  Cooperative breeding is an excellent example of altruistic cooperation in
social groups. Domestic dogs have evolved from cooperatively hunting and
breeding ancestors, but have adapted to a facultatively social scavenging
lifestyle on streets, and solitary living in human homes. Pets typically breed
and reproduce under human supervision, but free-ranging dogs can provide
insights into the natural breeding biology of dogs. We conducted a five year
long study on parental care of free-ranging dogs in India. We observed
widespread alloparenting by both adult males and females. Allomothers provided
significantly less care that the mothers, but the putative fathers showed
comparable levels of care with the mothers. However, the nature of care varied;
mothers invested more effort in feeding and allogrooming, while the putative
fathers played and protected more. We were unsure of the relatedness of the
pups with the putative fathers, but all the allomothers were maternal relatives
of the pups, which provides support for both the benefit-of-philopatry and
assured fitness returns hypotheses. Free-ranging dogs are not cooperative
breeders like wolves, but are more similar to communal breeders. Their breeding
biology bears interesting similarities with the human joint family system.
