The Australian Dingo.
Dingoes are located in Australia and in Southeast Asia; mainly in Thailand. The Australian dingoes are larger than the Asian dingoes with the males weighing between 26-43 lbs (12-20 kgs) and the females weigh between 21-35 lbs.
The noise dingoes makes is classified as a howl rather than a bark as in other dogs. They can rotate their wrists which enables them to use their paws like hands and turn door knobs. Dingoes can turn their heads in both directions at 180 degrees and their ears are permanently upright.
Their colours range from ginger, sandy to dark brown with some having white patches on their chests. Dingoes have much larger canine teeth than other dogs and their diet consists of small lizards, birds, rodents sheep and even kangaroos. They often scavenge carrion also. Australian dingoes mate in autumn and breed once a year.
Their gestation period is two months and their litters range from one to ten pups at a time, but the average is generally about five to six. It is known that female dingoes can kill any pups born to other females within a dingo pack but pack members will assist in caring for pups from a dominant dingo pair. Young pups are weaned at eight weeks of age onto solid food which constitutes of regurgitated food.
In the wild, dingoes can live up to ten years, but the average is five to six years. When cared for by humans, they can live up to 15 years or more. Trying to domesticate dingoes is a difficult task. Although they are intelligent animals, they are much harder to train than other dogs. The number of pure breed dingoes is reducing significantly as a result of mating with feral domestic dogs. The purest dingoes genetically, live on Fraser Island in Queensland and according to research at Sydney’s University of New South Wales, there are indications that dingoes may be the world’s oldest breed of dog.
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