Ranging patterns and factors associated with movement in free‐roaming domestic dogs in urban Malawi

Abstract

Rabies is a neglected zoonotic disease that causes around 59,000 deaths per year globally. In Africa, rabies virus is mostly maintained in populations of free‐roaming domestic dogs (FRDD) that are predominantly owned. Characterizing the roaming behavior of FRDD can provide relevant information to understand disease spread and inform prevention and control interventions. To estimate the home range (HR) of FRDD and identify predictors of HR size, we studied 168 dogs in seven different areas of Blantyre city, Malawi, tracking them with GPS collars for 1–4 days. The median core HR (HR50) of FRDD in Blantyre city was 0.2 ha (range: 0.08–3.95), while the median extended HR (HR95) was 2.14 ha (range: 0.52–23.19). Multivariable linear regression models were built to identify predictors of HR size. Males presented larger HR95 than females. Dogs living in houses with a higher number of adults had smaller HR95, while those living in houses with higher number of children had larger HR95. Animals that received products of animal origin in their diets had larger HR95, and only in the case of females, animals living in low‐income areas had larger HR50 and HR95. In contrast, whether male dogs were castrated or not was not found to be associated with HR size. The results of this study may help inform rabies control and prevention interventions in Blantyre city, such as designing risk‐based surveillance activities or rabies vaccination campaigns targeting certain FRDD subpopulations. Our findings can also be used in rabies awareness campaigns, particularly to illustrate the close relationship between children and their dogs.

Uncovering the endemic circulation of rabies in Cambodia

“…different alignment lengths as well as higher number of sequences and ancestral nodes at short distances in the N genes data set). Besides, lineage dispersal velocity below 50 km is largely driven by dog movements without or little human mediation, and a 1 km/year difference seems negligible compared to the presumed drivers of RABV circulation like the high heterogeneity of dog roaming behaviour whose habitat size can vary from 0.05 to 131 ha (De la Puente‐Arévalo et al, 2022; Dürr et al, 2017; Hudson et al, 2017).…”

“…This pattern suggests that at small spatial scales RABV roughly circulates at the same pace, which would remain coherent with a viral circulation primarily driven by infected dog movements. Notably, the vast majority of dogs, even when owned, are free‐roaming in Cambodia (Chevalier et al, 2021) as in other countries (De la Puente‐Arévalo et al, 2022; Muinde et al, 2021; Sparkes et al, 2022; Warembourg et al, 2021). Our results also suggest that at larger spatial scales, it becomes more difficult to compare the lineage dispersal velocity/diffusivity estimated from different data sets.…”

Habitat selection by free-roaming domestic dogs in rabies endemic countries in rural and urban settings

“…Reducing knowledge gaps on dog ecology is required to improve disease control strategies, which previous literature has explicitly indicated as necessary for improving rabies control 8 , 10 . Consequently, investigations on dog roaming behaviour have become more prevalent 11 – 16 . Domestic dogs have a unique ecology because, although they are a domesticated species mostly dependent on humans, when unrestrained and allowed to roam freely, they also exhibit behaviours that are common to other wild-living canids such as large range roaming, hunting scavenging, and territory defence 17 .…”