Gary Taylor Photography
Dingoes as companions:
You never own a dingo like a domestic dog!
You can take the dingo out of the wild but never the wild out of the dingo...
It's important to be 100% sure that you get all the information and education prior to making this full time commitment from experienced owners.
This is a decission that will change your life. Dingoes will dig and jump fences and require a fully secure enclosure. Exercise is a necessity with attention given every day.
Dingoes do make wonderful companion animals provided they get the care that they need.
Dingoes are naturally gentle, shy and timid. They can be very friendly with the right person.
When raised in human cohabitation they love to play and socialize.
It takes a special tolerance, love and responsibility to keep a dingo in the home.
The best age to aquire your dingo is between five and sixteen weeks old.
Dingoes are more forward than domestic dogs and need to bond best with a new family and environment early in life.
Constant socialization and exposure to new environmental factors is required in the first year of their life for lasting sucess.
Also for the dingoes well being it is important that they stay with their bonded family and familiar surrounding for their lifetime.
They don't often have sucess in re-homing. More times than not they end up being euthanised. (put to sleep).
That's why it is so very important to seriously consider that you can commit 100% and look after your dingo for their lifetime, before acting on a whim to own one.
* Depending on where and which state you live in, there are different laws and requirements in owning a pure dingo.
In Victoria you are required to have a permit from the Department of Sustainability and Environment and so forth. Check with your council.
Dingoes are highly intelligent and they are intuitive, they have such a high capacity to problem solve and plan.
While dogs are mostly submissive to their masters, dingoes don't have the same need and will only follow the lead of an Alpha (owner), that they trust. This trust only comes with bonding and proven worth. They look for strong leadership and protection.
If that person doesn't display these qualities then the dingo will not show them respect, loyalty or love.
I had the pleasure speaking to a lovely lady who shared this positive outcome.
It's entirely possible to train dingoes for detection and tracking - especially working in (prey) drive with play rewards, they love it! I've seen dingoes trained extremely well, even as sheep herding/guardian animals, as assistance animals for people with disabilities, and for competitive obedience. A certain pup I'm extremely close to has been trained to scent track (people, clothing, toys and even fruit haha), help me when I'm going to become ill by signalling to me before it happens and supporting me if i pass out/ call for help (she did this on her own initially, then i encouraged the behaviour), she also knows a huge range of tasks (turning on/ off switches, opening doors, retrieving objects), and is up to about.. 40ish commands? She loves mushing, too, when we meet with our friends .
I agree, dingoes are wonderfully independent and demand absolute respect at all times, and will always trust their instincts, but if you work with them as equals, motivate them so that training is absolutely their idea of the best time in the world, they run rings around any dogs i've worked with (including working shepherds and
field trial GSPs!)...
Awesome stuff
Trainability of dingoes:
Dingoes are highly intelligent and extremely intuitive, they have such a high capacity to problem solve and to plan.
Dogs on the other hand are mostly submissive to their master.
Dingoes don't have that same need and will only follow the lead of an alpha (Owner) usually that they trust. This trust only comes with bonding and proven worth.
Dingoes look for strong leadership and protection in the wild and the same applies in captivity. If the person doesn't display these qualities then the dingo will not show them respect, loyalty or love.
People share their stories of having dingoes as companions:
My Experience with my dingo....Written by Jen Parker. 13th July 2015.
My story is not all that unusual. I never expected to have a dingo as a companion, yet alone a wild born.
Loving dingoes all my life I have spent many years doing my own research. This is how I stumbled across Aussie. He was only about 2 weeks old and I won't go into the heart wrenching details, except to say that his mum was trapped and all the pups were pulled out of the den all left to die! Although it took this little fellow a while to recover, he was fighting to survive with dehydration, mites and under nourished. He also suffered unexplained seizures which have now mostly disappeared. No vet could give me an answer as to why, even after extensive tests. He is now a healthy, very dominant 5 year old, and what a 5 years it has been. I have cried tears of joy, love and frustration when he is naughty , but perhaps I haven't fully understood his needs? I could never release him back only to be persecuted! I wouldn't change anything except that I need a bigger bank balance (but then, don't we all). He has taught me so much and I love him more than anything. The money I have spent is from building his enclosure to vet bills, house repairs, furniture replacement, bedding, fly and door screens. My injuries from torn skin and bruising just with play (he didn't and doesn't mean it). All of this is outweighed by the bond and love with a wild animal and it is such a privilege and experience that can't be explained except that it's pure love. Aussie goes everywhere with me, he loves the car and my work picking up injured wildlife that I care for. He is my best friend. I'm very lucky where I live and are able to give him a lot of freedom to be himself. To do what dingoes do. They may look like a dog, play like a big cat but they are different and their very own species.
MY EXPERIENCES ON TRAINABILITY...
The intelligence of the dingo is phenomenal and dingoes can quickly tell what's on your mind. They are aloof and difficult to train because they have their own mind. Unlike dogs you cannot demand a dingo to do anything, you may only suggest something. It's up to them whether they do it or not. A dingo will never "obey" you!
They are smarter than we are!
Dingoes aren't like dogs they're more like cats. Dogs are always wanting to please you where as cats are more like what can you do for me and that's basically a dingo.
Because they are very intune with nature and very aware of what's happening around them it's hard for them to concentrate on the one thing.
The dingo has taught me patience and faith!
The Wylie story by Dave Heal.
The Wylie from Wylie Story...
First, some background. For the last 25 or so years I have always had either Kelpies, Heelers or crosses between the two. About 11 years ago, I got a little girl Kelpie/Heeler Cross. Georgie turned out to be a Kelpie/Dingo Cross... Once she got over the Dingo stubbornness (at around 4 or 5 years), she became a GREAT dog.
When a long-term relationship ended about 2½ years ago, I lost Georgie (and a Heeler) in the Settlement.
I went looking for another Dingo Cross. I saw an advert in the Quokka for Heeler/Dingo Cross pups down in Perth. By the time I got down there to look at them, there was only one little boy left and he was just under 8 weeks old. He came straight to me and just sat at my feet just looking up at me. I picked him up and he cuddled/kissed me... How could I say no? smile emoticon I am a GREAT believer in letting pups choose me and this little boy certainly seemed to do that! I named him Wyle E Coyote Dingo Heal. smile emoticon His facial markings when little reminded me of the cartoon character. Mind you, half of the town think Wylie is named after Wyalkatchem (which is shortened to Wylie by the locals).
I brought him home (2½ hours away!) stopping about ½ way for him to have a toilet break on the side of the road... To this day (23 months later) he has only gone to the toilet once in the car, he had diahorrea one night on the way home from Puppy School. He desperately tried to tell me he HAD to go out, but I didn't listen to what he was telling me...
Anyway, it took me a few months to realise he was a full Dingo. The best guesses at this stage are that he is either a full Alpine Dingo or a ¾ Alpine/¼ Tropical Dingo. He seems a little slight for a full Alpine but we really won't know for another year when he finishes filling out. At 26 months of age, he is exactly average height and weight for a Dingo, so light for an Alpine.
My whole town know he is a Dingo and no-one has an issue with him (even the Stud Sheep Farm owner who lived 100 metres from me)... I quite often end up with anything up to 13 or 14 children following me when I walk him, all wanting to pat him or cuddle him or hold his lead... He actually cries/whimpers out loud when there are no kids around on his walks...
Anyway, by about 4 or 5 months of age, Wylie was taking himself for night walk-a-bouts without my knowledge... Eventually, my neighbour mentioned that Wylie came to his house at night and hung out with his cats... Time to finish his enclosure!
After he was contained, I found out he'd been nocturnally visiting about 9 or 10 other properties as well... Everyone was complaining they didn't see him any more!
When he started taking himself for walks, my learning curve on how to manage him went vertical. Dogs have food and approval needs so are easy to train. Dingoes don't have those 2 needs...
Then, he started taking himself for walks during the day... One day, he was spotted out near the airport (5 K's from town). The guy who spotted him rang the Shire who rang me... smile emoticon I spent the day running around town and out to the airport looking for him. I had about 20 people stop me at various times to tell me they'd just seen him, but I could not find him... In the middle of the afternoon, when I was just short of the airport AGAIN, the Shire rang me to say he'd been trapped in the local Fuel Depot's yard. Beauty! I thought... I raced back into town, only to be told he'd climbed the 8' tall Cyclone wire fence and squeezed between the cyclone wire and the barbed wire on top... frown emoticon He was last seen wandering off alongside the railway line heading out of town... I followed the access track for 5 K's without success so came home, very dejected... Wylie was here waiting for me! He MUST have cut through the Sheep Stud as it is between the railway and my house...
His eating habits are VERY different too. He eats until he is full and will then refuse further food. He controls his own body-weight and has been around 17 Kg since 6 months of age... Even his favourite snack will be refused if he's had enough to eat. When he was a few months old, he basically refused food for a couple of days. I thought he was sick (remembering I thought he was a Dingo/Dog Cross at that stage). Then he ate HEAPS for a couple of days afterwards...
Wylie has only ever caught 4 living things in his life. 3 escaped unharmed! He has caught a grasshopper and a cricket. As soon as they wriggled in his mouth, he spat them out! He also caught a friend's chicken by the head one afternoon... The chicken AND Wylie both froze as soon as he had its head in his mouth so we were able to rescue the chook unharmed... The last thing he caught was a mouse about 3 weeks ago which he killed but REFUSED to eat...
He LOVES going 4WDing with me, especially in while sand dunes (I think it triggers his genetic memory of snow...) When in the ute, he likes to hang his head out the window. When down in Perth, I have Dingo conversations at Red Traffic Lights and people pull their cameras out to take pics of him while we are stopped...
It is impossible to take him for a 30 minute walk ANYWHERE without having at least 3 or 4 (sometimes up to 10 or 12!) stop and talk about him... He is a GREAT ambassador for Dingoes as he is VERY cute and VERY non-threatening. I use every opportunity to educate people about Dingoes and what it is really like to share your life with one.
He is like a cross between a dog, a cat and a toddler with ADHD to live with. And Wylie is a very placid Dingo along with being quite a gentle soul. I think I was VERY lucky with him. I have had the Nature Versus Nurture conversation with myself more than once about him. Is he gentle and placid because he was born that way or did I make him like that by the way I raised him? In reality, I think it is a bit of both...
Having said that he is placid FOR A DINGO means exactly that. He cannot be termed placid by dog standards... If he got lost, I ****KNOW*** he would survive and survive well...
Is he a good "pet"? NO WAY!!!! He's my little mate but NOT my pet in any normal way... Would I swap him for the world? NO WAY!!!!!
One last point... Wylie is waaaaay too cute for a boy. He swings his hips as he walks and he seems to have a shoe fetish (judging by his fascination with my shoes/boots), so I think he is Gay! I forgot to add... When Wylie was between 6 and 12 months old, he was MANIC quite a lot of the time. Probably due to me not knowing how to handle him. Anyway, on at least 2 occasions in that period, I SERIOUSLY considered giving up on him. I couldn't handle it... However, I am now SOOOOO glad I perservered!
Pure Dingoes in Victoria require a dingo licence "before" getting a dingo. Before you apply for this licence you MUST construct a enclosure prior to an application for the dingo licence.
This needs to be sorted out "first". (and should be constructed in all states for the dingoes safety)
A yearly licence is $134 or concession $67 and a discount applies for licences issued for 3 years...
DINGO ENCLOSURE STANDARDS
1. Dingo enclosures must meet the standards below:
(a) be child-proof and of sufficiently secure design and construction to prevent escape of dingoes and unauthorised access to dingoes.
(b) have a minimum floor area of 30 sq. metres for up to two Dingoes and an additional 10 sq. metres for each additional Dingo (over 9 months).
(c) have fences of either 3.0 metres in height or a minimum of 2.0 metres in height with an additional 45 degree inward return of at least 1.0 metre in length (or the inward return being a full secure roof).
(d) have a 1.0 metre inward-facing mesh return fitted at the base of the fence and fastened to the ground at right angles to the fence (or fence anchored securely to a cement slab).
(e) have a secure escape-proof fence.
2. Enclosure must be constructed prior to the holder applying for a Dingo Licence, acquiring any dingoes or prior to the holder changing address.
3. The Dingo Licence holder must carry out any repairs or modifications directed by an Authorised Officer to an enclosure within the time specified by the Authorised Officer.
If you're interested in having a dingo join your family Permit Applications and requirements can be found here:
http://www.depi.vic.gov.au/…/kee…/private-wildlife-licences…
