An afternoon with the pups

Finding where the wild dogs have settled in the morning, after hunting, and returning to find them there in the afternoon, is an indulgent and delightful experience. The pups, always in a huddle sperate from the adults, will inevitably get ants in their pants and want to play. One of the pups resorted to finding a stick and walking among its littermates to tease them into a game. They woke up and started a rough and tumble session. It was a blur of tails and teeth, paws and pointy ears!

During the last light of golden hour the adults began to stir. It’s fascinating to watch the greeting ceremony and watch the dynamics of hierarchy – the submissive posturing and the graceful dominance of the alpha pair. The adults bow, stretch, white tail tips up, and nuzzle one another. Then some of them will interact with the pups, running circles around them and chasing them, but very definitely reminding them to be submissive and not get too big for their boots. Wild dogs need to act as one unit to be successful, and pups that try to go off on their own or act up are quickly reprimanded.

The pups are about four months old now, and it’s a delight to see them running with the pack. Every now and again one will get the ‘zoomies’ and go racing off – almost parallel to the ground as it flies through the air.

As dusk fell the lead hunters decided the direction of the hunt and set off, the rest of the pack and pups following. After following them for a while we decided to stop as it was now pitch dark, and that was when one of the adults reappeared in front of our vehicle, with a scrub hare in its mouth, and began to devour the small meal in bone-snapping, bloody, bite-sized chunks. A vivid reminder of savage skills required to survive.