What do dogs hunt in the wild?

ORIGINAL: rwbeagles

The most closely related to our dogs living wild, would IMO be the Dingo of Australia.
 
I believe Dingos take whatever they can grab..the largest being Roos or possibly Emu...rabbits, mice, insects etc.[]
 
Feral dogs usually stick to human refuse and the odd livestock kill.
 
One of my favorite and lesser known canids is the Dhole of India. These guys apparently can tree a TIGER and aren't to be trifled with! Rudyard Kipling included them in his works...beautiful critters too!


[linkhttp://www.cuon.net/dholes/]http://www.cuon.net/dholes/[/link]

Yes, a tiger will get away from them if they're in a pack of 40 or more, which is common.  If alone, a tiger wouldn't be too concerned, since one swipe of their paw is quite lethal.  Dholes are interesting, though.

ORIGINAL: rwbeagles

The most closely related to our dogs living wild, would IMO be the Dingo of Australia.
 
I believe Dingos take whatever they can grab..the largest being Roos or possibly Emu...rabbits, mice, insects etc.[]
 
Feral dogs usually stick to human refuse and the odd livestock kill.
 
One of my favorite and lesser known canids is the Dhole of India. These guys apparently can tree a TIGER and aren't to be trifled with! Rudyard Kipling included them in his works...beautiful critters too!

Gina, I love dholes, too. [] Interesting canids. I think of NGSDs to be pretty darn close to our domestic dogs without quite being a domestic dog. There are a lot of arguments over here about whether dingoes were ever domesticated to any degree. I've heard people say they were completely domesticated and people say they were never even close. I think of them as being a step away from domestication from where NGSDs are. Does that sound right? I believe the big kangaroos require more than one dingo to bring them down, but joeys at foot are easy prey for a single dingo, and the smaller wallabies aren't too much trouble for them. The captive bred dingoes I've met have been very much like domestic dogs, but as soon as they see something that looks like prey they turn into wild little monsters. The week before I did work experience at a wildlife park, one of their goannas escaped into the dingo enclosure. The three dingoes fell on it and ripped it to pieces in a matter of moments. One of the senior reptile keepers who looks after dangerous reptiles came down to try to rescue the lizard and the male dingo turned on him. Pretty much any living thing smaller than the dingoes that made it into that enclosure didn't make it out alive. I was quite amazed at the time how three desexed, captive-raised dingoes with plenty of food could be so bent on killing things. We found dead rodents in their enclosure fairly regularly, so they didn't eat what they killed for the most part. Just got an incredible prey drive.

ORIGINAL: MhadDog

It is funny to think that some dinosaurs worked in the same manner..where does working together for the common good come from,in the animal kingdom?

The idea is that an individual will help another that is close of kin is beneficial to that individual because kin shares more dna.  So essentially it's all about evolution.  Individuals want to perpetuate their own dna the most, but the closest to that is to help close relatives survive so at least some of your genes get passed on to the next generation.  So it benefits the entire pack or family to help one another out from an evolutionary standpoint. 

Ahh, I remember those kin selection lectures from years ago. The individuals have to be very closely related for them to gain a benefit from putting themselves out for another, though. My favourite example, which is kinda unrelated, is of white-winged choughs. They're birds that breed cooperatively, as they can't raise chicks without the help of other birds. Groups will try to kidnap babies from other groups and essentially enslave them. The babies grow up thinking they're part of the family, but they're not, so all the babies they help raise are doing nothing for carrying on their genetics. A lot of choughs die without breeding, so oftentimes stolen babies will die without breeding OR helping raise related chicks. It's a cool strategy, though, because it means the breeding pair can afford to allow some of their own children to leave the group and form new groups.