Animation Source Forums

This is a warning to anyone thinking or wanting to own a wolf or a wolf mix (despite the fact that they are ILLEGAL), and think that wolves are 'cool' and would be fun to have as a pet.

Comming from soneone who once owned a German Shepherd/Wolf Cross breed

Note I do NOT want to be ridiculed for this, my parents were scamed, thinking they were buying a pure bred black GSD, named him Samson btw

They are VERY dangerous to own, and I would not recommend ever THINKING of owning them EVER. Even as a mix with a breed of dog, they are still wolves, the mix of dog does NOT change that in the slightest.

I studded wolvs, knew how pack structure worked, what was safe to do around them and not. I was also just startting my training as a vet tech at that time with hopes of moving onto working in a zoo, and it's important to know how these kind's of animnals behave. It may be these reasons why I was able to handle Samson so well.


And for note even after my parents found out Samson was part wolf , about 6 months later, (by then the person that sold him to us moved, so we couldn't find or report him), and me warning them that he could get dangerous and that it wouldn't be safe to keep him, chose to keep him anyway cause at the time he was such a loving and loyal 'dog' and was a very fine guard.....


Thats the key word, WAS.

Though Samson was the most loving and loyal 'dog' you could ever find, loved to play and be petted and looooved belly rubs, one day when he was around 2 years old, out of the blue, with no warning he turned. The 'wolf' was startting to come out in him and he startted to see us as his pack, with him as the "Alpha Male". Thus if we tried to do ANYTHING with him he would stand his ground, growl, be on full alert, bare his teeth, threatening everyone, just as wolvs would do in the wild if they felt their position in the pack was threatened.

I was the only one who was able to handle him, some how or another Samson saw me as the "Alpha Female" (maybe cause I never showed fear to him though out his turning, and knew how to act around him), I could do anything to him I wanted, whenever I wanted and he would always submit to me (head down, tail between legs, rolling onto back to expose a tender belly, all wolf behaviors of submission to higher ranked members of a pack) but anyone else try anything it was head and tail up, and on full alert with growling and teeth bared. All warnings and signs of a wolf trying to secure his placement in the pack.
He also tried that with me, ONE time. Tried to challenge my place in the 'pack'. But submitted to me afterwards (rolled onto his back) cause I wouldn't stand down (I knew if I did, then no one would have any control over him) and he never did it again after that.

Yes, I was very lucky, I knew how dangerus wolf dogs could be, read storys of the damage they can (and have) inflicted on ttheir owners.

Now there were times when his 'dog' side would show though and hed return to being that loving playful and loyal 'dog' we knew from the start, where everyone could pet and love him and play and so on (and the reasons why my parents kept him -.-). But if anyone tried to do anything that was against what Samson wanted to do, there would be the wolf waiting to come out.

The last straw was when Samson attacked and muled my older brothers hand after he tried scolding him. I had to pull Samson off and my brother had to go to the hospital. I had told my parents time and time again that Samson was practically a time bomb, and if you acted around him or treated him the wrong way he would not hesitate to show you who was in charge of the 'pack', just as wolvs would do in the wild. After that attack my parents finaly saw truth to my warnings, but didn't want to have him destroyed. But we were in luck in away, another of my brothers who worked in security was friends with a police dog tainer and the man offered to take Samson off our hands. Turned out they at times get Wolf dog mix's (something that we learned then was becomming commin in the area at the time) and would put them though specialty training to become K-9 police. He took Samson off our hands (I had to lead him out), and that was the last we saw of him.

We were LUCKY. There have been reports of Wolf Dog mix's badly attacking their owners, some owners have even been killed by what they though was a loving pet. My parents believe today that if I didn't know what I was doing and wasn't seen as "Alpha Female" in Samson's eyes, he could have turned out to be a lot more dangerous and do worse then just giving my brother a few rows of stitches in his hand.

So PLEASE, learn from a real life case, from someone who had once owned such a thing and knows full well the dangers behind it.
Don't EVER EVER think that owning a wolf or wolf dog as a pet would be 'cool' to have or that they would make good guard dogs. They are still wolves, no matter what size, shape or form, and they WILL act on it.

I met a wolfdog Called Kody about a month ago,he is 3 years old and has had lots of training. he is friendly enough to be allowed out in public and petted-see my [url]post:http://baltosource.timduru.org/board/viewtopic.php?[/url]f=10&t=16125&start=0&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&hilit=kody

I am not trying to undermine what was on your post OwnedByAGoldenRetriever-just telling of my experience with a wolfdog.

Sheba

Yes it does depend on how much training they have had

Wolf-dog Hybrids

Wolves are an endangered species; it is illegal to traffic in or own wolves. Bred to get around the legal restrictions on owning a wolf, animals sold as "wolf-dog hybrids" are a dangerous form of genetic roulette. Interbreeding of wolves with domestic pets - often dogs that arebred to fight - dilutes the gene pool in frightening ways, introducing unpredictably in hybrids. Dogs don't fear people and wolves stalk pray. Which trait will win the DNA battle for control?
Wolf-dog hybrids account for numerous instances of injuring people and killing livestock. If the culprit is not identified, the blame falls on wild wolves, which then pay the price for human folly, while stories about the so-called savagery of wolves are reinforced.

Jamie: Jim and I regularly receive alarming phone calls from people trying to keep wolf-dogs as pets. The rescue shelters we might recommend are already filled to capacity with tragic consequences of these miguided endeavors. The only solution breaks our hearts: the animal should be euthanized. This may sound cruel and extreme but there is really no other humane solution. Above all, the animal cannot be set free. That 'pet wolf' will harm a person or property, end up starving or being killed, or worse, potentially corrupt the gene pool of wild wolves by mating with a wild wolf.

Ironically, owners of hybrids or 'pet' wolves are often great fans of wolves. Their respect should be channeled into suupporting and protecting wild wolves not trying to subdue wild animals as family pets, a cruel travesty that only leads to disaster for the wolf. Most of these 'pets' end their days chained in a yard, becoming mean and frustated victims of a misguided genetic experiment, unable to enjoy the social structure of the pack that is their natural heritage.

Sorry if this might start a flame war - but this post caught my eye. Pit Bulls were bred to fight, yea, okay, you're right about that - but they were bred to fight DOGS, and only dogs. They're dog-agressive, but that has nothing to do with their attacks towards humans. It seems like everyday there's a new newspaper article on Pitbull attacks, but half the time it isn't even a Pitbull OR a Pitbull mix. I've seen articles with pictures of Rhodesian Ridgebacks and Black Labs being labled as Pitbulls. Plus, since you obviously don't know this, Pitbulls are NOT human-agressive. If they're fighting and the owners have to pull them apart for any reason and the dog bites them, it's automatically killed. They were never bred to attack humans, and it's NOT in their blood either. It's ignorant people like you who give them a bad name - I suggest doing some research before making a post like that again, especially on this site, because there are quite a few Pitbull lovers on here who wont be too happy.


Anyway, on the topic of owning wolf-dogs, I agree with the above statement completely. Everybody who "loves" wolves enough to want to own one should know how they behave, and that if you don't train it from puppyhood and keep training it 10-15 minutes a day, 7 days a week, 4 weeks a month, 12 months a year until it dies, then you'll have a poor-behaved wolf-dog like the one in the paragraph above. Wolves are wild, and people who breed wolfdogs are just idiotic, I mean seriously, there are few people in the world who even know how to train their own dogs (no pun intended), and wolves are WILD ANIMALS, that, no matter HOW hard you train them, will always have that wild instinct. They're just not ment to be kept as pets.

There's nothing wrong with wanting a wolf-dog, however, they're just not good house-dogs. I also with Maugrim, just get a Tamaskan.