FromChapters on Animals (1877) by Philip Gilbert Hamerton:
It happens from time to time that an attempt is made to bring up a wolf like a dog. These attempts succeed up to a certain point. One of the most remarkable instances occurred in the neighbourhood of Bordeaux, where a grand veneur brought up a black wolf-cub, a bitch, along with his young dogs, in perfect liberty. She went out hunting with the dogs, and enjoyed the chase extremely, except when the purpose of the expedition was a wolf-hunt, to which she had honourable objections. She behaved charmingly in the kennel, and her only fault was sheep-killing, a crime she committed whenever the opportunity offered (pg. 167-168).
So it was not only frontiersmen in Pennsylvania and Kentucky who had wolves that were fine hunting dogs.
At least one wolf in France proved to be a decent hunting dog.
But like those in the New World, this French wolf was also black.
The black coloration is likely indicative of some dog blood in every one of these cases.
But I don’t know if any of these animals had a significant amount of dog ancestry. There is simply no mention of it.
Modern black wolves aren’t necessarily tractable, and Wags, the very friendly tame wolf owned by Adolph Murie, was a normal gray phase wolf.
The Beast of Gevaudan and possibly the killer wolves of Paris were likely wolf dogs or wolves with a certain percentage of dog ancestry. I don’t think they would be quite as nice as these wolves that proved excellent hunting and working dogs.
So it’s a complex question to which there may be no simple answer.
See earlier posts
- A tame wolf named Wags
- The deer hunter’s wolf
- Wolves as working and hunting dogs in Pennsylvania
- Boongary hounds
But again, we do have more evidence of people in modern times using wolves as hunting dogs.
What strikes me funny is that back a couple of posts you felt you had to remind us that people wandering around in the N. American wilderness knew their animals and could distinguish between wolf and dog. Up until recently everyone could make that distinction. Everyone, that is, except the molecular biologists. Then they told us there was no difference and now nobody can tell the difference.
Kathy
If, as research pretty much confirms, predilection for human interaction is a genetic trait that has been typically selected against as a result of human predation of wolves, then it makes sense that we might find anamolous cases of wolves who behave more like dogs. They’re basically “throw-backs” to an era when wolves were not quite so people shy – like the random red-headed child in a family of brunettes. (Of course, the red-hair could also come from the milk man, just like the dog-like behavior could conceivably come from some latent dog genes in the mix.)
Or maybe not. I don’t know enough about genetics to say for sure, but given my extremely limited knowledge it seems logical.
[…] In all the different accounts of people using wolves to do the tasks that are normally reserved for dogs, I had not come across anyone using a wolf as a gun dog. Audubon met a hunter in Kentucky who used a wolf to trail deer, and a French hunting hound pack included a wolf as a member. […]
[…] The wolf that was part of a French hound pack […]