I remember watching this documentary on PBS a long time ago:
Big game hunting wolves from the northern subspecies are perfectly adapted to killing large ungulates.
No pair of domestic dogs could kill even a winter weakened muskox.
But through the wonders of evolution, these Arctic wolves can hunt muskoxen and caribou. Those that live a bit to the south, regularly grapple with moose.
Dogs are much more easily compared to the more generalist southern subspecies of wolf, like pallipes, arabs, and whatever the Indian population of pallipes is.
About 20 years ago when I lived in Colorado The Denver Zoo had some problems with a couple of stray dogs getting in at night. They chased some pronghorn into a fence which resulted in the pronghorn breaking their necks. One of the veterinarians who worked at the zoo told me the problem was resolved when the dogs got into the muskox enclosure. They were found the next day gored, trampled and thrown over a 10′ fence.
feral dogs can and do kill dangerous livestock. They have killed both horses and cattle. That they don’t kill musk oxen is generally because they don’t KNOW HOW. it is one thing for stray dogs to “chase” stock that panic into a stampede (this is the usual way sheep and yep, pronghorns, get killed) but it takes practice to go after moose, etc. Since most such hunting is illegal these days, dogs aren’t deliberately trained to do the job. Moreover, since feral (or stray) dogs are gone after very quickly, it’s the rare feral dog that learns how to deal with dangerous livestock. If someone were at the right time and place to video such dogs, it’s likely that the video would be pulled because of assertions that it encourages illegal activity.
I don’t think one can assume that because it isn’t currently known for a pair of dogs doing this that it’s impossible. The musk ox in this video were running (the kill itself isn’t shown). I’ve seen herding dogs that certainly COULD have taken down a feral bovine –they didn’t becasue their training was to do something else and people were in charge of the dogs at the time. But physically? oh yes they could.
http://icwdm.org/handbook/carnivor/FeralDog.asp An article on dogs killing bighorn sheep here (space added after www. to avoid spam): http://www. hcn.org/issues/371/17716
Peggy Richter.