Ugh, status symbol dogs.

Nekomi is wonderful. I miss her.

I would say Bella is a mid content.

Some of the other things you can look for are small ears with a lot of hair inside the ears. Muddy looking markings- HC wolfdogs will not have really distinct markings. Black nails. Very large paws. A 'flat' profile (as in not a very defined stop). No blocky muzzles. No blue eyes in HCs.

Blue eyes can and do happen - even in pure/wild wolves. It is rare, but it happens. And when you add in Sibes and other blue-eyed breeds, it does increase the odds.

I haven't looked at the pictures yet. Kinda don't want to! Hybrids are a pet peeve of mine!

I hate that people breed these dogs.

I will be completely honest, Hobie is a verified wolfdog. I have to pay for a special permit to own him every year and follow certain guidelines with the dept. of fish and game as he is considered an exotic animal. He is a mid content wolfdog. By looking at him, you wouldn't be able to tell right off the bat. For one due to his short legs and color but if you really look, you can see it. He is registered, with Iowolfers and USAWA. I rescued him from an idiot friend of my dads. The idiot got him from another mutual friend who was his "breeder". It was a horrible situation for Hobie as he lived on a 4x4 balcony for the first 7 months of his life after being at the "breeders". Then they called asking my parents if I wanted him cause he was biting the kids over his food! (Maybe cause he was not ever regularly fed!!!) They literally dumped him at our house without realy seeing if it work out. Thankfully, we felt sorry for him and he wasn't going anywhere. He will bite someone still for taking a bone from him or food. However, I can take it from him and my dad can take it from him. It took a lot of work to get there.

I always introduce him as a mutt. Cause really that is what he is in my mind. I hate breeders breeding this mix. They can be extremely dangerous, especially the mid-high content animals. Living with a dog like this is not like raising and being with a normal dog.

These dogs are a huge pet peeve of mine cause to most they are just what the title says, Status Symbols.

You may also want to mention to your friend that rabies vaccines have not been tested in wolves, so many local AC/dog warden/state vet offices do not consider a wolfdog vaccinated in the case of a bite, even if they have been given the rabies vaccine.

I told her about the rabies thing. She didn't really respond to it. I think I hit her with a lot at once. I may have made her feel stupid, I'm not sure.

What the hell else do you do though?? I'm not one to sit back and just let things like that slide without speaking up at least. She might have been receptive, and she's stopped posting and gloating about it being however much wolf content she THINKS it is but probably isn't, but she's still clearly uneducated to a fault. I cannot believe her husband tried to tell her they were the perfect pet.

I told her, this isn't like pit bulls and other breeds that are simply misunderstood and targeted. There is a real issue here, and a real reason why that issue exists in the first place.

Why can't people just go after the breeds that were created specifically to fill this niche? I don't get it. They're there FOR THAT PURPOSE. Utilize them! FFS the breeders were looking out for YOU when they did this! To avoid crap like this from happening! UGH

May I make a suggestion? As stupid as she was to get one, don't make her feel like a complete idiot by chastising the crap out of her.

The last thing you want her to do is feel as though she CAN'T come to you for help for fear of being ridiculed or made to feel stupid. Just try not to be condescending and let her know if she has issues to come talk to you. While it is great to offer advice and tell her what you know, it's not going to help the animal if you just end up running her off.

I totally feel your frustration, but I think if you try not to shove too much down her throat and get angry with her you can end up doing mare harm than good. Because let's face it, if everything gets too overwhelming and she feels super embarrassed she may end up just going LALALALALALALA CAN'T HEAR YOU *ears plugged*

No worries, I made sure I went about it very nicely, and by her responses I could tell she wasn't getting upset, just thinking quite hard about what she'd done. She's definitely the type of person that, if I were pissing her off, she'd immediately retaliate HARD. I made sure to leave the door open for advice and she gladly accepted the offer, and I feel she may take me up on it once this puppy starts growing up.

I do make it a point to be easy and careful about those things when it comes to people I'm actually friends with (especially ones who were once my very best friends in high school!). I hope they all know they can always come to me for advice, and many have!

I definitely agree though, whenever possible, go at a person with as much grace as you can. It's harder with complete strangers of course, haha.

I think the one good thing to come out of this ignorance is that your friend now has a puppy that has no wolf (or exceptionally little if from that one gal) so she won't truly be under prepared for a wolf dog.

On the flip side, the REALLY unfortunate thing here is that if ANY THING does happen with this puppy, be it just another unruly puppy, or worst case someone is bitten and it is reported, regardless of actual content the dog will be billed as a wolf dog and it will only make matters worse.

Your friend might want to check her local municipality. I know wolf hybrids are banned in our town.

I believe she is in Virginia Beach, or possibly Chesapeake. I'm not sure of the laws there.

Do you have any sources on where blue eyes can happen in wolves? I do not believe they do. Sometimes green eyes are light enough and mistaken as blue, but wolves do not carry the gene for blue eyes. Blue eyes can happen in low contents to my understanding, but not high content or wolf. Blue eyes are recessive and must be carried by both parents, so even if you cross a Sibe with the gene with a wolf a wolf would not carry the gene so it could not be passed on.

The "true blues" are more some weird new(er) genetic issue. But essentially, they are puppy-blues...but they never grow out of them. They are genetically brown/gold, but are physically still blue. They simply never change.

All the lighter blues, absolutely, as you said, off-color greens. But not everyone gets close enough to look and see, so from a distance or under the right lights, it can look blue. I wasn't trying to be technical, just general. Ruedi at Wolf Park is an example of that. But both his parents were pure wolves, with very obvious yellow/brown eyes. But his...well, sometimes they look blue, sometimes silver, and sometimes a very, very light greenish. But if anyone who didn't know took a quick look, they are "blue".

Out of a general interest can I ask what is it about wolf dogs that make them so potentially dangerous as pets and different from dogs. I have met two in my life and both were very shy when I was interacting with their owners. But I've never had a lot of exposure, I have just always heard they were a bad idea and should not be bred.

Interesting! I'm not terribly far from wolf park and my boyfriend and I were talking about going to one of their programs this summer.

I personally do not have an issue with wolf dogs- in the hands of those responsible enough to contain them- but I know they are a touchy subject for most and whether or not it is ethical to breed a wild animal with a domestic animal and keep them. My friend (and the owner of the mother of my boy Shambles) works in wolf dog rescue and is what I would consider an extremely responsible owner. I wish she posted here.

First: I am NOT an ARista!

Second: I do have issues with people attempting to turn wild animals into pets, wolves included. It's taking an undomesticated animal and removing it from the environement from which it was bred to live in and enjoy, and shoving it in a fenced-in backyard and forcing it to comply with various humans wanting to gawk and pet it all for the sake of "cooooool!".

Third: Heaven forbid some wolf, or tiger, attacks a human responsible for caring for it. It then gets to be killed and people wonder why on earth such a beloved animal would do such a horrible thing to it's human cuddle partner.


I've met a single wolf hybrid (wolf-dog...whatever PC name they have). It was brought in by someone and dumped at the clinic. The dog was tall, lean, shaggy, long muzzle, and in looks, resembled a wolf more than a dog. It did not look like some thick, blocky Siberian Husky or Malamute (they types we see in this part of the region). The "dog" had these yellowish/goldish/flecked eyes. It was wary and did everything it could to slink into the wall (it tried to get the wall to absorb it). Thankfully, this was a young one. One of the vets took it home with her as she lives in a wooded area and has a large (6 acres) fenced-in backyard with an 8-ft chain-link fence with hotwire at the top. When I went to her place to visit Mowgli, he stayed at the vet back of the property near his man-made den. He was nice-enough, and by that I man he wasn't some foaming-at-the-mouth aggressive animal. He would watch you put his food out, and then wait for you to get back up to the house before getting his food and taking it to his "den". He got along wonderfully well with her Alaskan Husky, and the two ended up being quite the soulmates (spayed female). Mowgli did get to where he would approach you every no and then, and would allow you to pet him, but the encounters were brief, although he was relaxed during them. But I would never ever say he was some social butterfuly that wanted to cuddle you on the couch....or cuddle you in general. He passed away not long ago, but at least he was given the chance to live his life without being forced to conform to the pressures that some humans place on these animals (to be wonderful fluffy pets).