Cathy Cameron, age 10, of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, for her question:
What is a dhole?
The dhole is a dog, but not the sort of dog you would adopt as a pet. In olden days, packs of fierce wolves prowled through much of North America. Nowadays, most of those wild wolves have gone. But packs of wild wolfish dholes still prowl through parts of India and other regions of southern Asia.
Though the dhole is classed as a wild dog, he needs two more back teeth to match the true members of the dog family. He is called the wild dog of India, though he has close kinfolk in Malaya and Sumatra, Java and other places in Asia. He looks like a smallish wolf with a coat of short red hair. He has a greedy wolfish grin and there is a cunning wolfish glint in his eye.
At the age of two, the adult dhole is almost three feet long, plus a 14 inch tail. When well fed, he weighs about 40 pounds. His favorite home is a jungle and he shares his life with a gang of perhaps 20 close relatives. They communicate by uttering yelps and sharp whistles.
Through most of the year, the dhole pack hunts, eats and rests together. Come January, a few females separate and find a cave or ledge where they bear their young. In each litter there may be six pups, all blind, naked and helpless. For a while they feed on mother's milk. Then she feeds them partly digested meat. All puppy dogs are playful little animals and sometimes their scuffling looks like real fighting. But dhole puppies really dofight each other for a reason.
Their fierce scrapping is a test of strength and skill and it lasts until they are eight months old. The winner becomes the leader of the future pack. When this is decided, the family fighting stops. From then on, the other young dholes take their orders from the top dog.
Usually the dhole gang rests through the night. Come early morning, they are hungry and ready to start the hunt. First one, then another and another red hunter slips silently through the thickets. They whistle sharp notes to keep in touch with each other and, with luck, soon they sniff the scent of a forest deer.
Then the merciless hunt begins in earnest. Noses to the ground, they trail the deer perhaps for miles and miles. They never tire, even though they hunt for hours. At last they come close enough to see their victim. This is when the dhole pack acts like a well trained team. Usually they form a circle to cut off the deer's chances of escape. Then they close in for their final victory.
Dholes also attack wild pigs and sometimes a big buffalo. Some experts claim these fierce cunning hunters may attack a leopard ¬and even take a meal away from the terrible tiger.
Most of the wild wolf packs of North America were ousted as the settlers moved westward from the East Coast. Today, there are only a few left, most of them in the Great Lakes area of the Midwest. There is no danger of them ever becoming as numerous and as much a menace as those wild dhole dogs of India. Today, our wolves need protection from humans, not humans from wolves.