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Fertile offspring. Fertile is the key word.



Your opinion. It all depends on how you raise a wolf; same goes for ANY animal you raise. If you raise a wolf like you would a dog of similar breeding (German Shepard, Husky, Malamute) it will adapt to that lifestyle and be very happy and healthy. Many wolf and wolfdog owners teach their animals how to pull sleds. A very good way to focus their strength and energy into something productive. If you raise a wolf in an enviornment where it CAN'T expell it's energy (they are high energy dogs) it will become destructive (just like a husky or any other high-energy dog). It all depends on who raises it and how you raise it. If it is in an enviornment that is abusive, it will retaliate...JUST LIKE ANY OTHER DOG. No one likes abuse.




Good point; it is a huge risk; but no bigger then the introduction of any new breed; especially if it's a big dog. Those dog fighters would have a freakin' field day if someone made a Neopolitan Corso or something like that. But I highly doubt that breeders care about where their new breeds end up. Dog fighter or dog show-er...as long as they get paid, right? Ugh, people like that ruin it for everyone.

Well, if it weren't for cruel, ignorant people like that, I still think wolves make great dogs...general public just isn't ready for that yet...



As far as I'm concerned, ANY dog can be owned...but not ANY person can be an owner....




I'm a girl ^^;

If you read my posts thoroughly, you'd notice that I didn't say that they were always wrong; I said that one should have their own opinions and not rely soley on the opinions of scientists, because, like any human, they make mistakes. But because of their complete certainess that they are flawlessly intelligent and can never be wrong because 'science proved it', it's difficult for some people to dispute them; especially since most people don't have a mind of their own, and follow blindly like sheep towards whoever has a collage degree.

Oh, I know they've been right about a lot of things; but they've also admitted they've been WRONG about things...a lot of things...a lot of things that people had been doing for years because scientists and doctors said it was 'good for you' just to find out now that what they've been telling you was wrong...and you may have a disease because of it. Oops.

When it comes to classifying animals; they're half right about some things. But as for other things...well, that's where your mind comes in. It never hurts to question or disbelieve anything they say. When it comes to wolves and dogs, they are correct in some respect. BOTH are canines related by blood. They mate each other and produce a fertile baby. If the baby were infertile, then I'd say that they weren't the same. But because their offspring can reproduce; they are undeniably the same animal.

I guess to make things even; wild wolves are wild animals; no dispute there. But when a human takes a wolf into their home and raises it like a dog...it is a dog...or, since you don't like that word, you can call it a 'house wolf'. But they can be domesticated easily in the right hands. They are a 'special needs' animal...which is just fancy talk meaning they need a strong, yet caring hand, kinda like a pitbull or mastiff.

Individual personality is yet another factor one must take into consideration before putting the blame on an entire breed. All animals have their own personality, including wolves. They're not all going to act the same as the other; some will be friendly and excitable, others might be unsocial and threatening, while many will be smart, attentive and affectionate. (That's where selective breeding comes in, but I don't feel like going too much into that now...)

The enviornment in which a puppy is raised plays a major role in the development of its personality.

I hope that clears some stuff up.

It is my opinion but I'm sure it would be many.

Wolves and Dogs might be 'genetically the same' and can produce 'fertile offspring' blah blah blah.. but I don't think that wolves should be kept as pets. They're wild animals.. that's like keeping tigers or lions as pets. It's just not fair on them. Yes, if you train them then they'll settle in a human enviroment but they'll still have their natural instincts and will yearn for the wild. Also, if you made wolves legal to keep as pets think of all the people that would have them and all the people that would abuse this privelage. Seriously, more wolves would be abused in this process than cared for.

Let's not forget that - no matter what you say - people will still fear the wolf. It's a sad fact but.. unfortunately.. it's true. There are still people today that stereotype the wolf and want it dead.

I’ve done some NEW research on the subject; and the results proved most of (if not all of you) including myself, are wrong.

Let’s examine the word ‘dog’ for a moment.

Prior to the appearance of dog, the Old English word most commonly used to refer to canines was hund, or as we say today, hound. The word dates to as early as ca.857 and was originally used to refer to any canines including wolves.

The word 'dog' is regarded as one of the great mysteries of English etymology. For centuries, the standard English word for a canine was 'hound' or 'hund'. Suddenly, in the late Middle Ages, the word 'dog' - etymologically unrelated to any other known word - mysteriously appeared and displaced it.

The word DOG actually refered to a BREED of canine we know today as THE MASTIFF. It came from the acronym 'duty of guardianship', relating to the use of the mastiff in the middle ages to keep poachers at bay. The acronym found its way onto the coat of arms of a number of upper-class families alongside a picture of the mastiff, leading eventually to the use of the word to describe the animal.

Hund was the standard word for ALL CANINES, deriving from the Germanic, and before that the Indo-European languages. Diversity of the species, along with the need for new canine names, came afterwards.

Dog is also used to refer to a male canine and to males of other species such as foxes (even though foxes cannot breed with other canine species, thus ‘Scientific Judgment’ comes into play).

(EXAMPLE of Scientific Bloopers) New evidence forces new perceptions. In the 1930s the world’s experts denied that the Earth’s continents were once connected. Then came the submarine and undersea photography … and the experts were proven wrong.



You shouldn’t believe everything you read in Jack London books (I’m refering to ‘Call of the Wild’). How can you miss what you never had ?

Studies have shown that wolf pups taken at an early age and reared by humans are easily tamed and socialized.

By the way; Domesticated or tame means its able to eat in the presence of human beings.

This research was done online. In conclusion, the species that you all know as ‘dog’ is not a species at all, but a canine BREED. As time went on, scientists changed it. DOG is nothing but an old word describing the Mastiff.

I was wrong; wolves aren’t dogs…all canines (that are able to breed and produce fertile offspring with each other) are ‘hounds’. If left in the wild, hounds will be wild. When brought into human company, hounds become domesticate; ‘wolf’ and ‘dog’ alike.

In any case; like I’ve been saying from the beginning; ‘Wolves’ and ‘Dogs’ are the same animal.

Congratulations! You'd discovered word origins! I'm sorry, that refutes nothing. What the words meant when they were translated from Old or Middle German 500 or so years ago has no application to modern usage. If I translate the Spanish phrase for "to give birth" which is "dar a luz", I get a literal translation that means "to give a light". That doesn't mean that babies and lights are the same thing. It's a translational error. Also, words tend to change meanings over the course of 500 years. The word "greyhound" originally was "groyhund" and applied to any female dog. Later, it became a term for the breed of dog known as the greyhound. However, this in no way proves that all dogs are greyhounds.

To clarify, I think everyone can agree that while all wolves are canines and all dogs are canines, not all canines are dogs and not all canines are wolves. In addition, not all dogs are wolves, simply because they are canines. Dogs and wolves are separate entities.

If you tame a wolf, it's not a wolf anymore. Granted, all dogs originally were wolves at one point. I make no quibble about that. However, the term 'wolf' seems to imply a wildness. I would never go the humane society, look at a Golden Retriever and say, "My, what a nice wolf!" By the same token, I wouldn't look at a picture of a wolf and say, "My, what a nice dog!" The very fact that we differentiate in what we say seems to indicate to me that there is an apparent difference, regardless of the scientific reasonings behind it.

It may not be wild anymore, but it's still a 'wolf' in breed (no different then a German Shepard or Collie).




If we don't differentiate in what we say, it wouldn't be a debate; but just because we're disagreeing doesn't mean that wolves and dogs are all the different from each other (especially when it comes to phisicalities.)

Below are 3 photos from actual sites (I will reveal the links at a later time). Which is the wolf, which is the dog, and which is the wolfdog? They are extremely similar in appearance, indicating that the dog in the picture is not too far removed from it's 'wild heritage'. And one could bearly tell the wolf from the wolfdog.

I know phisical similarities doesn't make them the same (even though it helps tramendously), but I still am confident that they are the same animal.

The only REAL differences that I find between the 2 is that dogs are more domesticated then wolves. Because they are not too far removed from the wild, 'pet' wolves and wolfdogs have a great deal of independance and don't take lightly to being told what to do (unless raised correctly and trained as pups). But if you take to breeding them generation after generation and raise them like you would any other dog, they will eventually become just as domesticated as your own dog. They make wonderful sleddogs and have stamina and strength that far exceeds any husky.

Wolfdogs are really great animals, even though some people believe that they are 'mutations' and 'abominations'. For those of you who have never owned a wolfdog before and believe this ludicrous hog-wash, I'd like you to visit this site: WolfDog Alliance . I'm not trying to convince anyone to own a wolfdog! Most people don't have the emotional and mental strength to own one of these intelligent animals, I just want to clear up some myths about how these so-called 'genetic freaks' are actually wonderful creatures when raised properly, and are NOT "man-made outcasts".

The thing that most people are rather well ignoring is, this opens up grand new levels of dog ownership. Yes, wolves are all stylish and bling and... umm... crunk. Or whatever it is you young punks say today. But there are other cross-fertile species. Like the coyote. And the red wolf. The dingo, as someone mentioned before. I believe the cape hunting dog as well. They have not yet separated fully from the common ancestor, in much the same way that house cats and some species of wild cat can breed. Smaller species, of course, such as the margay and swamp cat. But mostly not of the same species, or even genus.

In simple parlance: One is not the other. Wolves and dogs are similar, but not the same. What we should be discussing the the sorry state of genetic marker identification. It should be possible to pick out markers controlling size, weight, and other cues that can differentiate between a hawk and a handsaw. Or a dog and a wolf.

A walking stick isn't a plant, a velvet ant is not an ant, and This Is Not A Pipe.

All i know is that somewhere along the lines of history some wolves were evolved into dogs and then birth defects made thier ears go down and then they started having pygmy breeds (just like horses) and fur color always varied and now we have very different types of domestic dogs. So blame evoloution. XD Its crazyness.

Okay, ALL of those things apply to dogs just as much as they do wolfdogs. Let's break it down...



OR ANY LARGE CANINE. Actually, that rule applies to ALL dogs; even the little ones.




No dog should be chained or ever be allowed complete freedom.





As long as your pet has been socialized properly, there's no reason a vet wouldn't look at it. We had Indo's rabies shots given by a vet in our area; believe it or not, most vets can't even tell the difference between a wolfdog and any other dog of similar appearance. As for "special needs", there are a lot of dogs that require special needs; it's not limited to wolfdogs.





XD Tell THAT to Toboe's mother, Violet (who is a WOLF), and my wolfdog, Indo. Not only are they both barkers, but they'll give a nip to invading strangers when no one is home (as should any good watch dog). Once again; it depends on the animal in question.





And they're the only ones who are curious and can be destructive? My brother's old pittie, Ty used to tear the house to shreds...and we didn't even have to be gone! As for scent marking, NONE of my wolfdogs have ever urinated in the house as a means of marking. What they mean by that is they rub their bodies along the furniture or in clothes to leave their scent; an action similar to the way cats rub their faces on the furniture. It doesn't leave an odor noticable to humans and it doesn't stain anything. Besides, the house is HUMAN TERRITORY, and a wolfdog raised in a home where the human is dominant would never mark the house.





Yes I am...ANY alpha animal (from a wolfdog to a poodle) can challenge you for leadership.


If you don't believe my answers, go here http://www.inetdesign.com/wolfdunn/wolfdogfaq/ Other wolfdog owners have aswered questions similar to yours; take a look at teir opinions, too.





That makes no sense to me. If it's shy and scared, why would it attack? Seems to me like it's gonna run away. And if it IS cornered, it's only gonna attack until it finds a path to GET AWAY. An animal that seeks a victim and attacks, to me, is way more dangerous.




And vice versa....what a wolf might see as fooling around, a dog might take as a threat...it works both ways.




Wolves love to play tug-of-war; all dogs do. And as I said earlier, NO DOG should be allowed complete freedom, because, as you said, if they see another dominant dog, it will surley end in a fight.

I was walking my wolfdog, Bambu, (he was a low-content wolfdog who was stolen from me in Winter 2001) to the mailbox one day. He was on a leash. On our way back to the house, the neighbor's pit/boxer mix ran from it's house and up to me and Bambu. It attacked him viciously (mind you, he was ONLY 4 months old). It scarred him for life and made him very aggressive and fearful of other dogs.

So, all those things you pulled up from my "precious" WolfDog Allience site account for DOGS as well.





Close, but no.


Pic #1: Joe is an ALASKAN MALAMUTE Check him out here

Pic #2: Echo is a pureblooded WOLF Check her out here

Pic #3: Mystic is a MID-CONTENT WOLFDOG Check her out here

Well, not all wolfdogs and wolves are vicious and shy because the ones you've met were. I can honestly say that I'm very sorry you had to expirience that; I too, was attacked by several breeds, the main one being a Black German Shepard. I was 7 years old and walking home from the bus stop when this guy's dog (who was NOT on a leash) ran up to me, tackled me to the ground and stood over me snarling and baring it's teeth. As I pleaded for the man's help, he simply laughed and said the dog was 'only playing'.

But, afterwards, I did not develop a hatred or fear of shepards. I blamed the owner, because if he had raised and trained his dog properly, it wouldn't have found it nessessary to dominate a child.

The owners deserve the blame, Outlaw, not the wolves or wolfdogs. It's not their fault their owners were irresponsible and ignorant. Dogs, unfortunately, cannot choose their owners. And owners, who have the option of getting an animal that needs easy care, rather chooses exotic and tough breeds (without any knowledge of said breeds). Then, they get bored with it after their pet moves from the 'cute puppy-stage' to the 'awkward puppy-stage'. Rather then train it at this oppotune time, they ignore it; chain it up or allow it to become destructive. They don't understand that when they let their animals go like that, they not only make it near impossible to rehome the animal, but they affect the people around the animal as well. The animal bites or attacks someone, then the person perpetuates the misconception that the breed is dangerous and should not be owned; ruining it for the responsible people, like me, who try to clear up the myths that wolfdogs and wolves act out due to ignorant owners, NOT because of their 'wild heritage'.

It's the same with pitbulls. Like wolfdogs, Pitties are illegal in many states and counties within states due to their reputation for being vicious fighting dogs who'll attack a child sooner then look at it. Seeing stuff like that must make you angry, right? I mean, it's not the dogs fault that their OWNERS trained them to be like that. It makes some people think that all pitbull owners are irresponsible people who own a ticking time bomb. But wait...then, you have the responsible owners, like you, Outlaw. From what I've read in your other posts, your dogs are well behaved and nicely trained; and I'm pretty sure it must disgust you when you see things like "Pitbulls are killers and nobody should own them!!" or "Whoever owns a pitbull trains it to fight and makes it eat puppies!!"; anything in that general area. It's silly at first, yes, but as time goes on, people start to hate the breed and believe the breed (not the individual dog who commited the crime, but the breed in general) needs to be punished for it's vicious actions.

Well, it's the same thing. Toboe and Indo (and before he was stolen, Bambu) are all excellently behaved wolfdogs, because I'm a responsible wolfdog owner. I haven't yet had the pleasure of owning a pure wolf, but I know people in the area who do, and they too, are wonderfully behaved; because they were socialized and trained (just like any other dog) by RESPONSIBLE owners. Perhaps the reason the wolves/wolfdogs in your area are so vicious is because most likely it's illegal to own them there, and the owners keep them hidden, do not work with them, and probably starve them. No wonder the poor things are frightened and confused.

As for the leash thing, it's always a good idea to keep a dog on a leash, if not for the safety of those around you, then for the safety of the dog. Accidents happen all the time, even amongst the best trained dogs. Our neighbor does not have a fully fenced yard. She has 2 boxers. One of them always leaves the yard to play with all the other free-roaming dogs (ours, of course, are not among them). Their other boxer, however, is trained to NEVER leave the yard, no matter what. Well, as I said, accidents happen. For the first time since we moved here, he came running down our driveway biting the tires of the Pacific Power company's truck. For some reason, he hated the man inside; something about him drove the dog nuts. He ran home immediatly after realizing that he was standing in someone else's yard, but it still happened. Dogs sense things humans could never dream of, and whatever that man was planning or who he was, the dog took an instant dislike of him; so much so that he actually left his yard that he was perfectly trained to stay in at all times. He luckily didn't get run over...

Anyway, it still proves my point. ANY dog raised in a home where rules, bounderies and limitations are enforced consistantly will be trained virtually to perfection. Add plenty of love and support along with daily exercise and you're dog will be a wonderful pet the whole family can enjoy; be it a schnauzer, collie, wolf, wolfdog or pitbull. THEIR FUTURES DEPEND ENTIRLY ON HOW THEY ARE RAISED AND WHO THEY ARE RAISED BY.

There's no such thing as a bad dog; only bad owners.