African Wild Dogs or Painted Dogs - Facts and Videos

The African wild dog is a lean, long-legged animal with a mottled coat and erect ears. African wild dogs are very social and live in hunting packs that roam grasslands, savanna and open woodlands in sub-Saharan Africa. Unfortunately, they are an endangered species. Only 3,000 to 5,000 animals are believed to exist in the wild.

The African wild dog (scientific name Lycaon pictus) is also known as the Cape hunting dog. Another name is “painted dog”, which refers to the multicolored coat pattern. The coat contains splotches of white, grey, black, brown, tan and yellow hair and the tail has a white tip. Each dog has a distinctive coat pattern. The dog's muzzle is black and there is a black stripe extending up the face from the muzzle. The erect ears are large and rounded, and are often described as “bat-like”.

African wild dogs are 24 to 30 inches in height, measured from the ground to the shoulder, and weigh between 37 and 80 pounds. Males are generally slightly larger than females. African wild dogs are the only members of the dog family without dewclaws. They have four toes on each foot. Other dogs have four toes on each hind foot but five toes on each forefoot - four that touch the ground, and one - the dewclaw - which is higher up and does not touch the ground.

African wild dogs exhibit intricate greeting rituals. They touch noses, lick each other, and whine and squeal as they interact. This interaction is often seen right before a hunt. As the dogs circulate around the pack, they greet their companions, wag their tails, run, leap and become more and more excited.

African wild dogs live in packs which usually contain from 6 to 20 animals. In general, only the alpha male and female (the dominant animals) breed. The gestation period is around 70 days. There are usually between 10 and 16 babies, but not all of them may survive. The babies are born in an underground den and have black coats with white spots. Once the youngsters are weaned, other members of the pack – both males and females - help feed them. The adults regurgitate food to give to the babies.

Males stay with the pack in which they were born, but the females leave to join another pack. This is unusual behavior, since in other pack animals the males leave their birth pack instead of the females. African wild dogs generally live between 9 and 11 years, but have reached 13 years of age in zoos. They have been observed looking after old, sick or injured members of their pack.

Unless there are puppies to take care of, the pack doesn’t stay in one place for very long. The pack lives a nomadic life except in the few months needed to raise the young.

African wild dogs are great hunters. They generally hunt at dawn and at dusk, and sleep during the rest of the day. The usual prey is antelope such as gazelles, but they will also attack larger prey such as young zebras and wildebeest, warthogs and smaller animals like rodents and birds. The African dog's large ears provide excellent hearing and also help cool the animals down, and the mottled coloring confuses prey as the dogs hunt.

African wild dogs run at speeds of up to 35 miles an hour – or occasionally up to 40 miles an hour. The dogs can run for a long time without tiring, and communicate during a hunt with high pitched chirping sounds. They also emit a call that travels long distances. The dogs have been observed hunting in relays, with the lead animals changing during the hunt. It’s estimated that African wild dog hunts end in success 70 to 90 percent of the time - a very high success rate compared to lions, who are believed to successfully obtain prey in only 30 to 40 percent of their attempts.

Wild dogs have a strong bite and bring down their prey quickly. They kill by disemboweling large prey rather than grabbing the neck and suffocating it, as lions do. This method of killing has been seen as especially cruel by some people and has given the dogs a bad reputation, but scientists say that it is actually a much quicker way to kill the prey than the suffocation method.

Although African wild dogs are fierce hunters, they seem to show no or very little aggression towards other members of their pack, even when they are eating their prey. Researchers have also observed that when young dogs are involved in a hunt, the adults will let the youngsters feed on the prey first.

African wild dogs are endangered due to habitat destruction. As the habitat is destroyed, their prey disappears. In addition, the dogs are being shot, poisoned and trapped by farmers who want to protect their animals. Although wild dogs have attacked unprotected farm animals in some areas, researchers say that this is not a major problem and that wild dogs are often falsely assumed to be the culprit when farm animals are killed. Additional challenges for the African wild dog are poaching and the introduction of diseases carried by domestic dogs into the wild dog packs. Since wild dogs are such social animals, if even one dog is infected by disease it will quickly spread through the whole pack.

There are conservation organizations that are studying African wild dogs, working to preserve the population and trying to educate the public about the roles of wild dogs in the environment. These organizations are having some success, but there is much work still to be done.