Two dhole (also called Asiatic wild dog) puppies, born at Alipore Zoo on December 22 last year, were displayed for the first time on Saturday.

The dhole (Cuon alpinus) is an average sized canine found throughout the forest tracts of India.

Two pairs of dholes were brought to the zoo from Visakhapatnam in 2019. One of the females gave birth to a litter of four puppies. But two of the puppies did not survive. The remaining two, a male and a female, were weak and shifted to the zoo hospital.

“They have recovered and are stable now,” said a zoo official. “This is the first time in 50 years that we have had wild dog babies in the zoo.”

The pups at the zoo are being fondled by the keepers who are feeding them milk and chicken.

A pack of dholes in the wild, however, are feared by animals much bigger their size. Dholes are omnivores. Apart from rodents, they regularly hunt wild pigs, deer, hares and wild goats.

“Two to three dholes can kill a 50kg deer in less than two minutes and they begin to feed on it before it is dead. The larger prey rarely die from the attack itself, but from blood loss and shock as their intestines, heart, liver, and eyes are feasted upon,” says Animal Diversity Web, an online database at the University of Michigan.