Though the males are predominantly monogamous, females reserve their aggression for female intruders, preventing the sharing of the male and his paternal investment. They dig caverns for shelter, or use crevices in rocks, or caverns that were dug by other animals. Golden jackals live in pairs and are friendly to one another, scratching their partners all over their bodies. However, if strange jackals meet each other, most of the behavior expresses subordination, superiority, or eagerness to attack. They behave in a manner similar to domesticated dogs and wolves.
Males raise a hind leg when spraying their urine, and females squat at the site they wish to spray.
Males and females alike mark their territory by spraying, primarily during the mating season. Each jackal species communicates through its own repertoire of calls. Golden jackals use a wide inventory of howls to locate one another. The golden jackal is the most northerly of jackal species, and also the most widely distributed. It overlaps biotopes only with the black-backed jackal in East African savannas.