Patience at the Wild Dog Den

At Singita Sabi Sand we are very privileged to have frequent sightings of African wild dogs. I have been a guide for 12 years, and today I witnessed something I have never seen before when observing African wild dogs.

On our afternoon drive we decided that our plan was to go down south to where there is a wild dog den-site.

After arriving at the den which is an excavated hole in a termite mound, we drove around and didn’t see any dogs. We stopped and listened and then noticed the adults 50 metres from the den, in the long grass. We sat and waited patiently for the adults to start becoming active, as the sun started to get closer to the horizon and the temperature started decreasing.

Soon after one of the adult females started stretching and approached the den. She stood at the hole on the mound and started calling into the hole with soft chattering. The pups didn’t emerge and she started moving away from the den. She left the other adults in the long grass.

I thought it was a good idea to follow her which definitely paid off. Not too far away from the den she stood next to a small fallen tree that was overgrown with grass. She had a good look around, then suddenly put her head into the long grass looking for something. She then started feeding on pieces of meat, moved 50 metres away to another overgrown grass patch and fed on more meat pieces. She moved to a third spot and fed again.

I started putting thoughts together and realized what she was going to do next. I went and waited next to the den where we could see her in the distance. Another female woke up and came towards the den, she started to call the pups out, and suddenly the pups appeared greeting each other. The other female that was feeding on all the pieces of meat returned and the pups started to chatter and beg for food. She then regurgitated the food she had just swallowed.

I was mind blown by how smart and energy-efficient these animals actually are. Wild dogs will hunt morning and afternoon to support the pack, especially when they need to feed the pups. They will kill and feed really quickly and run straight back to the den to regurgitate for the pups.

We realised that the pack must have killed something substantial in the morning and came back and regurgitated for the pups. The female must have still had a full belly and went to regurgitate into the long grass so she could stash the meat, to avoid it digesting in her stomach, so that they didn’t have to go out and hunt again. After discussing this with our guiding team we all agreed this is was a rare and educational experience.