Seijun

Yes, that is all perfectly legal, UNLESS the animal is native to your area, (or the area you live in has specific laws about owning wild/exotic animals), then you have to have permits to keep it. Keep in mind though that just because an animal is a 'wild' animal does not mean it can't be kept as a pet. Reptiles, and most birds and fish kept as pets, can all be found in the wild. If you chose to define a wild animal as any animal that can be found in the wild, then pet parrots, snakes, lizards, and many fish, are all 'wild' animals. FYI, most of the 'wolf cubs' on that site are just wolf hybrids or dog mixes that someone has labeled a wolf. It happens all the time. I saw one that WAS pure wolf, so I sure hope the owner finds a responsible home for it. ~Seij

[quote name='Cairn6'][quote name='Seijun']I support RESPONSABLE exotic animal ownership, but seriously, it's those 'wanted' ads that scare me the most! :o I stopped reading after page ten.. Too many people there looking for any sort of big exotic animal they can get their slimy little hands on. :drinking: ~Seij[/quote] How on earth can the average person ever been considered a responsible owner of a wild animal. Perhaps a really good zoo with a very natural habitat but other then that who could be possibly justified in owning one.[/quote] I know. Very, VERY few people out there could properly care for large wild animals. That's why I said I supported [b]responsible[/b] ownership (the average person would not even come close to fulfilling this requirement). I definitely think there should be laws in place though to make it difficult for just anyone to go out and buy something as large as a Siberian Tiger. I wouldn't want to ban exotic ownership completely, just make it so that it is no longer perfectly legal for just anyone who wants an exotic large cat, bear, or other animal to get one. My friend has a lion and tiger as pets. They are both well cared for, loved, and contained. Most of the time though, when you hear about someone with a pet lion or tiger or something, they are keeping it in a decrepit homemade cage of sorts that even a two year old could escape from, or they are like the guy I heard about last year who tried keeping a tiger and alligator in his APARTMENT! :roll: ~Seij

I support RESPONSABLE exotic animal ownership, but seriously, it's those 'wanted' ads that scare me the most! :o I stopped reading after page ten.. Too many people there looking for any sort of big exotic animal they can get their slimy little hands on. :drinking: ~Seij

[quote name='__crazy_canine__'] I think theyre cute but serve no purpose so shouldnt have been made. It seems they were only bred for people who wanted huskies but couldnt handle their size. [/quote] Well, then they do serve a purpose :) I hate seeing people get a Siberian Husky but end up not being able to handle it. I think the AKK filles that nitche by providing people with a dog that looks like a husky but is small enough to not pose as many problems as a siberian husky. Many dogs serve no purpose other than to be companion animals. That does not make them bad. The Chinese developed several toy breeds who's only purpose was to be a companion animal. [quote name='Kat'] I am not 100% sure that it is an actual breed just yet. [/quote] From their looks, they seem to me to be a pretty well-developed breed. I consider a dog to be a breed when it is developed enough that the offspring it produces will mirror the parents in physical appearence and general temperment, enough so that if I saw one on the street I would recognise what it was without having to ever ask the owner.

I finaly got some info from someone who has one. They are rare because they are new (developed in 70's). No new mixes have been put in the breed lately, so since their creation they have been given time to develope and standardize in both looks and temperment. Some may call them a designer dog, but that depends on your deffinition of a designer dog. I consider a designer dog to be a mixed breed dog-with no breed standard and no purebreed developement-to be a designer dog. However if it is consistant in both looks and temperment, and can therefore be called a pure breed of dog, then I do not consider it to be a designer dog-just a new breed. IMO, just because the breed is new doesn't make it a designer dog/breed. All the breeds we have today were new at one time. ~Seij

Supposedly, the NAIDS are supposed to be some sort of rare, nearly extinct 'breed' that was owned by the Native Aericans, and helped them hunt, look for food, etc. If you look at old pictures though, the Native Americans had mutts also. No different than a mutt in a shelter today. They didn't have any specific, pure breed of dog. Carolina dogs are not fake dogs, however they are not a pure breed either. They are feral dogs who live down south, and who have slowly began to revert back to 'wild' forms. Technicaly, they are mutts too though :D ~Seij

Crou, I came across this onfo because it was told to me by a woman who had been in close contact with Mejastic View kennels before the owner went and changed her wolfdogs to 'NAIDS'. ~Seij

If they are just another mutt, then why do they appear to be a developed breed? What I mean is that they all look similar, and they produce pups that mirror the image of the parents (like how if you breed two pure GSD's, they will have puppies who will mirror the parent dogs in looks/basic behavior because they would be pure GSD's as well). Isn't that basicaly what it is that constitutes a purebred dog? With other designer mutts, such as a labradoodle, they are not developed breeds so one 'labradoodle' may look completely different from another 'labradoodle'. ~Seij

Does anyone here know anything about Alaskan Klee Kais? Are they actualy a real breed, are they a breed that is still being developed, or are they just another mix/mutt dog that someone decided to give a fancy name so they would sell better? ~Seij

[quote name='Kias_Mommy']I'm sorry you had a bad experience LC. In all my 3 years of taking Kia to dog parks, I've never had a bad experience with a pit bull or pb/mix. In fact one of the oddest things I saw was a pit bull with it's tail tucked, bawling as it ran back to it's owners with a terrier nipping at it's heels. Guess most dogs are big babies in my area. Kia's only been in one fight and that was with an Akita. No food, no toys or sticks...they just passed each other and the next thing they are "talking with teeth". I still take Kia to the dog parks. And happy birthday Corgi! :bday:[/quote] lol, reminds me of my dog (a 65 lb shepherd/husky/possiblely wolf mix) and the Pug down the road. When they met the pug started to chase my dog in circles. My dog had this expression on her face like "what the heck is wrong with this thing, HELP!!" ~Seij

"Please don't mix two concepts: recognized breeds and "typical" wolfdogs. "Wolfdogs" are mostly F1 or F2 crossing and there is huge difference between Wolfdogs and CzW/Saarloos acording the character." Oh, sorry, I guess I should have mentioned I was talking about regualar wolfdogs, not the wolfdog breeds. True, wolfdogs of recent wolf origin show more wolf-like behavior than the wolfdog BREEDS which are far removed from recent wolf heritage and are in all sensibility, dogs. "So if this "breed" was never created, there wouldnt be such a big problem about hybrids." The same can be said for any breed. It is not just wolfdogs (wolf hybrids) who suffer from being abandoned and put in shelters. HUNDREDS of other dogs are put in shelters all the time, of every breed, and every mix. Wolves were bred with dogs because people wanted them. That is the reason we have ANY dogs, because people wanted them. I don't think it is wrong to make wolfdogs or wolfdog breeds, no more than I think it is wrong to breed collies! I just hate seeing the result of overpopulation caused by overbreeding, and seeing the result of animals being placed in homes that can't care for them properly. ~Seij

Foxes?? :-? Yes, everyone run, the scary foxes are comming to eat your kids!! :drinking: :roll: I remember once on tv it was reported that coyotes had began returning to forest park. One of the first things the reporter asked was whether or not the coyotes were dangerous. ~Seij

"Now, bringing up what kind of people should own them thats completely a different debate. Certain breeds need extensive care and training and should be placed with the right person. " Very good point. Not everyone is equiped to own a wolfdog, yet not everyone is equiped to own a poodle. I've known people who I wouldn't even trust to own a hamster! ~Seij

With the floppy ears and black and white markings I doubt if there was really any wolf in him. I have seen only one *verified* wolfdog that was black and white (tan and white, actually) and it was several generations removed from a pure wolf. I don't know much about color genetics, but I do know that I have only seen the black and white coloring on dogs with very little or no wolf in them. Floppy ears are also something I see in dogs who have little or no wolf. The large curved teeth probably couldn't have proven much, since Alaskan Malamutes also have large teeth, with curved canines, much the same as in a wolf. I have also seen a lot of mals with very large feet, as big as a wolf's. As for blood tests, DNA can only prove if a wolf is pure wolf. It cannot prove whether or not a dog is part wolf. If you go to Google, and do an image search on Alaskan Malamutes, it will show you HUNDREDS of malamute pictures. A lot of them look quite 'wolfish'. It was wrong of your vet to try pushing to get your boy labled as a wolfdog and get you to confess that he might be 'dangerous'. I saw on tv once a little Yorkshire Terrier who belonged to a woman who never taught it that she was alpha. When the dog was in the woman's chair, and the woman approached it, the dog would bare its teeth, snarl, growl, and lunge at her. Had this yorkie been a WOLFdog, it would have been put to sleep for being 'viceous' and 'dangerous'. It's unfair really, that wolfdogs and other large dogs are treated so harshley for aggressive behavior that so often can be corrected, when little dogs can be aggressive yet be treated as though such behavior is normal and acceptable. ~Seij

A lot of times its not the potential dominance problems which makes wolfdogs/wolves the WRONG choice of pet for someone who doesn't know anything about them. They have high prey drive (as do many dogs) and when a kid or another animal gets hurt, they jump on the animal saying it is all because it is part wolf, even though kids and other animals are injured every day by dogs. Also, when people get a wolf and someone gets hurt because of it, the people who are anti-wolf use that as another reason why wolves should be eliminated, even when it was probably the owners fault in the first place that the wolf hurt someone. I have seen several people with mals who have dominance issues. They were originaly bred to pull sleds, and their behavior towards humans was not something that the breeders worried a lot about, thus mals often have issues with aggression (as it has been told to me, I have never researched any of this info to see if it is true). I am glad your vet allowed you to keep the mal mix as a dog though. Wolfdogs are illegal in IL. I would love to see pics of of your malamute mix, if you have any. It is not uncommon for nordic breeds and mixes to be accused of being part wolf. In one case, a champion Malamute was put to sleep when neighbors accused it of being a wolf, and wolves were illegal in that area. In another case, a man's pure Siberian Husky was 'released' into the wild after it escaped, was captured by Animal Control, and identified by them as being a 'pure wolf'. ~Seij

"there are a number of people who cant handle their Shepherds, Chihauhau's, Dobies...because they dont know how to train them and never bothered to learn. Can you imagine these people with a WOLF???? doesnt bear thinking about, IMO..... " Sad thing is, I have seen the results of people getting wolves and not knowing a thing about handling them and never bothering to learn. Ever seen or heard of a place called WolfCountry USA? [url]http://www.wolfcountryak.0catch.com/[/url] [url]http://wolfcountry.0catch.com/[/url] They sell wolf and very high content wolfdog puppies to anybody who has the money. They tell people they are just like dogs. I recently followed the rescue of a wolf named Sasha, up in Alaska. She had been kept tied to a tree her entire life. Here owners had wanted to breed her. It was discovered after the wolf was rescued that she had been sold to the family by WolfCountry. I imagine almost all the pups they sell end up dead when the owners dicover how hard they are to keep, or they just live their lives on a chain in the backyard like Sasha. ~Seij

Yes, I agree, and I did not say that dogs acted just like wolves, or that wolves acted just like dogs. However, wolves are not more aggressive than dogs, at least in relationship to humans. They have more POTENTIAL to aggressive, but they are not MORE aggressive. There have been many more attacks by dogs on humans than wolves. With a wolf, the behavior is much more intense, and it will treat its 'owner' like another member of the pack, thus increasing the risk that dominance problems will occur (not a huge problem, if the owner can deal with such behavior and effectively maintain alpha position). If the owner has no idea how to handle a wolf, act around one, or understand their behavior, the risk of injury due to aggression is much higher. While we are on the topic of domestication, have any of you by chance read up on the experiment with domesticating the fox? I am sure you have, but if not, it was an experiment where a scientist took wild foxes and bred them for tameness. He eventually ended up with tame foxes. The most interesting thing about these tame foxes was that they now came with short tails, curled tails, floppy ears, spots, etc. which you would never see on a wild fox. Even their breeding cycles changed to year 'round, just like in dogs. More can be found out about this experiment at [url]http://reactor-core.org/taming-foxes.html[/url]. I found this experiment highly interesting because it showed the relative ease with which one animal of a species can go from being one way, to being totally different, yet still being of the same species. Many people believe that dogs are in fact a domestic variant of the wolf, just like the tame fox in the experiment is a domestic variant of the wild fox. ~Seij

Ummm... I'm still not getting where you guys are coming from with this thing on dogs being a seperate species... "In 1993, dogs were reclassified as a subspecies of wolf ([i]Canis lupus familiaris[/i]) by the Smithsonian Institute and the American Society of Mammalogists in the [i]Mammal Species of the World, A Taxonomical and Geographic Reference[/i]. In the last few years, as DNA research has advanced technologically, many studies have been conducted to indicate that the genetic relationship between wolves and dogs is so close that

Well, I consider it a walk, but we do a lot of running too. Nope, no inside for her. She has a lot of energy, and she is EXTREMELY destructive and inquisitive, she would be getting into everything. There is absolutely no way she could come inside. Besides that, it would be too hot for her and I have an indoor cat, (my dog has very high prey drive, cats = food to her). I know some of you may say that with proper training, she could become an inside dog, but there are many dogs who are not good house dogs. My dog has a lot of husky in her. I have seen huskies make good house dogs, but in general, huskies are outside dogs, whos high energy makes them very difficult to contain indoors. ~Seij

I do make her work before [b]I[/b] give her anything [b]myself[/b]. She does have a kennel, which is where she lives. She is extremely hyperactive so she cannot ever come inside. I leash walk her twice a day, 1-2 hours each. She sits for food, she sits before coming out for her walk, she sits before I give her toys, and she is not allowed to play with me until she settles down FIRST and then I tell her we can play. "What kind of collar do you use on walks?" A very strong one (nylon) :) Why do you ask? ~Seij

Czeck wolfdogs and the Saarloos can't be registered because they came from wolf crossbreedings?? What morons, the German Shepherd came from wolf crossbreedings. ALL dogs came from wolves anyway. Besides, the Czech and Saarloos are so far removed that they are basically just dogs now. Any "wolf blood" should be long gone at this point. "Wolves and dogs may be the same genus, but are still very much two different species, and should not be mixed. It's a genetic crapshoot at best, and having had worked with several of them over the years, hybrids can be unruly and untrainable at best, dangerous to the family that owns it at worst." Actually, the dog IS a subspecies of wolf. The only thing that is REALLY different about the two is the intensity of their behavior. Wolves' behavior is much more intense than that of the average dog. As for them being unruly, it is only because of their tendency to be very independant animals. Their sometimes high energy and short attention span also makes them hard to train, but they are far from being untrainable. Also, ANY dog can be dangerous to its family, not just wolfdogs, ESPECIALLY when the owners cannot properly 'read' their canine. There is no evidence ,however, to prove that wolfdogs are more dangerous to their family than 'normal' dogs. I will say though, that many wolfdogs do inherit the intense wolf behavior of pack structure. Without knowing how to handle a wolfdog with such behaviors, an owner could very well end up with a wolfdog who has much more of a potential to be dangerous. Just to remind you, wolfdogs are mutts. They are mixbreeds. It is virtually impossible to describe them as being one way or another and having that description fit all wolfdogs. Ones with more wolf might act ore like a wolf, ones with more husky might act more like a husky, ones with more german shepherd might act more like a germen shepherd... Then again, it is possible to have one with more wolf but acts more like a dog, or one that has more german shepherd, but has inherited more of the intense wolf behavior. ~Seij

I guess I should explain my living conditions a little better. I live in the country, I take me dog on LEASHED walks on the back roads and in the woods. I NEVER let her run lose. The local farmer likes to hold calf auctions and he buys the sick calves that are left over at the end. He never treats them for any of there illnesses. Naturally, they end up dying. He loses on average, anywhere from 1-4 cows a MONTH. He dumps them in the woods, they rot, and stray dogs scatter their bones everywhere. People hunt here too and they leave left over deer parts lying around all the time. I live near a twisted back road, about 1 small animal gets hit on this road every 2 weeks or so. People also dump trash on this road a lot. So much that it is impossible to walk without running into some. These conditions are not my fault. My dog gets a hold of bones and stuff when she finds them in the grass, in the dirt, etc. The grass in never mowed so my dog sees most everything before I do. The only trash I ALOW her to get into are things like shoes and plasic bottles, she likes to play with them, not eat them. Plasic itself isn't a big problem either, unless it happens to have food residue on it. In that case, she may try to eat the plastic. It is impossible to predict what pieces of plastic may or may not have food on them, so I can't easily steer clear of the ones that do. When she gets a bone, if it is a small one, I will attemp to take it away. If I can get it from her without too much trouble, I reward her and give the bone back because as I said before, I do not like taking things from her permanently and sending the wrong message. Smaller bones are safer for her so I usually let her have them back. Seriously though, taking a walk with this dog is like running an obstacle course. I keep my yard clean, it is not my fault that everyone else around me are a bunch of litterbugs and slobs. I guess I should also let out that my dog is a wolfdog. I talked with some experts on wolfdogs, and it is generally agreed that she is probably about 50% wolf, but about 3 or four generations removed from a pure wolf. Unlike pure dogs, my dog DOES care about pack rank. "some times the dog may have had enough of the wrestling match and basically is telling you enough" heh, she only gets wriled up when I try to stop the game MYSELF. She is a lot better than before though. In the past it would take 10-15 minutes to get her to settle down when she got too wild. Now, I can get her to calm down in only a minute or even a few seconds. She would not stand for a muzzle of any sort. She freaks when something as amall as a bit of vine gets tangled around her head or muzzle. ~Seij

I guess I should have mentioned that I do not tie her up very often, only when she has something I STRONLY suspect she will physically fight me for. "Give your dog some thing better in exchange for the valuable resource it already has" What if I don't have anything that she thinks is better? There is absolutely nothing that would get her to leave a dead rabbit or a deer leg. She likes to eat bones too. She crunches them up nicely so I don't worry about that making her sick. So I get the bone away from her, after a lot of snarling and growling. Then what? If I giver her a treat, wouldn't that be rewarding her for her bad behavior? Yet, if I take the bone away, it only reanforces her idea that I am 'evil'. When I give the bone back without a treat and without tossing it away, she just guards it harder. And I don't have anything that she likes better than bones either. Also, she only gets to eat bones when she finds them in the grass before I have a chance to steer her clear of them. When we are out for walks I always make her sit before I alow her to go check out a bit of trash or a plastic bottle. If she finds something she likes and I will let her have, I get her to give it to me, I then give her a treat and give the item back. Part of the reason she doesn't trust me is because I do take things from her without returning them. I don't like doing it, and I try NOT to do it, but honesly, I don't want her eating dead rabbits, rotten meat, shoelaces, plastic, and half the other things she finds. I can't exactly give it back when I know that she will eat it and it has the potential to make her very sick. *sigh* she doesn't play fetch either. In fact, she has never showed any desire to please me or other humans, like other dogs do. She treats me as alpha most of the time, but she is still very independant. It is almost as if she exists in her own little world. I am only there to give her food, water, walks, and wrestling when she feels playful. She will greet me with a lick or two on my chin, but other than that, she shows me no affection at all. Oh, and I know that being dominant isn't everything, but she seems to think it is. Even though she treats me as alpha, she will often turn our wrestling games into challenges. She will go from playful, happy wrestling to a suddenly very serious dog. Her expression changes, she begins to bite hard and ignor my commands to be gentle, and I have to stop the game immediately. I didn't used to do this until the day she bit me so roughly that it tore the skin on my hand. ~Seij

I can put food in my hand and she won't bite, she will try to get at it but stop and sit when she can't get to it. If it was something like rabbit meat though (her FAVORITE thing) She might try to bite. I have never tested her for that though. I keep her on a leash when training. When I train her for food aggression I keep her tied to a post so that if she gets mad and goes for me I can get out of the way. I would LOVE to take her to a proffessional trainer, but she does not ride well in a car at all, and I do not have any extra money for a professional trainer. I am going to try feeding her a hothog from my fingers, keeping most of it concealed in my fist but letting her eat the bit that shows. I have heard that this helps, it teaches the dog to rely on the owner to provide the food even when the food is right there in front of their nose. ~Seij

"She does not get ANYTHING she wants without doing something for you first." I already do that, and she lets me touch her toys, it is the food and NEW toys that she has a problem with. She doesn't care about her old toys and never plays with them anyway. Unfortunately, the new toys are the pieces of junk that she finds in the ditch when we go for a walk. I can usually keep her away from things like that, but every once in a while we come across an old glove or something that she gets first and then it's a fight to seperate it from her. It is the same way with a lot of the food. She finds scraps of food or dead animals that are hidden in the grass. She gets them before I have time to do anything. The other day there was a hotdog by the road. It was just sitting there, uneaten, untouched. I was afraid that it might be poisoned so I took my dog and tried to tie her leash to a tree so I could get rid of the hotdog. She knew what I was doing though and she growled everytime I tried to put my hand near her collar. In the end I just looped the end of her leash around the tree. I give her food and treats frequently from my hands, and I make her sit for everything. I can safely put my hand in her food bowl because she is so engrosed in eating she doesn't even notice me. If the food is in my hand to start with there is rarely any problem either. But if the food completely leaves my hand and goes to her, or she gets the food or item before I can, then she automatically considers it hers. Again, her reactions are very dependant on how good the food or new toy is. "Second step is to teach her the "leave it" command. I don't know how hard this will be for you because of her aggression." and the fact that she is a food hog... You should see her before dinner. She drools buckets and every other thought is cast out of her mind. It is a struggle to get her to listen to commands when their is food in front of her. I will have it in my hand, I tell her sit and she does, but she comes after the food as soon as I so much as open my mouth to tell her to come. And that is when the food is in MY hand. It's a whole other story when the food is just sitting there on the ground. There is absolutely no way I could get her to listen to my commands if the food was in her sights. I have also been advised to teach her the trade method. Teach her that giving up what she has will get her something even better in return. I don't know of anything though that she might consider better than a rotten deer leg or a dirty work glove. Anyway, she doesn't like the trade method to start with. I have tried it. She had a piece of cloth that she was EATING, and I tossed her some eggs. She left the cloth for the eggs, and when I took the cloth away, she still became angry even though the eggs had been better than the cloth. She didn't care that the eggs were better, she wanted BOTH things, not just the better of the two. I am very worried that this might be a problem we won't get over. She is IMENSELY hard to train. She is very, very smart, but her attention span is almost zero. Oh, and for the first 3-4 years of her life (which she spent with the original owners, and later an animal shelter) she was never taught a thing, not even how to sit. ~Seij