[Travis McGee]

You'd have to know the area. (Clay County FL) Around here, saying "pit bull" is like saying "dog." I suspect one reason they got so popular is because if you had a dog that wasn't a pit bull, chances were it would get eaten by one eventually. If you go outside of developments and neighborhoods, the dogs are almost exclusively pit bulls.

I saw a documentary about the domestication of dogs from wolves. The theory had been that this was a gradual process over thousands of years. A Russian experiment in the 50s changed this idea. Massive state fox fur breeding operations wanted to see if they could make the wild caged critters more easily handled. An animal behavior expert checked each fox, cage by cage, selecting the few dozen who reacted to his arm intrusion the least wildly. These tamest (relatively) foxes were bred together and so on. In only 3 or 4 generations, ten or so years, they had chubby little perfectly tame foxes, kind of like Pomeranians.

Now the accepted theory is that wild dogs/wolves could have been tamed very fast by humans.

So I wonder if the reverse is true? In a social calamity or SHTF scenario, when 100s or thousands of dogs are left to their own devices, will the process rapidly work in reverse, from tame to wild? The more tame dogs will die off fast. The hunters, the smart killers, will be the only ones breeding in a year or two.

In a post SHTF or TEOTWAWKI scenario, will mankind have to face packs of killer dogs, perhaps large, wild, man-eating pit bulls?

Anyway, I'm going to include them in my next book.

[papertyger]

So I wonder if the reverse is true? In a social calamity or SHTF scenario, when 100s or thousands of dogs are left to their own devices, will the process rapidly work in reverse, from tame to wild?

We'll never know.

As soon as the local deer and hog population gives out... ;o)

[CodeToad]

“In a post SHTF or TEOTWAWKI scenario, will mankind have to face packs of killer dogs, perhaps large, wild, man-eating pit bulls?

Anyway, I’m going to include them in my next book.
“

Pack dogs are always a wild and vicious bunch. HUmans have that same trait.

[wardaddy]

they already have their own beer

[Vor Lady]

Now the accepted theory is that wild dogs/wolves could have been tamed very fast by humans. So I wonder if the reverse is true?

In the rural area I grew up in, city people would 'drop off' unwanted dogs and they packed up real quick. Seldom were they afraid of humans. Usually they had to be dealt with by shotgun.