You’d be amazed at the exotic information information one can find on breeders’ sites. Lots of people think their chosen breeds are somehow different species, and they tend to weave such bizarre lore about them that one wonders if any of it is true. The two best cases I can think of are the story that chihuahuas are derived from fennec foxes— based upon nothing more than possessing a superficially similar phenotype– and the desire for New Guinea singing dog fanciers to have their dog declared an entirely different species– based upon their supposedly unique howls and the fact that bitches scream when the males penetrate them.
But nothing compares to the “wolf breeder” site that Pai sent to me last night. I use “wolf breeding” in quotations, because as you will see, these “wolves” are quite interesting. First red flag, is that some of them are black and tan or have German shepherd masks. Others are long-coated, like a collie or Shiloh shepherd. Red flag two. (Warning: this site plays annoying religious music.)
Now, you think that would be enough to discredit the veracity of the claims that these animals are actually wolves, but the information provided on the site is more than a little bizarre.
This person isn’t just a “wolf breeder.” This person is a wolfaboo. What is a wolfaboo? Basically, a wolfaboo is someone who thinks wolves are so awesome that if you say anything negative about them, you are evil and want wolves to become extinct. Wolves are naturally gentle animals that live on rats and mice, which they kill only when hungry. Any evidence one provides that wolves may have killed people is derided as folklore or is blamed upon rabies or predation by dogs or wolfdogs. The wolf is kind of like the noble savage myth. It is pure and natural, unlike dogs, which are poor substitutes for wolves.
This breeder shows off her wolfaboo sensibilities with this statement:
Wolves are not natural born killers, they only kill to eat. Since our wolves eat puppy food they have no need to hunt and so show no signs of aggression towards other animals. When a wolf shows signs of aggression towards a person all they really want is the person to stop what they are doing and go away. Some wolves that show signs of aggression may have been traumatized or they may have dirty blood lines or have been inbred, which will never be the case with our wolves.
Although I have written that some wolves can be as docile as domestic dogs, I don’t mean to imply that they all can. The average wolf, especially one from modern populations, is too emotionally reactive for the average family to keep. When I say reactive, I mean aggressive at times. Even wolves that show no aggression towards adults in the family might be stimulated into predatory behavior by children. This also happens with some domestic dogs.
I also think it’s simply silly to say that wolves have never killed people. Wolves have killed people, though some of the claims made about their depredations have been exaggerated. If you’d like to see examples of wolves hunting people, check out The Wolves of Paris, The Wolf of Ansbach, this fatal wolf attack in Alaska, and the story of child snatching wolves in India. The last two involved modern wolves of both the northern and southern wolf subspecies, which were pure wolf, rather than wolf hybrids.
This “wolf breeder” thinks that any time a wolf attacks someone, it’s because they are “inbred” (becoming like dogs) or because they are crossed with dogs. Wolf hybrids can be quite aggressive, but they can be quite docile, especially if the dog content is really high and the dogs used in the cross are particularly docile. Pure wolves can be quite easily tamed and kept with people, but these are the exception rather than rule– at least now.
This “wolf breeder” thinks wolves are so nice that anyone can own one.
WE HAVE SOLD WOLF CUBS TO:
· Day Care Centers
· The Elderly
· People with kids that have ADD (the cubs calm them down)
· To the blind
· People in wheelchairs, so they can help them get things.
· The deaf
I don’t know if any of this is true, but one might create a successful relationship through selling a very docile German shepherd or German shepherd cross, even one with trace wolf ancestry, to some of these people. My guess is that selling a high content wolfdog or a wolf hybrid to a daycare center is probably an accident waiting to happen.
This “wolf breeder” also recommends these animals for long-haul truck drivers. Great idea! “The wolf is kept fed by its feet, ” says a Russian proverb, which points to the simple fact that wolves like to range long and hard, often traveling many miles in a single day. If these animals were wolves, they would be positively barmy after two or three hours in the cab of a truck. However, some lines of German shepherd and the Shiloh shepherd are noted for their calm behavior.
One wonders if some of the facts stated on this breeder’s site are even remotely true, for as we shall see, it gets even more bizarre than the information I’ve stated so far.
On another page on the site, the breeder states that wolves have some amazing adaptations:
Wolves can also hear about 6 miles away, smell about 4 1/2 miles away, jump and climb. You could be blocks away and they can still get to you in time. Nothing can stop them from coming to your aid to help you not even a chain. You are safe with a wolf, it is part of your family. It is like having a safe gun, it only goes off when it is necessary.
So a wolf can break a chain to save you!
But I thought they were never aggressive and never hurt anybody.
Wolves can hear up to six miles away, but I’ve not been able to verify if wolves can smell something four miles away. It is believed that polar bears possess the greatest olfactory abilities of any Carnivoran. They can smell seal carcasses from several miles away, but it isn’t clear if wolves have anything like their scenting abilities. Wolves are thought to be better at smelling and hearing than dogs are, but no one has empirically tested if this is so. If true, this could explain why wolves might have larger brains in proportion to their body sizes than dog. They need the bigger brains to hold all the “hardware” that comes with these increased sensory abilities. (One reason why humans in Northern Europe and the arctic have larger brains than those living in the equator that people living in northern latitudes had to survive the northern winters, which are quite dark. To survive in the darkness, these humans evolved larger eyes and larger brains that can process visual material. It has nothing to do with actual intelligence.)
But even if wolves can smell and hear from that distance, I don’t think they would be of that much use to save you from a dangerous situation. Pure wolves are notoriously bad guard dogs.
Strangely, this breeder thinks that ranchers should be getting wolves to guard their stock, when we all know that ranchers are getting large guard dogs to guard against wolves. This breeder claims that ranchers are buying her “wolves” for protection:
We have been selling to more ranchers lately because snakes, coyotes and vermin will not come around where wolves urinate. Since our wolves are raised on dog food they don’t kill to eat. In the wild they only kill when hungry. A hand raised wolf will not kill the owners stock, they see the animals as part of the pack. A wolf will not go in to another wolfs territory, so if you have a hand raised wolf around your cattle, no wolf pack will come in where your wolf urinates, it’s now your wolves territory. Your animals will be safe, I have seen this with my own eye’s over and over.
Well, that’s nice, but my guess is that most pure wolves would not be of any use guarding livestock. They might be able to, but it seems to me that the would be more likely to kill stock, even if they were raised with them, than most domestic dogs. Because these “wolves” are low content wolfdogs or German shepherd crosses, I don’t really see them as being a major threat to stock.
However, these “wolves” have an even more amazing ability. Guard dogs can only keep the varmints out of your stock, but these wolves can take out the flies and “tics”:
Wolves could even take care of a fly and tic problems. A wolf has the ability to soak up moister through their skin. When the fly or tic get on the wolf the moisture is sucked out of pests which kills them.
These “wolves” are so amazing that they can suck the ticks to death! Either that or they are born with flea and tick treatment on their skins.
Now, if all of this wasn’t enough, you get a choice in what kind of “wolf” you can buy.
Yes. This breeder offers several different varieties of “wolf.”
Mexican Gray: 25″ at shoulder 250 lbs
Tundra: 22″ at shoulder 150 lbs
Canadian: 26″ at shoulder 200 lbs
Mckenzie Artic: 30″ at shoulder 300 lbs
Look at those sizes!
No wolf in history has weighed 300 pounds. None has weighed over 200. Only one wolf in history weighed over 150 pounds, and that was a wolf that was killed in Alaska that weighed 176 pounds. It is very rare for even a large wolf to exceed 130 pounds.
Miley is 23″ at the shoulder, and she weighs 73 pounds. She’s a relatively large dog. The “Tundra wolf” this breeder is offering is roughly the same height at the shoulder as Miley, but it almost twice as much.
The 250-pound Mexican wolf is also a fiction, for Mexican wolves are one of the smallest wolf subspecies, weighing only 60 to 80 pounds– golden retriever-sized. However, this breeder thinks she is contributing to Mexican wolf conservation by breeding these so-called “Mexican wolves.”
The government has reported that 2008 there are only 52 Mexican Gray Wolves remaining in the wild and at government facilities. We are trying to change this.
Yeah. Never mind that a whole line of Mexican wolves was euthanized because they looked like they might have some dog characteristics. These wolves were deemed hybrids solely by appearance, and they were euthanized for that reason. These ‘wolves” really have very strong dog characteristics and are definite hybrids or dogs that look like wolves. Exactly how are these animals ever going to contribute to Mexican wolf conservation?
Oh. And did you know wolves are hypoallergenic?
I’m telling you these animals are magic.
The breeder claims that one of these “wolves” now lives with the trainer of the wolf in Dances with Wolves:
The lady that owns the wolf two socks,from the movie “Dances With Wolves” just bought a wolf from us, a Tundra male. She said that while they made the movie Kevin Costner and her slept outside with the wolves. Still to this date Kevin Costner visits her every now and then.
According to Christopher Landauer, who saw a behind-the-scenes commentary on the film, Kevin Costner didn’t like the wolf at all. He didn’t like trainer either. Of course, considering all the other exotic information on this site, what else would we expect?
My guess is that these “wolves” aren’t all that healthy. In a wolfaboo litany on another page, the breeder makes this admission:
WOLF HISTORY
The wolf is the lion of the North. They are called that because they are descendants from the same lineage as lions.
Their eyes are that of a lion brown color and a thick mane runs around their neck and down their back. Females have shorter hair than males.
They also have a cat-like bone structure. They can collapse and dislocate their joints.
They can climb, jump up to 6ft.(or higher) from a standing position and can run up to 40 mph.
Because they are 98% wolves they are not aggressive, but protective when needed. They have to be threatened or feel you are being threatened before they react.
When you hear of a wolf being aggressive, it is more than likely mixed with a dog. When you mix a wolf with a dog you pass on the aggressive traits, brain imbalance and the health problems of a dog.
What she’s actually saying is these wolves have joint problems, like hip dysplasia! But they are healthier than dogs are.
Cognitive dissonance, anyone?
Of course, this person also thinks that dogs were created by inbreeding wolves. Actually, as a population, dogs retain 95-96 percent of the genetic diversity of the wolf. Dogs were created through inbreeding tamed wolves. The inbreeding in domestic dogs is really quite recent, something that has happened within the past 150 years. The idea that dogs have brain imbalances is part of the appeal to nature and noble savage-esque nonsense that is so commonly held by wolfaboos.
As to the ancestry of these “wolves”:
Our wolves are 98% wolf, the game and fish her in Texas have told us to say they can only be 98% or 99%. This is because if you say 100% then they are led to believe you took them right out of the wild, we received ours from other breeders..
The game and fish here know what we have, I can tell you they are 98% and 99% and them as such. I have to put down 98%, but if you know any thing about percentages, 98% is very close to the real thing it is all in how you raise them. They are first generation and second .. now saying 98% and 99% is not a enough. They say we have to say high bred so people will not call them. I say the nuts out there will still call no matter what.
My guess is that Texas will let you put down any percentage you want, but if you look at these “wolves,” they don’t look anything like 98 percent pure wolf.
After all, this person has made some dubious claims about the size of the “wolves” they are offering, and puppies are available now, which should tell you a lot. Wolves don’t have puppies any time of the year. Oh, I forgot, she calls them “cubs.”
So you can order 300-pound, black-and-tan wolf that will protect you and your livestock and will kill flies and ticks that land on it. Damn. That’s a hell of a deal for a really magical animal. The lion of the North. Or maybe that’s the “lyin’ of the North.”
Some of these wolves are particularly fertile. One had 20 “cubs” last year.
And, of course, everyone wants a “wolf cub” sired by a “Mexican wolf” named “Poncho Via.”
So this is what happens when a wolfaboo gets into the puppy milling business.
It ain’t pretty.
I know these people. Not ‘know’ in the friends or acquaintances sense of the word, but ‘know’ in the ‘talked to them at the library a few times and had to go out to the car and laugh hysterically’ sense. They used to live in the same area we do.
Were they stoned when they went to the library, too? Or just when they wrote content for their website?
You know how there are people who *seem* like they’re stoned, but really not all their synapses are firing?
There you go.
I know exactly what you’re talking about.
This writing, though, reminds me of something Napoleon Dynamite would write.
Coyotes kill people too — or at least a pair did in Cape Breton in 2009
http://www.chartattack.com/news/76165/coyote-kills-toronto-singer-songwriter-in-cape-breton
Dogs have killed people.
Cougars…ditto
Even the odd bear ….
Living near wildlife means not being stooooooppppiiiidddd and taking sensible precautions.
Anti-Wolf Haven Facebook group:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=118162358205135
There is a reason we don’t pass laws against being a moron or giving morons your money.
So we can laugh.
Well, there is that, but there are also people who think my cross-breeding is the equivalent of what these people are doing.
The city of El Paso has made it illegal to breed mixed breeds entirely:
“A declaration of intent to breed only currently registered purebred animals of the same type and registry which are also eligible for registry with one or more additional registration agencies and that the offspring of any breeding are expected to be eligible for registration with the same registry, and/or to breed animals solely for the intended purpose of being trained and certified as service animals, for search and rescue use, or for official use by law enforcement and governmental agencies;”
Cuz, you know, all people who cross-breed are clueless ‘greeders’ out to make a buck off their dog’s reproductive organs.
They even tell you how much you’re allowed to charge for your puppies (this applies to everybody, not just breeders.)
“If the amount or charges made or requested in accordance with this section for the sale or transfer of a dog or cat under the age of one year exceeds fifty dollars per animal, a person, retail establishment, or animal welfare organization selling or transferring the dog or cat shall provide documentation of all expenses incurred other than the cost of food to the purchaser or transferee prior to the sale or transfer, and the amount of the charges made or requested shall not exceed the total amount of the documented expenses provided plus the cost of food, and in the case of an animal welfare organization, the cost of providing shelter. The purchaser or transferee shall be provided with a copy of all such documentation at the time of sale or transfer.”
http://library.municode.com/index.aspx?clientID=16180&stateID=43&statename=Texas
Just click on title seven. This is EXACTLY where all the rhetoric about ‘responsible breeders’ gets you.
My issue isn’t that you crossbreed or that this woman breeds dogs.
My issue is that this woman lies. She’s selling something that isn’t there. It’s like if you sold your dogs as very thin golden retrievers.
It’s not about breeding. It’s about ethics in business.
I have actually talked to this person some years ago and trust me, she believes all that stuff. Like the people who think Salukis can be traced in an unbroken line straight from the dogs of the pharaohs. They BELIEVE.
You aren’t even on the same planet as this woman.
Wouldn’t matter if I was. If I lived in El Paso, I’d be breaking the law.
I’m against the law on El Paso.
But I’m more against fraud. This is almost something for the better business bureau or the attorney general to look into.
It has nothing to do with sane breeding practices of domestic dogs.
Unlike with your dogs, there is also a public safety issue here.
Let’s say that someone buys one of these “wolves” and it turns out to be a very nice dog.
And their neighbor decides to get a 75% wolf, and this animal is so reactive that it kills a child.
This leads to even worse regulation on wolfdog breeder, enough that it makes it impossible for the KC wolfdogs, like the Saarlooswolfhond and Czechoslovakian wolfdog, to ever become established.
We’re dealing with an issue much more complex than anti-breeder. We’re talking about fraud and public safety.
And fraud is hardly confined to people who breed wolfdogs or crossbreed or just breed pets, if you get my drift.
I liked the part about being cousins of lions the best a 300 pound lion wolf that kills flies and ticks with its magic moisture skin is perfectly safe and perfectly protective and is prefectly happy to live in a Truck Cab, after you buy that I have a wonderfull island that might interest you.
i wrote a post a while back about a breeder in our area selling German Shepherd/Malamutes as wolf puppies. I may have said some disparaging things about wolves as pets.
I am still getting hate comments and emails from wolf breeders calling me “Poodle town” and questioning my judgment among other things.
“Poodle town.” Gee, nice to know they’ve no shortage of clever insults.
‘Poodle Town’ sounds like a lovely place to live, actually. I’ve only ever heard nice things about Poodles. =)
some people are just fucking nuts
Wow those are the craziest claims I’ve ever heard of! I liek that term “Greeders”. It is amazing how stupid and crazy some people are. But ya know, anyone who buys from them after reading that MUST be pretty stupid too! Talk about taking advantage of the ignorant!
Does this person actually have any of these “wolves” they are selling? The whole thing is so ridiculous, it makes me suspicious that it’s a total scam.
They are wolf hybrids of varying degrees of ancestry,
I’m just questioning whether she actually has any animals at all, or is planning to take people’s money for something that exists only in her imagination.
If you go to the anti-wolf haven facebook page, there are photos of the dogs.
With lots of puppies.
Of very ages.
These people were once part of a trio of ‘wolf’ breeders in my ‘neighborhood.’ (Keep in mind that that encompasses a rather vast area of desert.) I have seen the dogs of all three ‘breeders’, and they may have had an actual wolfdog in their ancestry three or four generations back. Most were very obvious GSD/Siberian/Malamute mixes. I saw one bitch that may have had some recent wolf ancestry, and she didn’t belong to these women.
about wolves being cousins of lions:
Wolves are descended from a weasel-like animal called the Miacis. The Miacis had five toes and could probably climb. Dogs, cats, bears, raccoons, civets, weasels and skunks are also descended from this animal.
http://books.google.com/books?id=USaygiJmR-MC&pg=PA90&dq=wolves+descended+from+felines&hl=en&ei=wCWkTtWNGKaQsAL_lvHABQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CEcQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q&f=false
Miacis evolved into a more wolflike creature, Hesperocyon. Hesperocyon had short, weak limbs, a long tail, a longer muzzle than Miacis, and 42 teeth. Hesperocyon walked on its toes, like modern canines.
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/71721/wolf_evolution.html?cat=4
If you would ever like to highlight some good respectable wolfdog breeders for a change just ask me.
I would love to do a spotlight on good wolfdog breeders.
Here’s a good video on dog evolution:
The short version: There aren’t words for how thoroughly I resent that I get looked down on for refusing to procreate, while people like this are encouraged to breed humans and pets!
Sadly, for every exotic animal there’s someone like this wolfaboo moron (who, I noticed on a quick scan of a few of the website pages, isn’t even capable of consistently spelling “wolves”…) insisting they’re the GWEATEST PETS EVAH. No, wild animals are not the greatest pets ever. None of them. That’s why we domesticated them in the first place: for safety, reliability, and easy access. The biggest, most complex wild animal I’d be willing to keep would be either a snake (their rules are very simple and I don’t keep anything big enough to kill my cats) or some of the cuter species of mice. Definitely NOT interested in non-domestic mammalian predators in my house!
It’s funny how every low-gen Bengal cat breeder talks about how fantastic their F1, F2, and F3 cats are, so smart, so pretty, so this and that glowing rhetoric…but you have to go to specialty forums to find out about locking up EVERYTHING you don’t want eaten, used for territorial marking, and/or demolished out of what many owners flat called “pure spite” from their beloved babies. Seriously, one gal said she had to get her house done in hardwood floors and key-locking cabinets because of a SINGLE F1, an Asian leopard cat x SBT Bengal that destroyed every rug she had and chewed the baseboards off the walls when she locked up her family heirlooms out of reach.
As for the New Guinea Singing Dog, some of the push for species recognition comes from physiological features like going into estrus only once a year and some comes from behavior. About ten years or so ago a gal who did Basenji rescue ended up with a singer pup–and after years of dealing with stubborn, smart, willful “primitive” rescue dogs, she had to just about completely retrofit her home and life to accomodate Gus Pong’s behavior (I have an 8,000-post “Canine Conundrums” thread saved where she posted extensive stories of life with a wild carnivore in the family). Gus Pong wasn’t much bigger than a Basenji, for the record, could clear a 7.5-foot plank fence from a standing start, liked to hang from his toes on the chicken-wire tip-in installed to end that particular hobby, and at one point attempted to drag an ENTIRE thankfully empty elk ribcage through her bedroom window–failing only because it wouldn’t fit through the frame. Imagine what an adult wolf almost four times the weight of a Basenji would do to your house, yard, and neighborhood to get his own way!
As I mentioned on the post about the genius who got his legs bitten off for going in the water off Cape Town while the Shark Sighted flag was up, **wild animals are wild**. This is why so many places have exotic pet laws and why we have domesticated animals for companionship. I’ve read thousands of pages on wolves, both paper and online, and the single generalization I would be willing to make is “wolves are highly individualized cooperative predators; each animal is different in many ways from most if not all others within its pack, bloodline, region, and species.” Little Miss Wolfaboo is apparently unaware that she’s going to do a lot more harm to wolf breeding efforts than good; her “dances with white light” extremist views are a lot easier for the average monkey to remember than are actual facts. Frankly, having scanned just a few of her pages made me wish my doc would put me on whatever meds she’s taking–I could use an immersion-level vacation from responsibility & reality!
We’re having a lot of fun over at TMS Facebook page, describing these amazing creatures.
The Misanthropic Shiba
Did you know that they only hunt when hungry and when they’re not hunting, they spend their time at soup kitchens, feeding the homeless and rescuing children from wells? True story…
Eric
They also roam the open wilderness finding way to eliminate our national debt and implement strategies to drastically reduce our reliance on fossil fuels. They kill only as an act of mercy and while they do it they hum amazing grace so that their prey will find inner piece knowing that eternal salvation will be their ultimate reward.
Jennie
I can’t wait for his next specialty, the wolf crossed with a grizzly bear. Weighs 400 pounds, can perform groundbreaking spinal surgery to heal people in wheelchairs, eager to dig and pour housing foundations for the homeless, and makes blueberry pies that won the blue ribbon at the Lexington, Kentucky state fair!
Huh…
The majority of the dogs here that are up for rescue in my area look like that – the husky/shepherd mixes, a lot of which are rescued from the native reserves. You can rescue for a nominal adoption fee and save an adoptable dog from getting shot…
estoy buscando semillas de High Bred alguien sabe algo?
No.
I just read some choice bits from the breeder’s site to my friend who used to do real wolf rescue. He was torn between laughing and wanting to go through the computer and beat them with a large wolf/hybrid.
I especially loved the part about cooked food having better protein and more nutrients than raw meat.
http://vetsbehavingbadly.blogspot.com/2012/03/few-things-they-never-taught-in-vet.html
A “wolf” breeder (or puppy pimp, take your pick) handout.
I do hate these wolfaboo morons ’cause I do love Wolves (the real ones, man-eaters included…). Great site, greetings.
Wow, I want a 300 pound wolfaboo puppy! They sound great. Smarter than people, nicer too. Perfect. But then again, most purebred breed myths read well too.
Such great dogs, only royalty was allowed to own them. (Until now. Send $500 plus shipping).
German Shepherds walk that way because they are bred to do a flying trot, they are so good at flying trots around sheep herds that they can hardly move at other gaits or in a little ring, they are bred for big wide open areas where there are sheep. (Yah, but most of the bullshoot is standing right here in a ringside seat!)
Our dogs don’t shed, the hair falls out in big clumps, you just pick it up and throw it away, and that just happens for a few days in the spring. Their coats are natural. (Yeah? And other people comb the hair out of the dog, and weave plus sized sweaters out of it.)
And the BIGEST lie of all? Bears only eat berries, moths, and termites from rotting wood. And a few fish. They never kill fawns, or lambs, or calves, and they run from people even after dark. Timmy Treadwell says so.
And it’s safe to feed wild bears. And those cubs make good pets, even grizzlies. Not.