my 7 days in Botswana, I feel like I saw about half of those 800. We saw them every day, so often that sometimes we just drove right by them. They had become a common sight for us, which is such a rare and special honor that I didn't want to take for granted.
Aside from the drive from the airstrip to the camp, the wild dogs were the first animals we came upon during our first real game drive that afternoon. They had just killed an impala and our vehicles pulled up right next to them. Our guide reinforced how rare that was to see, and advised us to take videos and not only photos because of that rarity. The smell of the dead and partially eaten impala was overpowering...my first sense of the African food chain. But it was fascinating to watch and listen to their funny noises as they ate.
We saw wild dogs often, but on our last afternoon at another camp, we came upon them sleeping by the side of the "road." (I say "road" but it's a dirt path for the vehicles and for reading animals' footprints.) Our guide stopped the jeep and explained to us his prediction of what would happen next exactly correctly.
The alpha male wild dog would awaken, wake up the others, and they would do a ritual "dance." Then they would go on the hunt. Our three vehicles split up, each one following a group of wild dogs that had split up into their own three packs. We could see the impalas they were hunting on a nearby ridge. Once the wild dogs took off on a run, we followed them as closely as we could.
We thought we had lost them, but then came upon two of them who seemed lost. Our guide quickly told us they weren't lost, and from the blood on their faces he knew they had just come from the kill to find the other two packs of wild dogs and bring them to the kill. Then other wild dogs appeared with them with pieces of dead impala to bring to the baby wild dogs who could not run quickly enough to the kill yet to get any food.
They each knew what role they had to play. They kept each other informed. They cared for the slower, younger wild dogs and made sure they had food to eat.
At times they were savages. Their blooded faces and emaciated bodies made them look like zombie dogs from a horror movie. Yet they never gave us a care as we watched from our close-by vehicles and played our roles of wide-eyed audience members to their way of life.
I am so honored to have seen these rare animals up close, doing what they do best. They gave us more action than the lions, and were no less majestic to me.
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