Sri Dogs
By: Soharni Tennekoon
Tags: Sri Lanka, Street Dogs, Dogs, Breeds

What’s a Sri Dog? Technically, it’s not a thing (yet); I made it up, as an alternative, colloquial name for Sri Lankan street dogs. The term ‘Sri Lankan street dog’ while relatively inoffensive, is also: a) troublesome once you’ve adopted them and they are no longer dogs living on the street, b) rather cumbersome to say and write colloquially, c) prone to being relabelled misleadingly due to a lack of a short, plausible alternative, and d) not an official, scientifically-recognized word anyway, (the scientific community refers to them as Free-roaming dogs, or Roaming dogs as per ICAM’s helpful breakdown).

Instead of haphazardly opting for terms like ‘local breed’, or ‘Sinhala hound’, (or one of the various iterations), I thought it time for an educated rebrand. A name with provenance that’s short, punchy, & neutral — with the added benefit of sounding like ‘street dog’ if you slur your words slightly, (like you’ve had one too many pinots and are garbling to your friends how much you love them whilst doling out inspirational quotes as life advice).

“Shree Dogs”. There, now you try.

Just a short, neutral, colloquial, nickname with a local identifying element. Efficiency!

So to recap: ‘Sri dogs’ will be an umbrella term to refer to both unowned and owned, roaming and restricted; street dogs that free-roam urban and village landscapes untethered by humans, street dogs that are communally owned, as well as street dogs that have been adopted into people’s homes and are thus no longer literally street dogs. This latter category especially, is where we stray into dodgy territory (pun intended), where there’s space for mislabelling.

So I figured, let’s give them a nickname, in the same vain as Soi dogs (Thai street dogs), Desi dogs or Pye dogs or Indie dogs (Indian street dogs), or Sato dogs (Puerto Rico), or Bali dogs (Bali, Indonesia). You get the gist — it’s not scientific or official; just a short, neutral, colloquial, nickname with a unique, local identifying element. Efficiency!

In Sinhalese, ‘street dog’ directly translates to “paara balla”, or “vull balla” for ‘village dog’. Neither of which, I don’t think, have the same ring for a global audience? Likewise, in Tamil, it’s “teru nāy”, which doesn’t quite roll off the tongue either.

Circling back to the questionable accuracy of the terms used in Sri Lanka in lieu of a suitable substitute, let’s unpack the problems with ‘local breed’, or ‘sinhala hound’ separately.

Local breed: Calling them a ‘local breed’, whilst half true (‘local’ is accurate), is iffy because street dogs are not a breed of dog. And that’s where it gets complicated. As humans in the 21st century, we are so caught up in defining our dogs based on breed characteristics, that we forget 3 important points.

The breeds we know today were mostly concocted in the 19th century. I think we need to look beyond viewing dogs solely through a breed lens because pigeonholing dogs, leads to a lot of trouble. A prime example is Breed Specific Legislation (BSL). Breeds don’t tell us about a dog’s individual personality, and if we’re not choosing them as working dogs, then what does it matter if a golden retriever is adept at fetching dead animals from a lake? Does it tell us about whether he or she is naturally chilled out or hyper? Patient or cranky? No and no. Breeds only make up 1/3 of the world’s domesticated dog population. Of the 1 billion dogs in the world today, only 300 million are breed dogs. The remaining 750 million dogs? They are the world’s street dogs. Using a breed lens to view dogs then automatically negates their existence.

Street dogs are nature’s dog — which is why they share a common look, across the globe. They conform to Mother Nature’s blueprint of a dog, not ours.

A canine breed is a population of dogs that have been artificially selected by humans to conform to a set of physical and task-oriented characteristics. Street dogs, on the other hand, are naturally selected (Coppinger & Coppinger, What is a dog? 2016). They’re as nature intended them to look and behave. Their design isn’t dictated by humans. They don’t conform. They breed in spite of us. They adapt. And the most adaptable survive. They are nature’s dog — which is why they share a common appearance, across the world. They conform to Mother Nature’s blueprint of a dog, not ours.

But why is terminology so important? Aside from appealing to fellow pedants everywhere, terminology matters, specifically with regards to humane, sustainable Dog Population Management. ‘Stray dog’, for instance, denotes a dog that is lost or abandoned; a different beast to a population of dogs that live, breed, and die on the streets. ICAM has a great video summary of the different terms used interchangeably, and the problems that arise from mixing up Street dog, Stray dog, Village dog, Feral dog, Pariah dog, and so on.

Sinhala Hound (SH): Using the term ‘Sinhala hound’ to refer to Sri Lankan street dogs is also troublesome. Contrary to Wikipedia, which reinforces this misconception, the term Sinhala Hound was originally given to describe the ancient indigenous dog of Sri Lanka, whose skeletal remains were found alongside the Balangoda Man, by famous local archaeologist, Siran Deraniyagala. To say that the Sri Lankan street dogs of today are pure Sinhala Hound (SH) is wildly presumptuous; it ignores the centuries of inter-breeding that have occurred with European dog breeds introduced by Sri Lanka’s colonizers, and onwards. First came the Portuguese (1505–1658), then the Dutch (1658–1796), and finally the British (1815 and 1948). Just another reminder not to refer to Wikipedia for facts, kids. Perhaps fact-adjacent, at best.

Wikipedia’s erroneous opening sentence, “The Sinhala Hound is a landrace of dog from Sri Lanka”, could easily be fixed by altering the tense ie. The Sinhala Hound was a landrace of dog from Sri Lanka. A landrace, according to Wikipedia is “a domesticated, locally adapted, traditional variety of a species of animal or plant that has developed over time, through adaptation to its natural and cultural environment of agriculture and pastoralism, and due to isolation from other populations of the species”.

It’s a fine line, and I can see why there’s confusion; based on descriptions and early pictorial depictions, street dogs do physically resemble the SH. (And interestingly, it’s also why street dogs worldwide share similar physical characteristics with indigenous dogs globally: Nature’s blueprint of a dog!). The narrow gene pool of the genetically isolated population of landrace Sinhala hounds would’ve been diluted the minute that foreign dogs set foot on the island. Centuries of geographically isolated genetic material suddenly blended with foreign DNA, means the dogs of today are admixed, no longer a landrace, and thus not pure SH.

It’s a very similar situation in India with the confusion between INDogs vs Indie Dogs. Rajashree Khalap, founder of the INDog Society, explains it well here. Another great resource is Primitive and Aboriginal Dogs Society (PADS). Further clarification here by BHARCS Bangalore. And Dog Lab IISER Kolkata.

It’s a shame there’s been no genetic testing on current Sri dog populations to see what their genetic makeup consists of. Boyko & Boyko conducted a study with Khalap in 2014, on this very topic, on street dogs in India. What’s interesting there is that because India is so geographically vast and expansive, there are (unsurprisingly) still regions where very little interbreeding would’ve occurred. However, the tiny island of SL offers no such oasis for pure indigenous dogs to have isolated or to continue to isolate. So I think we need the expert help of the Boyko brothers to visit and conduct a scientific investigation to test this theory. Perhaps I could extend an invitation, if this crippling pandemic ever ends.

Until then, how about we give Sri Dog a go?