I'm not saying they aren't out there, because I know they are, I just don't think they're as common as the phrases prevalence indicates. With truly wild dogs (e.g. dingoes) it would be a different story, which is one reason to sterilize strays, but even that story a while back out of Russia mentioned a lot more solitary strays than packs. If Moscow can sustain a large population of unvaccinated unsterilized strays it seems like America can sustain a large population of vaccinated sterile ones. Who knows? People like me might be a lot more inclined to report (or deliver) a stray to the humane society if we knew it wasn't a virtual death sentence, and that could help reduce the stray population without harming any of its members.

I don't consider those sufficient motives to kill animals en masse. In the city most strays subsist off the garbage, and in the countryside rotting carcasses are a periodic fact of life anyway, but the proverbial habit of dogs gorging themselves then regurgitating the excess elsewhere later to eat when hungry again will prevent a surplus of rotting carcasses.

My observations have been that most feral dogs avoid humans almost assiduously as wild animals do, probably in large part due to the fact that most animals who've simply been abandoned by their owners don't have pleasant memories of humans. Even <a href="http://www.dogbitelaw.com/PAGES/statistics.html">this frankly alarmist site</a> claims that "The vast majority of biting dogs (77%) belong to the victim's family or a friend", indicating that if there is an "epidemic" of dog bites, it has more to do with pet owners and parents failing to monitor their charges than with vicious strays, in packs or otherwise. I've heard plenty of horror stories of dogs raised to be vicious or attacking when they felt threatened, but not even a single case of any dog attacking a human adult or child for food. Fact is, there are plenty of far less dangerous food sources.

Granted, but a frightened and threatened dog is usually frightened and threatened for a reason; I'm reminded of the claim that 77% of dog bites are from animals owned by family or friends of the victim. An uncontrolled dog with no cause for fright or to feel threatened is no more dangerous than an uncontrolled owl or fox, and less so than an uncontrolled bear or deer, but no one's rounding them up and putting them in cages to wait a week for death. Dog bites hurt, yes, and can be damaging, but few dogs bite unprovoked, and even when they do I've never been comfortable with a non-serious dog bite prompting the dogs death (which is also regrettably common and often mandatory under law).

In a way, that's just my point: Yes, there are millions of people around the world, including many children, suffering from starvation, disease, lack of shelter, but we don't stick them in a five foot pen for a week, then execute them if no one's come to care for them and call it the least worst option. What we treat as a public service and moral positive for creatures far more capable of surviving on their own, and far less capable of understanding the need for their death, would be rightly prosecuted as reprehensible mass murder if perpetrated against starving kids. We all know the same harsh reality exists in both animal shelters and orphanages: Most people want infants to raise as their own, so the older a child or animal gets the more certain it is to never be adopted. The difference is that we don't give orphans a week to find a home and