Your Thoughts on Wolf Hybrids

What is your opinion on having a Wolfdog as a companion? What is your opinion of them being bred? And why do you think that?

Just out of curiosity.

My personal opinion is that Wolf was not meant to be a house pet. They are wild, and are natural hunters, I believe you cannot make a that much a strong companionship. A lot of dogs need human companionship and are very grateful if a owner cares for him/her, A wolf mix is the opposite. Ofcourse, I could always be wrong but I would have to do some serious thinking b4 even considering on getting a Wolfdog . Ofcourse they are beautiful animals...

my opinion is that wolves or wolf hybrids are not pets.

a wolf is a wild animal that generally avoids people wherever possible, and in most cases you will not be able to "override" that behavior trait by crossbreeding with a dog.

yeah, if you have a large enough sample group, there will be some that make okay pets, but breeding for that is just as irresponsible as for example knowingly breeding merle to merle and accepting the fact that that a percentage of the offspring will be either stillborn or have severe health issues.

wolves are best left alone and observed from afar.

my opinion on keeping them as pets is that only those with a lot of experience keeping dogs, namely dominant breeds and northern breeds) should attempt it. this is because most wolf dogs (dog and wolf same species, so mixed breed, not hybrid) are not easily trained, even after being trained they only obey if they feel like it, they do not respond well at all to negative reinforcement such as pinch, choker, or e-collars. they cannot usually be trusted off leash. most can and will jump a fence, if they cant they will find another way out. very few are good house pets, many never fully learn to go to the bathroom outside. many of them will chew anything and everything. because most of them have enormous prey drive, meaning if a stranger, child or another animal moves in a way that resembles something a deer, elk, rabbit, etc would do, they will attack, they usually will release the attack as soon as the realize it isnt prey, but damage could already be done. most are too timid to ever be introduced to strangers. and they are very pack oriented, and many of them will regulary challenge your leadership.
I do not think they should be bred. there are very few (none that I know of, but one or 2 are surely out there) responsible breeders. most breeders will just breed anything, to produce puppies, and they will have more than one litter per year from the same female, and often on her first heat. most dont properly screen potential buyers (if they screen them at all) to see if the person truly understands what they can expect from the animal as it matures. they dont check to see if you have the proper enclosure. they dont check to see if you have done any research. many breeders have been caught in the act of telling a potential buyer one of many things such as "that is the rare russian something wolf, they have been extinct in the wild for 50 years. if anyone like a game agent tells you they dont exist its just because they are so rare no one has ever heard of them" first off, an animal that rare would be in a zoo or preserve, not a wolf dog kennel. second, in that case it was a german shepherd yellow lab cross and the dam didnt have any wolf in her either. another thing they say is: breeder "what percentage of wolf are you looking for?"...buyer "80% wolf"...breeder "okay, good thats what I have right now." next buyer "25% wolf"...breeder (referring to same litter) "good thats what I have right now". percentage doesnt mean anything. a 1/4 wolf 3/4 malamute could look pure malamute and have the temperment of pure wolf. works the other way as well. what matters in wolf content is how recently was PURE wolf introduced. 1/4 wolf and 3/4 malamute ,or whatever breed, means that at best one parent was half wolf, one parent was pure wolf. it could mean one was 1/8 wolf, the other was also 1/8 wolf etc. and even if its been 3 generations since a pure wolf was bred in, the pups could still look pure wolf and act pure dog, or look pure dog and act pure wolf, or anywhere in between.
if you have a lot of experience and feel you are up to the challenge of a wolf dog...go for it. but please get one from a wolf dog rescue. the naimals in rescue are in foster homes around the country. these foster parents love them like their own and they have very extensive screening for potential adopters. http://www.liquinet.com/wolfdogadoption/

Mordy sayed it better than I did... so did stirder, lol

and I would love to adopt Kally from that rescue, but louisiana prohibits wolf dogs.

I agree with Mordy. Even though my wonderful little Bimmer is a cross, I know he was just a lucky accident and his wolf percentage is obviously less than half. Never would I want to encourage people to purposely breed these crosses for the purpose of having "hybrids."

http://www.petfinder.org/shelters/NV78.html theres another rescue. most of the dogs on both sites are no content, low content. unfortunatley a lot of people think it is cool to own a wolf or wolf dog. even if they know for a fact that their dog has no wolf in it, they will tell people its a wolf dog. and saddest is that many of the dogs on that page have about a 1% chance that they have any wolf in them, but they had a stupid owner who claimed they were a wolf dog when they surrendered them to a shelter or rescue. and Im pretty sure that EVERY dog on the first link I posted live in a foster home, in the home. occasionally there are a few that cant be kept in a house and are waiting for a sanctuary to have an enclosure ready for them.
again, I dont think anyone should breed them. but some people may be able to find it in their hearts to take one of these dogs in, if those people have enough experience.

It's not like they can be released in the wild, too. They will try to join a wolf pack, but the alpha wouldn't accept him in the group. It's what I read

Then what about the three recognized Wolfdog breeds, Irish Wolfhound, Czechoslovakian Wolfdog and Saarloos Wolfhound? What do you think about those animals?
I read from responsible owners of these breeds, that they would much rather stay with these breeds, than to go back to the normal dog breeds they had before.

thats if they were released into an area that has wild woves. and its absolutely correct. the entire pack would kill it on sight, wolf dog or pure wolf. wolf packs very rarely accept a new member, and regularly kill lone wolves. and even if there were no wild wolves for the owner to worry about killing it, it doesnt know how to survive in the wild. it cant hunt, cant fight. there are still coyotes, bobcats, lynx, bears, cougars, etc. most likely it would end up on someones property looking for help and would get shot, killed by a dog, or hit by a car while crossing the road.

I have read that a Siberian Husky can survive on it's own in the wild. So I think it would be a matter on what breed the wolfdog was mixed with.

Yes, I have heard of those breeds. But never really read about them... Stirder?

the 2nd two you listed are alright, deffinetly not for most people though. the irish wolfhound is not a wolf dog. it has supposedly never had wolf in its breeding. it got the name irish wolfhound because it was created in ireland, to hunt wolves, and its a hound. just like coonhounds, imagine they would look a bit different if they had raccoon in their bloodlines.

Killed by a dog? I didn't think there was a breed that was stronger than a Wolfdog.

The Irish Wolfhound isn't named that because it has wolf blood - it is an ancient breed of wolf-hunter.

The Saarloos and the Czech are dogs that knowledgeable breeders have been developing to try to return to a dog more like the German Shepherd types of years ago.

there are records of huskies living semi wild. in siberia, and the far north american husky and sled dog breeds. their people were nomads and they did live semi wild. despite rumors, legends, and jack londons books sled dog owners know the importance of no wolf in the blood. I have spoken with quite a few during visits to alaska and canada, and everyone of them said they had never heard of anyone they know, their fathers, grandfathers etc ever crossing a sled dog with a wolf because it would make them too wild to work.

I believe Irish Wolfhounds Pitbulls, boxers, and others are stronger. And Stirder says it does not know how to fight...

most wolf dogs are submissive to other dogs. and most of them have never been in a fight before.

there isnt much that can beat a pit bull. but for instance lets say your pit bull has never even wrestled with a dog before, and suddenly it encounters a...I dont know, say a great dane that has been in fights before because it lives on the streets and finds food in dumpsters. the dane is likely to win because the pit bull doesnt know what to think or do.