The Short-eared Dog favours undisturbed rainforest in the Amazonian lowlands. The species has been recorded in a wide variety of lowland habitats, including terra firme forest, swamp forest, stands of bamboo, and primary succession along rivers. At Cocha Cashu, sightings and tracks of the species are strongly associated with rivers and creeks, and there are five reliable reports of Short-eared Dogs swimming in rivers. Records are very rare in areas with significant human disturbance, i.e., near towns or in agricultural areas. It is unclear whether the Short-eared Dog is able to utilize habitats outside wet lowland forests. One sighting in Rondonia, Brazil, was in lowland forest bordering savanna (M. Messias pers. comm.). The species has also been recorded up to 2,000 m elevation in montane forest on ridges adjacent to lowlands.

In an ongoing field study initiated in Madre de Dios, Peru in 2000, a female tracked for one year used an area of 8 km² and a dispersing male 30km² in 3 months. Preliminary evidence suggests that male territories probably do not overlap (M.R.P. Leite Pitman pers. obs.).

The Short-eared Dog has been found in scattered sites from Colombia to Bolivia and Ecuador to Brazil. Its presence in Venezuela was suggested by Hershkovitz (1961) but never confirmed. Various studies have suggested the presence of the species throughout the entire Amazonian lowland forest region, as well as Andean foothill forests in Ecuador and Peru up to 2,000 m (Emmons and Feer 1990, 1997; Tirira 1999; A. Plenge pers. comm. 2002).

For the 2004 assessment, museum specimens were re-checked and an extensive survey of field biologists doing long-term research in the species' putative range was carried out, constructing a distributional map based only on specimens of proven origin and incontrovertible field sightings (Leite Pitman and Williams 2004). This map has been refined with subsequent sighting records (M.R.P. Leite Pitman pers. obs.). The northernmost record is in Mitú, Colombia, at 1º15'57"N, 70º13'19"W (Hershkovitz 1961), the southernmost in Bolivia at 14°25'47.9994"S, 63°13' 47.9994"W (R. Wallace pers. obs.), the easternmost record is from the vicinity of Fazenda Amanda, Viseu, Brazil, at 01º52'S, 46º44'W (Pereira 2002), and the westernmost in the Rio Santiago, Peru, at 4º37'S, 77º55'W (Museum of Vertebrate Biology, University of California, Berkeley, collected 1979).

A single specimen [MACN 31.59 held in the Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales “Bernardino Rivadavia”. (MACN). Colección de Mamíferos] collected on 4 June 1930 is documented as coming from western Pichincha in Ecuador (O.B. Vaccaro pers. comm.). A detailed locality is not provided and it is likely that it is mislabelled; the same collector collected another specimen on 30 July 1930 east of the Andes in Ecuador (specimen also in MACN). However, if the locality is correct, this would be the only record of the species west of the Andes and would mean that the species also previously occurred in the Chocó.

A specimen in the Santa Cruz Natural History Museum labelled as Atelocynus microtis, was genetically analysed and found to be a specimen of Cerdocyon thous (L. Emmons, pers. comm. 2008) which highlights the potential for misidentification between the two species in areas of savannah-forest ecotone in southern Amazonia (where the two species coexist).

Although protected on paper in most range countries, this has not yet been backed up by specific conservation action, although the species’ presence was a major factor for conservation efforts at Jamari National Forest, western Brazil (Koester et al. 2008).

The Short-eared Dog is likely to occur in most protected areas that encompass large tracts of undisturbed forest in western Amazonia. During the last decade, its presence has been confirmed in protected areas in Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador and Peru. 

The species is not included in the CITES Appendices.

No animals currently are known to be in formal captive breeding programmes. In the past, individuals have been held in several U.S. zoos (including the Lincoln Park Zoo, the National Zoo, the Brookfield Zoo, the Oklahoma City Zoo, and the San Antonio Zoo), mostly during the 1960s and 1970s (Leite Pitman and Williams 2004).

The biology, pathology, and ecology of the species are little known. Especially lacking is any true estimate of population density and an understanding of the species' habitat requirements. New GPS tracking technology will facilitate studies on density, habitat use and home-range.