Field dog: description, features of struggle and way of life

When mentioning the phrase "field dog"before the eyes of an image of anyone, but not mammalian rodent, such a land squirrel. Their name is given to these mammals for the sharp barking sounds that they communicate with each other. It is believed that their language is almost as complex as the human language - it contains many combinations with which they communicate with each other, i.e. deliver information to themselves and even describe events. Let's talk about what the field dogs look like and what way of life they lead.

Appearance

As mentioned above, the field dog is a rodent that lives in North America, Mexico and Canada.

Externally, the dogs resemble marmots, but severalsmaller - the length of the body reaches 40 cm, and the weight of up to 1.5 kg. The front legs of the animal are "equipped" with powerful claws, thanks to which they easily break even hard ground. The back is covered with a yellowish-gray coat, the stomach is somewhat lighter. The paw pads are also covered with wool. They have a fluffy tail up to 11 cm long.

Lifestyle

Field dogs are social animals. Their colonies can number up to a thousand individuals. At the same time, each animal has its own duties, which it strictly observes - they have sentries, builders, educators, defenders. But at the same time, their dwelling is in many respects similar to the way of life of a person - each family of these rodents has its own territory, the boundaries of which are not violated by other members of the community, that is, we can say that, like people, field dogs after fulfilling their social functions are removed to rest in their homes, having separate rooms: a kitchen, a nursery, a bedroom. These animals lead a daily life, from August to February fall into a hibernation.

The family can number up to 20 individuals, the main one in which is the male. The rest of the family is females with cubs.

For the construction of their "cities" field dogs choose desert or steppe territories, open meadows and prairies. One hectare can live up to several thousand of these animals.

Interaction with man

Field dog is a herbivore capable ofcause irreparable damage to agriculture. They were also disliked because they completely break through pastures with their holes, home horses and cows often get injured by falling into their holes. That is why local farmers are struggling with them in every possible way. This struggle has led to the fact that the population of field dogs is not just significantly reduced - the species stands on the verge of extinction.

The other side of this interaction was,that these rodents began to breed as pets on a par with cats and dogs. People realized that they are very intelligent animals, strongly attached to a person. If you raise them from the young, they will never even try to escape to freedom. But the maintenance of their house is connected with certain difficulties - they are very curious, therefore they need constant supervision, because because of this character they can easily harm themselves and the environment. In addition, they are cunning thieves who like to drag their trophies to their nest.

Methods of protection from rodents

As we said above, one animal, living with youat home, is a sweet, funny creature. But imagine the situation when you have thousands. At such a moment, you can involuntarily think about how to deal with the field dogs. A feature of the existence of these animals is that the sentries standing along the perimeter of their possessions will not be attracted by any treats and baits if it is outside the boundaries of their "city". That is why, before you get rid of field dogs, you need to clearly establish the boundaries of their residence.

There are two ways to combat the rodent:

Ultrasonic.
Chemical.

The first is much more sparing, it is safe for both human and rodents. Modern repellers publish ultrasonic signals that cause animals to leave their favorite places.

It would seem that this is an ideal way to combatrodents, but it has one significant drawback - the high cost of the device. And if you consider that one device has its own range of action, then a large number of such devices may be required for one site. Yes, and the replacement of the batteries themselves - the pleasure is not cheap.

That's why many farmers go to moreradical methods and use "heavy artillery" - chemicals, forgetting that field dogs are not ordinary mice, but much smarter animals. It is not enough just to decompose the poisoned baits and calm down on it. Over the meadows you have to spray chemical substances, add them to the water. The fight with them in this way can be exhausting. Above we said how many individuals can have one colony of these rodents, and it is clear that it is simply impossible to poison them all. In place of the dead are coming more and more new animals. It can be said that such a fight does more harm than good - it's quite difficult to get rid of dogs on a specific site, but it affects very much the total number of animals.

Field dogs in Russia

At one time the Internet literally exploded fromreports that the inhabitants of Russia increasingly began to meet field dogs in the country, but right now it can be said with certainty that this was an erroneous opinion. These rodents can not survive even in the central strip of Russia, not that in Siberia. For the dogs accepted water vole and hamsters, which also cause irreparable damage to agriculture, but have nothing to do with them. At the moment, the true culprits are found, and the dogs are fully rehabilitated.

Interesting Facts

A family of field dogs is called cotories.
Members of the same family are very fond of kisses and affection - they often touch each other with their muzzles, while opening their mouths. The true reasons for this behavior have not been identified.
Field dogs can kill not only othersrepresentatives of the detachment of rodents, but also their relatives, not belonging to their colony and dared to encroach on their territory. At the same time, they are herbivores and have not been seen in cannibalism.
There is a kind of field dogs that not only do not go into hibernation, but they can freely move through the snow - a black-tailed field dog.
Newborns are cared for by all family members.