Canis lupus hominis

Posted in wolves, working dogs | Tagged East Siberian Laika, wolves kill dog | 55 Comments

55 Responses

1. on October 3, 2012 at 5:42 pm massugu

   My understanding is that this is a 4-50lb dog. I doubt it’d stand a chance against even a single Arctic Wolf, much less a pack of them.

   
   
   • on October 3, 2012 at 5:43 pm massugu

     That shud read 40-50lb dog….

     
     
2. on October 3, 2012 at 6:24 pm Jessica

   This image makes me feel a little bit ill, but I suppose the person running to dog for moose hunting in wolf country knew of the risks and accepted that. Unfortunately, the only victim in this scenario is the dog.

   
   
   • on October 3, 2012 at 6:26 pm Dave

     Except there is currently a public outcry to exterminate wolves completely from Finland. For what? A dog that was line-bred to compete in the moose-trials?

     
     
     • on October 4, 2012 at 11:02 am Jessica

       That is as stupid as banning cars on roads for hitting loose hunting dogs in North America.

       When you let your hunting dog run loose in dangerous settings, you have to accept responsibility for the risk. Just as if you are working your herding dog on cattle and your dog gets kicked, you have to understand that was a risk you found acceptable for your dog.

       The logic of these people escapes me.

       
       
       • on October 6, 2012 at 9:38 pm Bridget

         I’d rather ban cars than wolves, tho, if we went that far.

         
         
     • on October 6, 2012 at 10:49 pm Bridget

       Dave, u could be as well pointing at Mr. Marko Lind, a Finnish Hound breeder, who keeps writing net blogs, pamflets and booklets about how the wolf is a problem and how it should be eliminated. Now he has revealed” how the wolf concervation is a black-money business and blaa blaa… You know it.

       
       
   • on October 5, 2012 at 7:28 pm Kathy K

     I doubt the hunter knew the risks. We seem to think the wild moose is his own animal. It rarely occurs to us that he may be spoken for by the resident carnivores, like the Sunday dinner that’s living in their pantry, so to speak. You know, we should be able to get in there and fight back to back with our dogs to take the moose from the wolves. Poor dog. I think the hunter was just dumb.

     
     
3. on October 3, 2012 at 8:56 pm lois

   One can discuss the subject of Wolves eating dogs for over 28 yrs… as i have, and still there are those that think different… I even give examples of the naturalists who documented this fact, and those who in the 1800’s asked every alaskan tribe they could, if wolves bred with dogs? and still the debate goes on that a wolf will breed with a dog. My opinion is still to this day, that a real wolf would not breed with a dog. There are many who disagree with me and can show me where a wolf had bred with a dog. They show me the puppies. But still i disagree that a true wolf would rather eat a dog than breed with one. A coyotte will breed with a wolf and/or a dog, and a wolf/coyotee may breed with a dog, i dont know, but a real wolf would kill a dog. I stand firm on my convictions. I shall share this thread… thanks for the post. Lois

   
   
   • on October 3, 2012 at 9:47 pm retrieverman

     Wolves breed with dogs all the time. They are just different subspecies. There are many dogs that have definite wolf ancestry. I know of a laika right now that is only four generations removed from a wolf.

     
     
     • on October 3, 2012 at 10:46 pm Dave

       There are rumours that Russians released wolfdog hybrids as “wild animals” near the Finnish border too.

       
       
     • on October 3, 2012 at 11:39 pm lois

       and you are sure that the first breeding cross of wolf and dog was true wolf? and you are also sure that the first breeding cross was not artificially inseminated? and you know this cause you saw it happen? cause i find that far too many folks just out and out lie, or dont get their facts straight.

       
       
       • on October 3, 2012 at 11:44 pm retrieverman

         You don’t need to see it. There are lots of genetic studies that prove this.

         Wolves and dogs are the same species. The only thing that keeps wolves from becoming inundated with dog genes is that they have a mated pair breeding system.

         There are many, many accounts of female wolf soliciting male dogs, if you dig through the wolf literature. There are also accounts of male wolves coming on bitches in heat, mating with them, and then the hunter comes and kills the wolf while they are tied.

         I don’t know where you are getting this info that wolves and dogs don’t interbreed. It’s a scientific fact that they do interbreed, and that the black coloration that wolves have in North America originated in dogs. The dogs transmitted the black color to the wolves. Also there are Italian wolves with dewclaws on the hind legs. No pure wolf has this feature. It could have only been introduced through hybridization between wild and domestic Canis lupus.

         
         
         • on October 4, 2012 at 12:50 am lois

           You believe that the wolf and the domestic dog are the same species, i dont. Dogs have two heat cycles and are very different than wolves. One day I hope that the scientists that told the world that wolves and dogs are the same, will retract their statement and tell the world, oops, we made a mistake. Just because the government tells me that milk is not good for me, or that too many eggs is bad for my health, i am suppose to believe them? why? I only believe what my eyes and my walk through life has taught me. I do not believe the words of the many books that are written on some fact that one person said, he has photos or that he actually did the work on the subject, and then a thousand books come out where the writer says “yah, thats right’… the king has a brand new set of clothes… i can give you a lot of written pages that stand by my thoughts on the subject also.. but i say what i say from what i know, not from the facts of others who have written such. But here are some for you: Maxwell Riddle 1979 ‘The Wild Dogs in Life and Legend’ He states his own experiences with a pure wolf, and i tend to believe him because in his writtings he comes off as a factual person like myself, but like i said. i dont usually believe what folks write. I use my own experiences for that is all i really know to be true. Another for my side of the coin: News paper clippings in the National Archives from gnome Alaska and the Naturalists who went up there. You can google that, i dont have the address at this time. Who would i tend to believe? Those back in the day? or the new generation of mixed breeders with arificial insemination and all kinds of half breeds, coyottes, mixes and wild dogs? Back in the day there were no mixes of wild dogs with wolves and the coyotees didnt go up that far into Alaska. Back then the territories kept the wild animals in their TRUE breeding programs. Today, who knows what is in an animal. http://www.petroglyphsnm.org/covers/wolfdog.html

           
           
           • on October 4, 2012 at 1:01 am retrieverman

             I don’t believe. I know.

             No reputable scientist thinks dogs evolved from anything other than wolves.

             Some are leery of this scientific name– Canis lupus familiaris.

             But I’m not.

             In systematic classification, it’s the only intellectually honest way to classify the dog.

             I’m sorry, but you’re mistaken. The best evidence we have is the dog genome sequence that was used to draw the dog family’s phylogenetic tree.

             I’ve got loads of posts on this blog that address this issue. Use the search function.

             I really don’t have time for this, because it seems you’d rather deny facts and assert yourself as the leading authority.

             You have no evidence from any peer-reviewed source, and to me, that’s all that matters.

             What’s more there are readers of this blog who have dogs that are definite wolfdogs, and they have seen them cross.

             Are you insinuating that someone like Vladimir Beregovoy is a liar because he shows evidence that laikas are sometimes crossed with wolves?

             If you are, then you’re a fool.

             
             
           • on October 4, 2012 at 1:05 am Dave

             Almost all primitive dogs only have one heat-cycle; just like wolves.

             
             
             • on October 4, 2012 at 1:18 am retrieverman

               Even improved breeds don’t always have six month cycles.

               Golden retrievers can have 8 to 10 months between cycles.

               
               
               • on October 4, 2012 at 10:55 am Jessica

                 I’m pretty sure double cycles are something that was artificially selected for in dogs to increase puppy production.

                 At least, that would make a great deal of sense to me if it were.

                 Or it might be linked to increased caloric consumption.

                 Now THAT would be an interesting study.

                 
                 
           • on October 4, 2012 at 1:09 am retrieverman

             There are mixes of wolves and coyotes living right now. In my state, they live here right now.

             The so-called red wolf is a hybrid of the two species.

             I really have little patience for people who try to lecture to me about the phylogeny and classification of Canis, when it is obvious to me that you know very little about the actual science about hybridization.

             BTW, it’s a myth that all wolf hybrids are nasty and shy and impossible to work with.

             That’s become the PC propaganda I hear all the time, but the reality and the historical record are far more complex than bromides from reductionist and melodramatic reasoning.

             
             
             • on October 6, 2012 at 10:40 pm Bridget

               Of course it’s a myth just like black people are lazy and muslims are terrorists. The hybrids have become new “wolf beasts” or “pit bulls” to be blaimed .

               
               
           • on October 4, 2012 at 1:13 am raeganw

             “Another for my side of the coin: News paper clippings in the National Archives from gnome Alaska and the Naturalists who went up there. You can google that, i dont have the address at this time. Who would i tend to believe? Those back in the day? or the new generation of mixed breeders with arificial insemination and all kinds of half breeds, coyottes, mixes and wild dogs? Back in the day there were no mixes of wild dogs with wolves and the coyotees didnt go up that far into Alaska.”

             White Fang was written in 1906.

             
             
           • on October 6, 2012 at 9:45 pm Bridget

             Aboriginal nations, including innus, inuits and Sapmi, used wild canis lupus as breeding material for their dogs. That should make U realize these people knew what’s it all about – their are basically the same animal, having the same important abilities and strenght, same highly-evolved social skills – the ones people have always valued a lot and taken the benefits out of it.

             You are fool if U don’t want to see that .

             
             
       • on October 3, 2012 at 11:46 pm retrieverman

         We have photos: http://retrieverman.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/dog-and-wolf-mating.jpg

         People aren’t lying that dogs and wolves can and do cross. The difference between a dog and wolf is the difference between humans living today and archaic Homo sapiens subspecies.

         http://retrieverman.wordpress.com/2012/08/12/an-argument-based-upon-a-false-analogy/

         
         
         • on October 4, 2012 at 8:21 pm kittenz

           This link is to a photo of a wolf-dog from a litter that I kept and raised, along with their wolf/GSD mother, from 3 days of age. She was about 3 years old in this photo:
           

           
           
   • on October 3, 2012 at 10:36 pm massugu

     I would direct your attention to the following two studies, one which stresses instances of hybridization, the other which stresses wolf predation on dogs.
     http://www.lcie.org/docs/Features/Feature%203%20Dogs%20wolves.pdf
     http://www.wildlifebiology.com/Downloads/Article/458/…/10_2_kojola.pdf

     
     
   • on October 3, 2012 at 10:54 pm retrieverman

     One of these laikas is an F2 generation from the wolf. I don’t know which one:

     It’s a very common thing for Russians to breed wolves to hunting laika.

     
     
     • on October 4, 2012 at 1:12 am Dave

       User is from Bulgaria.

       
       
   • on October 3, 2012 at 11:01 pm retrieverman

     Also: http://stephenbodio.blogspot.com/2006/12/working-wolf-dogs.html

     Vladimir Beregovoy is the first person to import West Siberian laikas to the United States.

     I have written several posts on pure wolves that were used as hunting dogs:

     1. http://retrieverman.wordpress.com/2011/10/15/hunts-with-retrieving-wolf/
     2. http://retrieverman.wordpress.com/2011/10/11/the-wolf-that-was-part-of-a-french-hound-pack/
     3. http://retrieverman.wordpress.com/2011/10/10/the-deer-hunters-wolf/
     4. http://retrieverman.wordpress.com/2012/09/10/hunting-wolves-with-wolf-hybrid-hounds-in-brittany/

     
     
4. on October 3, 2012 at 11:42 pm lois

   I will never admit to a wolf breeding with a dog until the day i see a pure wolf of the wild, that i know for a fact is pure…. and see it breed with a dog, so i guess i shall go to my grave with only my own convictions cause i doubt that i will ever look through binoculars and see a wolf, go up to a dog in season and hump her…

   
   
   • on October 3, 2012 at 11:50 pm retrieverman

     I’m sorry.

     But you’re wrong.

     Whether you admit to it or not.

     Wolves and dogs do cross, and they produce viable, fertile offspring.

     They are the same species. In the same way that 30-Arabian wolves and 120 pound arctic wolves are the same species, dogs are just a flavor of wolf.

     
     
   • on October 3, 2012 at 11:56 pm retrieverman

     Have you ever heard of a Saarlooswolfhond? What about a Czechoslovakian wolfdog? They have definite wolf in them, and it’s been proven through genetic studies.

     Also many Scandinavian spitz breeds, some of which are used just like laikas, have wolf in them– which was discovered only through genetic research:
     http://retrieverman.wordpress.com/2010/07/09/wolf-hybridization-in-scandinavian-and-finnish-spitz-type-dogs/

     
     
5. on October 4, 2012 at 1:07 am lois

   I dont believe that is a TRUE wolf. The front legs where the wrist and the foot hits the ground are too slanted and appears to be like that of the gsd’s i have seen breeding recently. They never used to have such weak front pasterns as they do now a days. I cant say that is a wolf just by a photograph, nor can i say what is mounted on top of her either. It appears to be a mixed shepherd of some kind. she could be a malamute husky shepherd mix. Here is the photo web address i am refering to: http://retrieverman.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/dog-and-wolf-mating.jpg
   In this same topic, the GSD and all the new fangled colors, do you believe that they are pure gsd? Do you also believe the answers the gsd breeders give folks when asked about the new fangled colors and the long coat? and the fci, just changed the standards on the gsd to include the long coated ones. omg! can i go up to a person who owns a dog that i know from my own breeding experience is NOT a pure bred and tell the owner that their dog is not a gsd? heck no… but this goes on all the time… you watch, if it has not already happened retrivers will start coming out with long coats, wiry coats, curly coats and every other coat under the rainbow. the labrador retriever is the easiest of all breeds of dogs to interbred with and no one would ever be able to tell…. it is done every single day in more kennels than you can imagine. I have been breeding mixed pure breds for over 30 yrs, i know a mix when i see one, but dont tell that to the owners. I dont care though to argue about it. I know its a mix but i am not going to argue. i can create that same dog…… if i had the money to back it up. i could make that wolf bitch you say is proof that a dog is breeding with a wolf in less than 4 generations. i could easily make a wolf looking dog anytime and i could also tell a lie and have everyone believe me. But that is not my walk in this life.

   
   
   • on October 4, 2012 at 1:17 am retrieverman

     You may be too ignorant to comment on this blog.

     Please stop breeding dogs.

     You’re probably ruining them.

     You are out of your league.

     Please stop making a fool of yourself.

     How do you think black color got into North American wolves?

     Science says it’s because they mated with dogs.

     You have no answer for that.

     Except to deny science.

     I have no time for science deniers on this blog.

     Sorry.

     Nor does anyone else.

     BTW, you just conceded that the crossing does happen.

     It actually happens “in the wild,” too.

     And there is a tradition of breeding dogs to wolves. The Russians do it now.

     The Ancient Celts did, too.

     French hunters did in the nineteenth century, as did Pennsylvania farmers from the same time period.

     The idea that crossing dogs and wolves is always a detrimental endeavor is simply false. We’ve produced several breeds from breeding dogs to wolves, from Norwegian elkhounds to Lacy dogs to North Korean Pungsan dogs.

     Not all wolves are dangerous when tamed, some are just as nice and biddable as any domestic dog, see Wags, Adolph Murie’s pet wolf.

     I think what you’re doing is a sort of parroting of the much discredited theories and postulates of Raymond Coppinger, who bases his whole model on dog domestication on a self-domesticating process because he swears that adult wolves can never be as tame as dogs.

     Not all wolves can be.

     But some can.

     And I think that historically there were many wolves within a given population that were more like dogs– and very easy to domesticate.

     When man began to persecute wolves, he selected for the wildest and most fearful animals– creating a population of animals in which the majority was impossible to domesticate.

     That’s not a speciation event. That’s actually artificial selection operating on domestic and wild populations.

     I’m not the only exponent of this hypothesis. Dr. John Bradshaw who wrote Dog Sense uses this model as his domestication hypothesis.

     
     
     • on October 4, 2012 at 1:44 am Dave

       It was common in literature about the North to stake out a Siberian Husky bitch in oldentimes to be mated by a casanova wolf to “improve” the stock.

       
       
     • on October 4, 2012 at 10:50 am massugu

       Lois, you keep saying that you “believe.” Creationists (at least some of them) “believe” in their pseudo-science in much the same manner. Science and scientific method aren’t about “proving” something, they’re about finding the most likely answer and going w/ that unless/until they find something more convincing that disproves it or makes it less likely.

       So lets drop this whole proof thing and go with the empirical facts that: 1) we have pictures of wolves (they look and act like wolves, they come from the correct biome under the right circumstances, so we’ll call them wolves) successfully breeding with dogs; 2) active, fertile offspring from these crosses, which when tested bear alleles from both canid subspecies; and 3) based on genetic analysis, an indisputable match-up of genes between domestic dogs and wolves. This match-up is closer for some breeds of dogs than for others (the Chow-Chow, Akita or Laikas appear to be more closely akin to wolves than Retrievers or Mastiffs for instance.)

       So given, all of the above, the most likely event is that dogs are descended from wolves, and that over the centuries, this relationship has been bolstered by the addition of genes from various wolf subspecies (If they hadn’t, genetic drift might have made interfertility difficult or impossible.). You may not like it, but neither you, nor anybody else has been able to disprove it (the acid test for the scientific method.) Until you or somebody else, can indeed disprove it, it remains the accepted truth.

       
       
       • on October 4, 2012 at 3:44 pm retrieverman

         Here’s an account of wolves mating with dogs, and fur-trappers using their dogs as “wolf traps.” This comes from Alexander Henry’s New Light on the Early History of the Greater Northwest: The Red river of North (1897). The location is in in what is now North Dakota and the time period was at the turn of the nineteenth century, when there were virtually no Europeans out there:

         We had a bitch in heat; she was very troublesome, and the dogs made a terrible noise on her account day and night. I drove them all to the plains; a band of wolves got scent of the bitch, and a furious battle ensued, in which one of our dogs was torn to pieces. This often happens at this season, when the wolves are copulating and our dogs get among them. The female wolves prefer our dogs to their own species, and daily come near the fort to entice the dogs. They often succeed, and if the dogs ever return, they are in a miserable condition, lean and covered with sores. Some of my men have amused themselves by watching their motions in the act of copulating; rushing upon them with an ax or club, when the dog, apprehending no danger, would remain quiet, and the wolf, unable to run off, could be dispatched (pg. 166).

         That’s a pretty convincing case.

         There are all of these dog breeds that we know have wolf in them. The DNA doesn’t lie.

         So you wolf and dog breeding denialists are simply wrong.

         I don’t care what you believe.

         You’re wrong.

         And I’d really like to know where you get your information.

         I’ve never heard anyone say they don’t interbreed. This has been known for hundreds and hundreds of years.

         
         
     • on October 4, 2012 at 11:25 am massugu

       Two final thoughts:
       1) Check out the films of Romeo–a Neoarctic wolf from the area of Juneau Alaska that was very dog-like in his mannerisms. He was neither particularly fearful of humans nor antagonistic toward domestic dogs. I could easily see a wolf such as Romeo being the forerunner of a line of domestic dogs. Of course his black coloration is a relic of a previous influx of dig genes, but then that kind of puts the quietus to the whole argument doesn’t it?

       2) You talk about the wolves pictured not being “pure” wolves. But if they’re not, then by default they’re wolf-dog crosses. If they are indeed crosses, then they do interbreed. You can’t have it both ways, if they didn’t cross, there’d be no reason for you to distinguish between pure and genetically mixed wolves.

       
       
   • on October 4, 2012 at 10:44 am kittenz

     Lois,
     German Shepherd Dogs were originally recognized as having three distinct coat types: longhair, rough/short (the most prevalent coat today), and rough/long (wirehair). Wirehair was a dominant trait and is thought to be extinct from the breed now, but the recessive long coats have always been and will always be with the breed, just as have the recessive colors. The only reason you don’t see them in most European-bred GSDs is that they are usually culled. It was once erroneously thought that longhairs lacked adequate undercoat and they fell out of favor. But the SV has recently realized the error in that thinking and once again allows the long coat. I hope they will eventually come to their senses on the issue of color, too, and remember that color is FASHION and does not impact the working ability or usefulness of the dog.

     Maxwell Riddle was a good writer. I have several of his books, including “The Wild Dogs in Life and Legend”. I treasure the book because of the old photos, including a photo of a wild black-phase Canis niger (which probably should be called <iCanis lupus niger or Canis lupus rufus in light of current thinking).Riddle was subject to the prejudices of his time – a time when wolves were pretty much reviled. His accounts of his interaction with captive wild canids are engaging and no doubt true to his experience with them. But as a source for factual information about wild dogs, it is lacking in many respects. It’s rehashed from old, sometimes inaccurate and incomplete data, and was written well before modern DNA analyses were available.

     Even wolf experts sometimes can’t tell the difference in a wolf-dog cross and a pure wolf. In one breath, you say you can always spot a mixed breed, yet in the same paragraph you say you would never believe a wolf/dog mating even if you saw it with your own eyes, because you wouldn’t know if the wolf is “pure”. I don’t understand why you are in such denial about wolves mating with dogs. It’s been known and accepted for centuries, millennia even, and is well-documented. Denying it doesn’t change the facts.

     
     
6. on October 4, 2012 at 10:47 am Sengimage

   Heehee hee.

   Lois, is hilarious. Thanks for the commic relief.

   
   
7. on October 4, 2012 at 12:01 pm M.R,S.

   What no one seems to have considered is the huge difference between a lone (male?) dog encountering a mob/pack/family of wolves, as opposed to a single male wolf encountering a sexually attractive female dog. In the first instance, the dog is almost certainly doomed. In the second, if a bitch is “ripe” for breeding, that’s about all the male canid (wolf or dog) will have on his mind!

   
   
   • on October 4, 2012 at 12:22 pm massugu

     Absolutely! But it kinda goes w/o saying.

     
     
   • on October 4, 2012 at 3:53 pm retrieverman

     There are also cases in Italy of female wolves mating with male livestock guardian dogs.

     
     
8. on October 4, 2012 at 3:16 pm Aleesha

   I find it hard to believe that a pure, wild wolf, with no human influences, would mate with a dog. And I mean a dog of any breed, with no wolf or coyote or anything other than dog in its DNA.

   I also find it upsetting that it’s impossible to carry out an argument without at least one person pointing fingers. I’m not going to claim I know anything about dogs. But for you to call Lois arrogant, and say she is ruining the dogs she breeds.. that is just silly and immature on your part. That woman is anything but, and she has created so many beautiful dogs! I have looked into her and her dogs so much, I would certainly take her word over most.

   
   
   • on October 4, 2012 at 4:24 pm retrieverman

     I’m sorry, but you’re wrong.

     There is copious evidence that dogs and wolves will mate– and they will mate with non-wolfy dogs, too. There was a researcher in Texas who mated a wolf to a black Labrador.

     The great wolf researcher Erik Zimen bred poodles to wolves.

     http://goldendoodles.com/faqs/generations.htm

     His wolves were submissive to his small Munsterlander that helped raise them.

     Further, there are just so many accounts of people breeding wolves to dog in order to improve the stock that you can’t say that they are all lying.

     We aren’t talking about what’s hard to believe.

     Belief has nothing to do with it.

     I really don’t care about belief.

     The facts are that dogs and wolves have exchanged genes through the history of dogs, and they still do now.

     You may find it hard to believe, but that’s because you have a hard time thinking for yourself.

     
     
   • on October 4, 2012 at 11:44 pm massugu

     Aleesha, did you not read what we have already pointed out. How many examples are necessary to make the point. It happens, live w/ it.

     
     
9. on October 5, 2012 at 9:07 am Lindsay A Tompkins

   I want to mention another current example of dogs mating with wolfs as common practice. The author Gary Paulsen who is quite well known for juvenile lit featuring wilderness survival (Hatchet) and working sled dogs in Alaska, also was a somewhat accomplished musher and ran the Iditarod. He writes in his bio of the training and the race (Winterdance) that a small bush plane spotted him mushing one day and stopped to land. The man had a wolf bitch in heat in the back of his plane and wanted to mate it with Paulsens dogs to improve his own stock. He didn’t just come up with the idea on his own, to mate a wolf with huskies.

   
   
10. on October 5, 2012 at 9:08 am masakadoshiba

    “wolves” is how that should read

    
    
11. on October 5, 2012 at 7:11 pm Kathy K

    I’ve seen pictures of “wolves” in Finland. To me, they look like dogs. That is, taking the northern, say Yellowstone, north american wolves as prototypical. I wonder whether the Eurasian “wolf” was always more dog-like or whether wolf genes are being replaced gradually by dog genes. Or something else.
    Any ideas?

    
    
    • on October 5, 2012 at 7:34 pm kittenz

      Eurasian wolves have always looked more “dog-like” to me than North American wolves, too, Kathy. I doubt it’s because of any replacement of wolf characteristics by dog characteristics, though. I think we just have it backward, and dogs look more like Eurasian wolves because those wolves are closer to dogs’ ancestry.

      
      
      • on October 6, 2012 at 8:04 pm Kathy K

        Thank you. It’s good to know that somebody else sees what I see. Some of the Eurasian wolves look more wolfish to me, though, such as the Arabian and Indian wolves. I think I’m talking about the shape of the skull. Anyway, thanks for your reply.

        
        
    • on October 6, 2012 at 10:32 pm Bridget

      Here are photos of some proven “Finnish wolves”. Do they look like dogs ?

      

      

      

      

      

      (The last is year 1931 in Finnish Karelia)

      Wolves were practically extinct from the 1920s on.

      Now the wolves visiting yards and eat cattle, are often shot, and then pictured. They are young, smallish wolves, probably turned away from their pack.

      The Finnish wolves are so haunted that their number was long time circa 150 – and is not much more now. Poaching takes circa 30-50 individuals per year.

      It’s clear the Finnish wolf population do lack volume and inbreeding is a serious risk.

      That may be a cause for a smallish size, but still, note that the kills are mostly young / weakest / “doggish” ones and doesn’t present the whole population.

      It’s hard to see a wolf here, a take a picture, they are rare. This is certainly not a siberia or yellowstone.

      
      
12. on October 6, 2012 at 5:24 pm Roy ewson

    I really enjoy reading such a great debate but it took an unpleasant turn, especially by Retrieverman when it started getting personnal. Keep the ideas going but keep the personnal jabs out of it. It takes the joy out of free follwing discussions

    
    
    • on October 6, 2012 at 6:32 pm retrieverman

      I get a bit rude only when I try to argue facts with people who insist on arguing their beliefs and opinions as if they contradict accepted facts. That sort of reasoning is one reason why the world is in such a mess. Not all opinions and beliefs are equal, especially if they are not grounded in an empirically verifiable reality.

      The question here is whether dogs and wild wolves can cross and produce fertile offspring. That question can be answered objectively and empirically. One may have a belief or opinion about the question, but if that belief or opinion does not correspond with what we have empirically, it’s just nattering on in error.

      And I don’t have time for that.

      I provided proof, as did Massugu and Kittenz, but it didn’t sink in that the facts simply negated whatever opinion she had. So she just kept on– as if that would somehow change what the facts are.

      
      
      • on October 6, 2012 at 7:45 pm Pai

        I’ve been browsing Medieval bestiaries today and the level of scientific knowledge in those is about on par with some of the stuff biology-illiterate folks still believe today. =P

        
        
    • on October 6, 2012 at 6:34 pm retrieverman

      Skip over to 41 seconds and see the discussion about the rabbit’s sex:

      
      

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