Theoretical Base

• Replace our anthropomorphizing instinct by a behaviour-reading instinct

• Umwelt (German): Each species has a subjective understanding of the world ('self world')

• To understand life of an animal: determine what the animal can perceive

• Objects are defined as 'functional tones'; the tones are perceived based on the way the self acts upon them

  • Eg: A chair as a sitting tone. It is a form which a human has defined as an object for sitting. In the urban, an animal will look for a space preferably where they can lie down fully, temperature is desirable, other pack/family members are around. These spaces might not be relatable to us to be chair-like.
     

• A human - animal conflict occurs when there is a clash of 'umwelts', a result of misunderstanding of one's actions by the other

  • Eg: The sleeping umwelt, like the sitting tone, for a human, defines a special functional tone for the bed; a designated space. Our anthropomorphic tendencies lead to assumptions involving 'dog beds'. Whereas as discussed earlier, in the urban, an animal will look for a space preferably where they can lie down fully
     

• Un-wolf + social organisation: A small difference of dogs' eyes taking 2-3 weeks to develop vs 10 days for a wolf; this has a cascading effect on their psyche and behaviour. The window of socialising is leisurely, during which they will inadvertently be exposed to humans, hence forming an attachment/fear.

• The sniffing sense: The form of the nose of a dog naturally creates tiny wind currents in exhalations that hurry the inhalations into the nose. This sniffing method enables them to avoid habituation to the olfactory topography of the world; the scent is continuously refreshed, synonymous to the SHIFTING GAZE of a human to get another look.

• The experience of a rose for a dog: A single stem for us is one which holds a record of who held it, and when. Burst of chemicals marks where a leaf was torn, dewdrops of a thorn, flesh of petals plump with moisture, Time is in those details; there is a distinct smell of a dehydrated, dying leaf vs one young with moisture.

• The smell of familiarity: Our skin is churning out fluids and oils holding our scent. Objects touched, wielded, worn by humans become an extension of the human for a creature of the nose

• Sweat under stress, increased blood flow bringing chemicals sooner to the skin's surface, physiological changes accompanying fear are the readings of behaviour by the animal

• Urination markings are not as much 'territorial', than to mark the passing of an animal. A 'Bulletin board', to leave information about
  who is the passerby, how often they pass. Most visitors therefore become the top individual, thereby revealing a natural hierarchy.

• There is no drive for 'cleanliness'. A visually clean space rid entirely of organic smells would be an impoverished one for dogs.

• The urban dog is subject to an elaborate 'deodorisation' of cities; paved and concretised spaces replacing dirt paths. The grid
  based planning makes clinical spaces, vs one full of nooks and niches which allows the lingering of smells makes the space an olfactory
  excitement
   

• Visual behaviour: A human quickly scans a space, then categorizes/assumes observations to recognise and make sense of its surroundings solely visually. Tones and forms are immediately recognised and filtered to note only what is relevant, important, or being sought. For example, a quick scan may filter out the blemishes and uneven breaks in a boundary wall. A dog, however, builds a sense based on familiarity. Dominated by the olfactory sense, they explore to make visual tones of the surroundings. Their visual abilities note and remain within familiar zones. They repeatedly scan spaces, ones which have already been perceived.

• Touch: The whiskers on the muzzle have sensitive tips which are used to detect motion around face like air currents. Defining the eating, sleeping tone for any space or object also involves the use of whiskers to understand the form of the object.

• The pace of life: It is extrapolated from a heart's BPM. The BPM is similar for a human and a dog, hence defining similar regularities of eating, excreting, resting, walking, periods of interactions, and such.

• Allelomimetic behaviour: A dog or cat learns from the sequence of behaviour to mimic/predict movements and consequences. They are hence able to identify the 'fear' tone, which includes moving traffic, cacophonous crowds, an abusive human.

• Distribution of street animals: Availability of organic waste (garbage), open areas, niches in a city for hiding spaces defines the distribution of street animals. Certain parameters like individuals who feed animals, establishments and institutions for treatment of animals also ensures a thriving street animal ecology. The majority of the availability of street animals is in the 'poorer' areas of the city where there is an abundance of niches and unorganised garbage disposal for breeding and survival.

• Food procurement: A street animal finds food mainly through organic waste and food rejected in garbage. Water is found in puddles, gutters, leaking AC units.

• Shelter: A street animal SEARCHES for cool areas and avoids heat. Rather than manipulating spaces (digging, moving objects), behaviour involves finding ideal spaces which get defined as a 'sitting' or 'resting' tone. Their sense of fear guides to identify spaces in the urban environment; it also depends on the tolerance/indifference of humans towards these animals or the proximity of humans who might tend to an animal.

• Social organisation: Strangers belonging to the same sex, same physical build would be aggressively rejected, owing to competition for breeding and food. Packs form at random, and majority of times for a short duration. Their behaviour variations lead to a loose social structure amongst each other. A generic example: a large dog will hunt, topple garbage cans, acquire food from humans, while a smaller dog may not be inquisitive enough to investigate.

• Mortality: 8% from starvation; majority succumb to disease, collision with vehicles, intentional harm, some from accidental self inflicted/fight injuries.

• Public health aspects: Severity of bites (Ecology of Street Dogs, Alan Beck) is studied based on 947 bite cases:
  No detectable injury: 2%
  Minor scratches and lacerations: 88%
  Minor sutures: 9%
  Major sutures and surgery: 1%
  Bites noted on: Legs: 84%
  Face, Neck: 16%
  60% of bites to children under 15 years of age
  Reasons involve victim provocation, play provocation, misunderstandings amongst human (child) and animal.

• Feces and the pedestrian: Objections of a human are against the visual presence and odour of feces. Children might get worms from this since they are transmitted into soil. Large quantities of urine and fecal matter becomes a spreader of disease, causes environmental damage and is also an 'insult' to human senses. Fecal matter is the 2nd most prone to breeding of flies.

• Barking: Noise levels in a city impair subsequent tolerance for the animal + frustration which leads to poor quality of task performance of a human

• Function of behaviour: Evolutionary biology assures evolution to select behaviour that maximises difference between fitness and cost of energy. Behavioural evolution favours consumption of energy for immediate survival, whereas that energy could be used to procreate and sustain the species.

• An animal 'leaves' a space because of an instinctual behaviour strategy which causes it to react to series of stimuli which maximizes fitness through optimisation of behaviour.

• Domestication: Large fitness benefits associating with humans led to isolation of the 'wolf' species, leading to an ephemeral habitat of coexistence.

• Dogs have a sensitive period of socialisation upto 3 months, subsequently leading to the dependability on the mother. Interactions with humans during this period may lead to long term inter-species relationships. Beyond that period it may never be comfortable in the close proximity of humans. Rough and unpredictable handling by humans of the animal can lead to a learned fear of people; the stress from this fear can adversely affect the energy required for reproduction and sustenance of the species.

• Stress: A threatening stimulus results in a fight or flight reaction. This is governed by hormonal secretion. Prolonged activation of hormones for fight or flight decisions leads to cardiovascular diseases, inefficiency of immunity defense.
  Ethological findings from readings: Stress-inducing stimuli are psychologically damaging for an animal. These may be spaces of crowded environments, sudden/unexpected movements or changes.

• Welfare: The British Farm Animal Welfare Council (1955) defines:
  Freedom from thirst, hunger, malnutrition
  Appropriate comfort and shelter
  Prevention, rapid diagnosis and treatment of injury and disease
  Freedom to display normal behaviour patterns
  Freedom from fear

• A human's POV in the inter dependency of the other species is one of emotional stability and companionship, hence giving rise to the vocabulary of a 'pet'.