These two photos depict two wolf hybrids.
The animal on the left, with its floppy ears and black-and-tan coat, is an F1 wolfdog from Wildlife Park Kadzidlowo in Poland. He was intentionally bred from a “Polish spaniel” dog and a European wolf bitch. I am not sure what breed of spaniel the father was, but this hybrid reminds me very much of the Gråwachtel, a German spaniel (“wachtelhund”)/Norwegian gray elkhound cross. The dog features predominate. It looks like nothing more than a really feral-looking retriever type dog.
The animal on the right is a first generation cross between a West Siberian laika dog and a female wolf. Breeding West Siberian laikas to wolves is really nothing new, and the practice continues in Russia to this day. Knowing the politics of wolf hybrids in the United States, it might not be wise to discuss this feature in the West Siberian laika. There is a certain politically correct movement that views any sort of wolf hybrid as a skittish, dangerous animal, when in reality, the animals vary quite a bit. Having been around a West Siberian laika, I can attest that they are less wild and skittish than many other Nordic breeds.
The truth is you can’t tell a wolf hybrid by just looking at it. If the dog in the cross has floppy ears, it’s not going to look like a wolf at all. It may act more like a wolf.
Or maybe not.
The differences between wolves and dogs are more complex than you might think.
Unfortunately, this problem gets worse when certain people make absolute claims about wolves, dogs, and wolf hybrids.
The one absolute claim one should follow is always be leery of absolutes!
When someone says “never” or “always,” they are setting themselves up for error. All it takes is one example that goes counter to the claim to make it false.
And that’s what happens.
There are pure wolves that are as docile as golden retrievers when they are brought up imprinted upon people.
There are also dogs that are very reactive and nervous and only bond to a few people– just as most captive wolves do. There are pure wolves that have made decent hunting and working dogs.
There are wolf hybrids that have killed people, and there are wolf hybrids that have been the perfect pets.
Because of the complexity of the wolf and dog question, I cannot consider dogs and wolves distinct species. There is just too much overlap between dog and wolf to make such absolute distinctions.
I will use Canis lupus familiaris to describe the dog.
I think one of the biggest obstacles to getting people to understand why wolves are dogs is that the only wolves people seem to know about are the big wolves from northern ranges. What they don’t realize is that these wolves are not the totality of their species. They are actually a fairly specialized variant that evolved in the northern parts of Eurasia and North America to hunt things like moose, caribou, elk/wapiti, bison, aurochs, and muskoxen.
There are also wolves that are much smaller in the Middle East, South Asia, and yes, Africa, that are much more dog-like, and at least one study points to Middle Eastern wolves as being the primary source for most of the genetic diversity in the dogs we have today.
Wolves are actually a very diverse species, and historically, they were even more so. Dogs are just a reflection of their ancestral species diversity. Once removed from the rigors of natural selection, humans can play with that ancestral wolf genome to produce what is really the most morphologically diverse population in the world.
One cannot tell a wolf hybrid just by its appearance.
And one cannot always tell a wolf by its appearance either.
This white wolf-like animal was captured in Los Angeles:
The facility that bred it actually said it was actually 1/8 Great Pyrenees!
Wolves and dogs are wild and domestic populations of the same species.
The wolf itself is really a vestige of what was once a very diverse species.
Wolves managed to range over almost all of Eurasia and all of North America from the Valley of Mexico to Greenland. Their range in Africa has only recently been revealed through genetic studies.
And this species became successful because it could adapt its morphology– perhaps rather rapidy– to fit new ecosystems and prey sources.
To live in the same places, humans adapted new technologies. Wolves adapted their bodies through evolution.
A domestic dog is just a wolf that has evolved to live with humans. It’s a different niche, and humans did quite a bit of selective breeding to produce unusual body types.
But the body template and the vast majority of the genome are still those of a wolf.
Dogs are wolves in terms of their phylogeny and genes.
They may look very different now.
And dogs may be much better adapted to living with people.
But dogs and wolves haven’t diverged that much.
And when a floppy-eared dog mates with a wolf, the results can be somewhat disconcerting.
We expect the wolf dogs that result from the mating to look like wolves and not Labrador crosses.
It takes us aback.
And it makes us wonder.
***
The top image comes from this recent study that confirmed hybridization between male wolves and a female dogs in the Baltic states.
Previous “naturally occuring” wolf dogs in Europe have all been between male dogs and female wolves, which is one reason why the studies that one cannot use mtDNA studies on European wolves to confirm or deny the introgression of dog genes into the wolf population.
There will be more on this study in a future post.
I am sad now. Kadzidlowo has capercaillies at the wildlife park. We went to two Finnish zoos which promised the capercaillie, but the pens were closed down away from public viewing.
http://kadzidlowo.pl/index.html
Thanks for posting this study Scottie. It has relevance to the genealogical/genetic research I’m currently involved in in re the Molyneux families.
I think you have convinced everyone sufficiently by now, if they did not realise it already, that basically dogs are wolves and wolves are dogs.
Do you think that mexican wolf which was shot after taking an interest in dogs just could not find another mexican wolf?
I suspect it was either that or she had, fror some reason, become acculturated to dogs.
I would question the first animal as both drop ears and the coat color are recessives and unlikely to be found in an F1 dog (perfectly possible in an F2). Regarding the white “wolf” — the site referenced says it MIGHT (not “IS”) be part pyr — but at least 3 generations back — so it would be essentially the same as the “lua” Dal or the “bobtail Boxer” (from corgi crosses) and therefore isn’t particularly surprising. I otherwise agree with the post.
Drop ears are not recessive. If you read Mark Derr’s “The Politics of Dogs,” there is researcher in it who bred a Labrador to a gray wolf. He got a black wolf with floppy ears.
We don’t know all the modes of inheritance between the agouti colors in wolves. They don’t necessarily follow the patterns seen in dogs.
http://www.cockerworld.net/Sable/sable.htm
Sable cocker ay. My guess is this the Polish spaniel. It’s also with tan points.
I think at least some European wolves have the allele for tan points: http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs43/f/2009/141/f/5/European_wolves__Boja_and_Lobo_by_woxys.jpg
Sable also occurs in springer spaniels: http://www.hoobly.com/0/0/1824749.html
It may be that this animal is not a true black and tan but is a sable with tan points.
The park has several spaniels:
http://austriantimes.at/news/Around_the_World/2011-07-13/34884/Missing_lynx-newentry
There are lots of possiblities, like in Schnauzers: http://www.doggenetics.co.uk/albino.html
Until someone does a DNA analysis of this wolfdog, we just don’t knonw.
It’s something interesting, but I’m pretty sure it’s an F-1.
Some – if not all – of those sable cockers are dominos (also called grizzle in saluki) which is quite typical colour in sighthounds and huskies for example. Domino is a genotype that alters the Agouti-patterns. These “sable” cockerspaniels have wide tanmarkings unlike typical tanpoint or sable, the widow’s peak and some even have the telltale pale line in the middle of their nose. Many have an odd grayish tone as well. The domino pattern seems to take the “umph” away from the typically red pheomelanin.
I don’t think the spaniel-wolf hybrid is much of a mystery, really, although he is definitely interesting. To me it’s clear even from this picture that he is not at/at, because he has so much tan showing through on his ears and even on his body, and his tanpoints are quite ambiguous, not quite there where youd expect them to be. Also it seems like he has slightly paler dark under his eyes. I’d quite confidently bet his genotype is aw/at, the aw coming from his wolf side and at from his (tanpoint or carrying at-allele) spaniel parent. His parents may be quite heavy ticked or dark, the spaniel with small tanpoints. Because of the spaniel blood in him, the pheomelanin is quite red and even, and that’s probably the biggest reason why he looks so much like a dog. The darker red also doesn’t show through too much on his body. Most wolfhybrids have much paler pheomelanin.
actually, page 56 of A Young, D Bannasch – The Dog and Its Genome, 2007 – books.google.com indicates that the ear set is currently “unknown”. The PLOS article you’ve referenced yourself (Identification of Genomic Regions Associated with Phenotypic Variation between Dog Breeds using Selection Mapping) indicates that “Dog breeds show extreme variation in ear morphology ranging from pricked ears to low hanging dropped ears. ” See also http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1000451 A Simple Genetic Architecture Underlies Morphological Variation in Dogs) A labrador not only has hanging ears, but they are not small (although not as large as a basset’s) and not light. I’ll acknowledge that my view that prick is the dominant is not provable, but I would still question true drop (as opposed to half prick) ears. (as an example, see google images for Labrador X kelpie. At least half have up or half up ears).
As to color inheritence — if wolves are not the same as dogs in this regard it would be VERY surprising since they are supposedly the same species. You don’t see the same gene acting differently IN THE SAME SPECIES. Otherwise, one would expect that it would act differently in different dogs.
It’s not exactly clear why this spaniel/wolf looks this way, but in general, drop ears are dominant to prick ears. That’s actually pretty well-established. The only exception I’ve seen in the literature is one of the boxer/corgis that Cattanach bred had prick ears. There are probably some issues of penetrance going on in some of these case. Most breeders are quite ignorant about how ear carriage is inherited, because very few breeds have both drop and prick ears. However, in border collies, you have both, and they understand its inheritance very well:
All the crosses that I have seen between drop-eared dogs and prick-eared ones show that drop ears are generally dominant. Golden retriever/chow chow:
http://www.gbgrr.org/08-37%201.jpg Huskadors: http://half-huskies.blogspot.com/2010/10/memory-lane.html
BTW, even if dogs and wolves are the same species, wolves still have genes that dogs don’t– vice versa. Wolves are pretty genetically diverse as a specices, and there are lots of surprises in there. Leopards and jaguars are closely related, and I believe are actually interfertile (at least some croses are). But they have an entirely different patterns color inheritance. Leopards are recessive black. Jaguars are dominant black.
I’m taking the Polish wildlife park’s authority that this is an F-1, and if doesn’t fit our preconceived notions about color inheritance with dogs, then we have another research question to ask.
But let’s not assume that they were lying about its parentage.
Let’s not assume that we know everything about wolf color inheritance because we generally know how dogs inherit colors.
It may be the same in some cases– as is the case with dominant black. But there are always surprises.
It’s also possible that this dog might not be a true black and tan. It might be an ay/aw, and it just appears black and tan.
It’s also possible for black and tan to have worked its way into the wolf population from dogs at an earlier time but because of its recessive nature it was not expressed until this particular wolf was crossed with a dog.
Drop ears must not be on a continuum with semi-prick button, or rose ears then, because I’ve seen australian shepherds from lines without any prick ears throw prick eared pups.
I didn’t know wolves are pure agouti without carrying any of the recessives.
I am so happy to find this!! I am the very happy “owner” friend of a wonderful wolf dog. The picture of the floppy ears on the wolf dog at the top looks a bit like my Bear!! He is a chocolate lab wolf. I have been searching for a wolf dog with ears t.hat are similar to Bears. He is my friend and a wonderful companion. Such a great perfect mix. Is there anyone out there with a similar mix? He has so much personality! The best of both worlds. I rescued him, he was going to be shot because he is wolf! When he was a pup his ears were floppy only at the tip.
When I worked at Wolf Park (www.wolfpark.org), I got no end of questions about wolves and hybrids, including many people who were in legal trouble because someone thought their dog was a wolf, etc. A coworker and I eventually wrote a book about hybrids in the hope of getting “wolfy-looking” dogs, and pet wolves, out of trouble. It was published earlier this year by Dogwise. You might be interested:
Between Dog and Wolf: Understanding the Connection and the Confusion
it’s interesting that you brought up “Huskadors” or “Siberian Retrievers”, they’re excellent dogs. Very much a family dog, but also very very strong and wild. Saw mine snatch a lower flying bird out of the air and eat it right there. Huskadors are very interesting because they are a total and complete grab bag of genetic and behavioral traits. You can have a dog like mine: husky eye set and muzzle, one eye half blue and brown then the other eye totally brown, black animal with white patch on chest flop ears, VERY large. Tall and skinny though. Bush tail, thicker coat than a lab. Gorgeous. But they can very from short stocky labs with prick ears and long hair(ive seen these with yellow lab mixes) and then they can have any number of husky colors with half pricked ears and short hair.
It is understood by the lovers of these animals that the standard for a “huskador” is a solid colored animal (black, yellow or brown) with any type of ear, but it’s usually floppy, one white spot on the tip of tail, one half blue eye and one brown, longer coat(longer than lab, shorter than huskey), and water resistant. but as i said, it’s hard to produce these. Mine was close, but the white spot was on his chest. My sister and i looked at the top pic, and i pegged the left one for the hybrid(didnt know they both were) because of it’s general feral look. Buth then again, with my Bloo’s build and kinda wild appearance people thought he was a hybrid who didnt know.
Reblogged this on Wolfdog Education 101 and commented:
Such a great article !