Out for our morning walk today and I saw a man jogging with a wolf hybrid on a short lead with him. This thing was HUGE and looked just like a full wolf. I do not allow my two girls to go up to strange dogs on our walks, especially if the stranger is on a lead but this wolf hybrid absolutely fascinated them. Both girls ran over to him but wouldn't go close. They followed his scent but kept 3-4 feet away from him. The owner stopped to talk to me, and I watched this wolfdog carefully. He did nothing at all, he just stood there neither relaxed nor tense, exhibiting none of what I would recognise as canine body language. He made no greeting to the girls, did not alter his tail carriage or his ears and just balefully stared ahead in the direction they had been jogging with his rather creepy yellow eyes gazing somewhere in the middle distance. Both my two girls were incredibly submissive when he stopped moving, lying down with ears back and looking away from him although he never as much as glanced in their direction. As they seemed quite scared of him I cut the chat short and called them away with me - they both bounced up and down next to me in relief i think when we walked away. Apparently this wolf hybrid is kept outside as it wants a "den", roams the (large) garden, howls at night (lucky neighbours) and has never been let off the lead in public but goes running with the owner regularly. Oh and a wolf hybrid pup is a mimimum of £2000 apparently. Can't understand why anyone would want one, and my two dogs definitely thought this was much more wolf than wolf-dog hybrid judging by their behaviour. An interesting meeting!
Re: Tarka and Lochan meet a wolf Definitely not your average pet then I don't get it either , maybe its a status thing ?
Re: Tarka and Lochan meet a wolf Wow!!!! That must have been very.....wierd! And uncomfortable...... There's a guy on the Pedigree Dogs Exposed page who has wolf crosses. He seems to be in the US in a very isolated spot though. I'm not sure why you would......
Re: Tarka and Lochan meet a wolf Interesting, but I agree that it seems a strange thing to want to do. Is it about having a 'wild' animal as a pet? But it's not really wild, so you get the worst of both worlds really. Strange.
Re: Tarka and Lochan meet a wolf Very odd that people want animals like this. Even huskies aren't suitable for most people. I knew an elderly guy who had one, she lived in an apartment, was never really walked (he took her down in the lift to let her out of the apartment!!!) and had a terrible nervous scratching habit. She looked like she had mange because she was always missing clumps of hair from her scratching. She lived to a good age (about 13) but I always thought, even if she wasn't abused as such, she didn't have a happy life, poor thing. There's another guy here who has a massive white Siberian husky who has a nasty streak. My two are fascinated by him, but I always put them on lead when he's anywhere near, even though they're great with other dogs, they behave completely differently when they see him. We were walking on the mountain a week or so ago and they were on a path about 50m directly below us - it's a bit of a cliff. My two stopped and stared and stared at him for ages, completely mesmerised, hackles raised, especially when he started his baleful howling. Any other unknown dog, they wouldn't give a second glance to. Here's Alai: [img width=400]https://scontent-a-mad.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpa1/t31.0-8/1669645_1530717480475017_1846005410649871362_o.jpg[/img] You can't really see just how big he is from this picture. Beautiful dog, and his owner does work him on the sleds here, so at least he gets appropriate exercise. It's just a bit worrying when I see him out and about.
Re: Tarka and Lochan meet a wolf I have heard of them, I know someone that keeps one as well as 2 Caucasian dogs. The hybrids need a lot of very specific handling. Just goes to show how far our labradors have come from their ancestors.
Re: Tarka and Lochan meet a wolf Very odd indeed. I can see why, if you are disappointed in the forms of pedigree dogs, that the idea of a wolf like dog is attractive. But domestic dogs are not wolves, not at all....
Re: Tarka and Lochan meet a wolf It is an odd thing. Breeders have their stock hip scored and they are rarely 0-0, so they seem to have some hereditary problems like their normal canine counterparts. I've had one in to the practice a couple of times, the lack of canine body language and behaviour made me very wary of it - I simply had no idea how it was going to react to anything, it could just as easily have launched an attack as stood still for all I knew. I think they could be quite disconcerting to live with. I think I'll stick to my goofy, happy Labradors.....
Re: Tarka and Lochan meet a wolf [quote author=Lochan link=topic=9752.msg141139#msg141139 date=1422886010] It is an odd thing. Breeders have their stock hip scored and they are rarely 0-0, so they seem to have some hereditary problems like their normal canine counterparts. [/quote] Huh. Interesting. I wouldn't have thought that. Still, I suppose problems can arise in a short time if the gene pool is limited. I know nothing about wolf hybrids. Wonder if hip problems occur in wild wolf populations....
Re: Tarka and Lochan meet a wolf I think it unfair to breed these wolf hybrids, however, I found it fascinating that Tarka and Lochan displayed submissive and unusual behaviour when they met him, as if they knew he was different. Apparently Golden Retrievers (some!) can be as the wolf hybrid you had in the surgery, can suddenly attack with no previous body language or obvious warning. So I am told by a vet nurse who is also a behaviourist.
Re: Tarka and Lochan meet a wolf [quote author=Stacia link=topic=9752.msg141159#msg141159 date=1422892283] Apparently Golden Retrievers (some!) can be as the wolf hybrid you had in the surgery, can suddenly attack with no previous body language or obvious warning. So I am told by a vet nurse who is also a behaviourist. [/quote] I would totally agree with this. Some of the most dangerous dogs I have met have been Goldies who can suddenly attack with no warning.
Re: Tarka and Lochan meet a wolf [quote author=Stacia link=topic=9752.msg141159#msg141159 date=1422892283] I think it unfair to breed these wolf hybrids, however, I found it fascinating that Tarka and Lochan displayed submissive and unusual behaviour when they met him, as if they knew he was different. [/quote] I think it was the total lack of canine body language that threw them. And they were fascinated by his scent - they trailed right across the field following exactly where he had been. Tarka can be quite submissive to dogs anyway, but Lochan is definitely not submissive at all and I have not seen her behave like this before.
Re: Tarka and Lochan meet a wolf I do t think it's fair to breed them either. A lot of people on a nearby new housing estate seem to have husky's. There are a group of people who all walk their dogs together around the one small field they have on the estate and only walk them of the weather is good hardly any of them have had their shots or boosters and they all look dejected in their body language the pup I seen recently over there (husky) was being dragged by it's owner on a slip lead down a road and she turned around and smacked it's nose when it wouldn't walk at her pace I think some people but certain dogs for 'status'. So sad ;(
Re: Tarka and Lochan meet a wolf Perhaps the 'wolf' had very subtle body language which Tarka and Lochan read but which humans couldn't?
Re: Tarka and Lochan meet a wolf [quote author=Lochan link=topic=9752.msg141165#msg141165 date=1422893796] [quote author=Stacia link=topic=9752.msg141159#msg141159 date=1422892283] Apparently Golden Retrievers (some!) can be as the wolf hybrid you had in the surgery, can suddenly attack with no previous body language or obvious warning. So I am told by a vet nurse who is also a behaviourist. [/quote] I would totally agree with this. Some of the most dangerous dogs I have met have been Goldies who can suddenly attack with no warning. [/quote] I didn't know that...I wonder why?
Re: Tarka and Lochan meet a wolf I think our working breeds are quite expressive. I typically struggle to read old English sheepdogs and the spitz breeds.....I wouldn't have either (my hands are pretty much full anyway : )
Re: Tarka and Lochan meet a wolf Ooh how creepy, I bet you don't want him turning up at your surgery Would a Wolf breed/hybrid behave like that as they have no enemies that would prey on them? I am shocked about the Golden Retrievers though x
Re: Tarka and Lochan meet a wolf I think his body language was just way too subtle for me to pick up on, but the girls were certainly scared of him. Very difficult to know what they are doing for us unsubtle humans! And I don't know why the Golden Retrievers can sometimes behave like they do. 35 years ago they were incredibly popular, were indiscriminately bred and the temperament took a dive and in many ways the breed has never really recovered. Most vets and VN's I know handle Goldies with a great deal of care.
Re: Tarka and Lochan meet a wolf As you're girls were scared of him I wondered if he gave off some sort of "I have nothing to fear but you do" kind of thing like Wolves would maybe do in the wild :-\ My friend has a rescue Husky cross and she is very aloof with humans and dogs, when I first met her she came into my yard and totally ignored Hattie who was only a very young girl, Hattie ignored her as she picked up on the signals even then. Star ignored me but after a while of totally ignoring her she came and sat next to me and licked my hand. She has the most piercing Blue eyes I have ever seen, quite beautiful. So very sad about the Goldies x
