Amur tiger = “Siberian” tiger.
This might be the best dog hunting video of all time. There are two laikas chasing a young tiger in the snow, and the hunters take the tiger and put it a sack. Then, they haul it out on a sled. The tiger doesn’t look very happy in the end.
I think one of these hunters is Vladimir Kruglov. Kruglov was one of the last “tiger catchers” in Russia. There was a big demand for live tigers in the West for zoos and circuses. Everyone wanted a big tiger to display, and the Amur tiger is the largest subspecies.
John Vaillant Kruglov’s techniques in The Tiger (2010):
I don’t know if you can stop a tiger from biting you if you grab it by the ears, but I do know that these tiger catchers normally chased young tigers, not adult ones. The tiger in the video appears much smaller than you might expect because it is a juvenile.
This might be the ultimate dog hunting video.
Amur tigers eat wolves, and they are very much known for transferring their desire to hunt wolves onto preying upon domestic dogs. Virtually everyone who spends time with dogs in Amur tiger country has lost a dog or two. This is not an easy task for any dog to perform. It requires a lot of courage and a lot of trust between man and dog. The dog has to know that the men have its back. Otherwise, it’s running after an animal that would love nothing more than to have dinner home deliver itself.
It also takes some skill and some nerve on behalf of the tiger catchers. You better know what you’re doing if you come charging at a tiger with a big stick. Yes, they have firearms, but if the goal is to catch it alive, they have to get very close to something that could kill them in split second.
This is remarkable footage, and one should realize that most of the Amur tigers in captivity right now derive from ancestors that were captured in this fashion.
I can tell you that most dogs in the United States would have problems dealing with a bobcat at close quarters. Most small dogs would have problems with domestic cats. Pound for pound, cats are much more powerful than dogs. And when you take the largest cat in the world, a dog really doesn’t stand a chance at all.
It’s really amazing to see dogs go after a predator than even the biggest wolves in the region avoid at all costs. (And there are relatively few wolves in the region because the tigers kill them!)
I don’t think these laikas would be baying up a tiger if they didn’t have competent human handlers who understood them and the quarry they both seek.
A laika could just as easily be lunch.
But these two charge on after the great striped cat.
And they don’t rest until the cat is in the bag.
I am glad that you shared the video and mentioned John Vaillant’s The Tiger, one of the best books I have read in my life. Here is my rather a highly rated review (as rated by other readers) on the book:
http://www.amazon.ca/product-reviews/0307397149/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1
I have also covered some excerpts from the book in my article here under the paragraph title ‘The hunter and the hunted’:
http://suhail-and-my-dog.hubpages.com/hub/DogStories
The hunters fire the guns first, which causes the tiger to run. The dogs instinctively want to chase this animal that is now running away like prey. They probably do not totally have the knowledge of how dangerous that tiger really is and in fact, dogs are often more brave than wild animals. Dogs are protected and nurtured by humans. They learn to trust us and depend on us to make decisions for them. Whereas wild animals like wolves naturally are more cautious about such things because an injury could easily mean inability to hunt which leads to death. A wolf that is not cautious enough is a bloodline that does not continue. Therefore, a wolf will not often take the kinds of risks that a dog would. A lot of that has to do with intelligence! Humans are in charge of the dogs’ bloodlines whereas wolves have to look to their own.
These dogs have learned to take it for granted that humans know what they are doing. In fact, running the hunt down hill, which helps the humans slide quickly, and in deep snow which slows the tiger, does help. But those dogs took incredible risks and looks like the one got swatted a lot. I would not be surprised, sadly, if I heard that a lot of other dogs were killed this way. The tiger probably did not want to fight because it knew reinforcements were charging its way, but if those dogs had caught up to it before it was very tired, they would have been possibly killed anyway, especially that one which kept biting the tiger over and over on the butt!
If the tiger is stalking a dog, you won’t see it until it’s too late.
And although they tend to avoid people, they get quite bold when hunting dogs.
“A tiger never backs out of a chance to take a dog, even one whose master is well-armed.”
This entire video is just sad.
I believe this video is staged. I do not believe that is a tiger found in the wild, but one raised in a zoo and pulled out to play how they capture wild tigers. Some of the shots are clearly staged– they pass by the same trees and hill twice in the beginning. I’m not saying people don’t capture tigers this way, or that it isn’t dangerous even if staged, but the video seems dubious to me.
It probably was staged, but this guy was famous for it.
It’s in that book I link to in the post, The Tiger by John Vaillant
I agree that the character is real and John Vaillant interviewed the guy to develop knowledge about people and their characters associated with Russian Far East. It is the best ever book I have ever read.
Yet I never heard of a domestic cat killing a dog,yet I heard of even small dogs that are terriers or dachshunds killing cats. Most small dogs wouldn’t stand a chance though,especially toy breeds.
Well personally sense I own cats I tend to see that they have a natural fear of dogs,even small ones, which likely explains it. They may defend themselves and even a few may scare off dogs, but they have no desire to kill them.
I had one cat that wasn’t afraid of smaller dogs, but it seems to be more of an exception.
Dogo Argentino is the only breed I heard of that could kill a Cougar,mainly because their large and strong enough and don’t care if they die in the process. Of course I doubt if just any Dogo would be able to it either.
A pack of wolves will kill cougars.