By Dr. Michael W. Fox
The evident suffering of captured wild animals, which is well documented over the past 10-14,000 years, is a manifest reality of animal domestication. Wild stock must be captured, confined, and suffer the stresses of captivity to which they are neither adapted physically nor emotionally. Subsequent generations are selected for their ability to adapt to the conditions and demands of domesticity. Those that cannot adapt must be killed. But if, like a wolf, they mature relatively slowly, they must be kept for many months before one can tell if indeed they will adapt and settle down. Increasing instability may develop with increasing age in young, captive-raised wolves, especially around five months of age and again around sexual maturity around one to two years of age. During this developmental and adaptation phase, the animal suffers from being deprived of freedom and space to be active and explore, from fear of strangers and unfamiliar things, and from having basic instincts confused and conflicted, denied, and frustrated. This is a form of suffering that can be avoided by not trying to turn a wild wolf into a pet or companion animal.

The same is true for wolf-dog hybrids, especially with the first and second generation hybrids. More dog "diluted" wolf hybrids are generally more adaptable, but only a percentage of earlier generation hybrids are stable and adaptable. The rest do suffer, as my research on wolf x dog and coyote x dog hybrids has shown. Many finish up having to be euthanized. Is their suffering worth it so that a few people can enjoy owning a wolf-dog hybrid? Some may claim that this is their "right," but is the right of ownership greater than the right of animals -- the unstable predecessors and littermates of your stable and adaptable hybrid --to non-suffering? I think not. Those who keep and propagate wolf-dog hybrids may well reflect upon this. The scientific evidence for suffering they cannot deny, nor should they skirt the ethical issue claiming that it is their right to own and create such hybrids. Nor can they rationalize and avoid the issue of unnecessary suffering by claiming that they are "improving" various dog breeds. There are enough genes in "dogdom" to improve every breed without having to introduce wolf genes again. Neither can they abdicate ethical responsibility by focusing on their own particular hybrid animal and rationalizing that it’s okay since some are stable and make good pets. Who is responsible for the misfits that must be destroyed or kept in a cage or otherwise protected from terrifying strangers? Who but the owners and propagators of wolf-dog hybrids. They may, and surely must, love their animals, but I contend that their love is blind and immature, lacking responsible compassion and awareness of the ethical ramifications of their self-indulgence. Of course, many breed these animals just to make money.

While some breeders of hybrids may carefully place their creations with good owners, can we always guarantee that such sensitive and unstable or potentially unstable, psychically delicate creatures do not fall into brutal hands, the kind of person who wants a savage wolf in his dog? You may avoid this yourself, but other mercenaries will commercialize on their hybrid creations and mass-market wolf-dogs and sell them to anyone. Suffering may then be compounded when potentially stable hybrids are sold to unstable people who are drawn to the negative wolf mythos of wolves being fierce and aggressive, and who have neither the sensitivity nor knowledge to handle such an animal.

The prevention and alleviation of animal suffering is one step in the direction toward a more compassionate society, and clearly the propagation of wolf-dog hybrids is one of many unnecessary self-indulgent activities, which a more mature and enlightened humanity would not engage in. Surely we can enjoy and enjoin with other life forms on Earth without having to create them for ourselves. To fight to conserve the wolf and its wilderness habitat, for example, is better than enslaving its genes to create some hybrid pet. The latter has no right to be born, for that which does not exist cannot have rights. But we have the responsibility to assure that hybrids will not be born since there can be no guarantee that they will not suffer after they are born: and their right to a life of non-suffering can never be guaranteed, and is surely greater than someone’s claim to breed, sell and own such an animal. So let sleeping dogs lie and wolves have sanctuary in the wild. We can respect and love both without adding to the problems of the biosphere and the burden of suffering and of human responsibility by interbreeding the wolf and dog.

Perhaps, deep in our psyches, we are both wolf and dog ourselves, still wild and yet  partially civilized. Or do we long for a sense of the wild and of the wilderness in our urban lives? Do we then vicariously satisfy this need by shooting a wild "trophy" animal, or keeping one captive, or incorporating a part of the animal’s wild essence into a domestic dog? Or is possession simply for social status and self-aggrandizement by having something unusual?

Let us examine, therefore, not only the ethics of owning and breeding wolf-dog hybrids, but the underlying motives also. Some may feel close to God, as creators of such unique animals. But a closer look into the mirror will reveal that many of these attractive hybrids are unstable misfits. If we are to be the trustees of all that is wild and become the humane stewards of our fellow creatures, we must see that everything already has its place and understand that we create further chaos and suffering when we change the natural order for selfish ends.

  Wolf Hybrid Study: Summary Statement
Between 1967 and 1974, while I taught at Washington University, St. Louis, I studied the behavior and development of many species of wild canids, including certain hybrids (coyote x beagle and wolf x malamute). Many of the canids I studied had the same rearing history, having been hand-raised, and all had much human contact and handling to ensure optimal socialization, i.e., as part of the research design, social and environmental influences were kept as constant as possible so that the genetic differences in behavior and development that we were interested in would not be masked or confounded by such variables.

The wolf stock was principally from (Canadian) McKenzie River Wolf Subspecies bred in captivity, and the domestic dog breed used in these studies was Alaskan malamute. Two hybrid litters were provided by Dr. John Schmidt (Snowmass, Colorado), which were first generation (F1) hybrids. From one of these we bred F1X malamutes (backcross). We also studied three hand-raised wolf litters, one litter of purebred malamutes and bred one litter of F1 wolf x malamutes. These data were not published because we did not breed an F2hybrid generation which would have provided insights into Mendelian patterns of segregation. (This was accomplished in coyote and dog hybridization research, hence, the latter was published in a scientific journal.) However, our wolf x dog hybrid studies did reveal a consistent pattern in temperament development. The "wild" traits of the wolf were evident in those hybrids having the most wolf genes and were least evident in the more "diluted" hybrids, i.e., F1 hybrid x malamute. However, within litter rather than between litter comparisons showed that even in the more wolf-dilute hybrids, later instabilities in temperament emerged in some individuals. While there is little doubt that with selective breeding, stable hybrids may be produced, my concern is over the fact that hybrid animals with behavior problems can result from breeding wolf and dog and will occur unpredictably in subsequent hybrid offspring particularly in those that are not neutered.

While to eliminate such problems may be a laudable goal of wolf x dog hybrid breeders, and while admittedly there are magnificent and temperamentally stable hybrids alive today, my concern over the unstable hybrids remains. I have encountered some that are more unstable than any timid hand-raised wolf even. Hybridization may therefore intensify emotional/behavioral problems in some wolf x dog combinations. This possibility gains indirect support from our coyote x dog studies where, in the F2 (second generation) hybrid generation, some individuals were indeed in this tragic category.

To get a wolf, crossbreed the wolf with a dog, and then expect the offspring to make "pets" and adapt to the domestic environment is something that should be outlawed. I wish every municipal authority would crack down on all breeders and traders, but not confiscate wild and hybrid pets, unless their living environments cause otherwise avoidable stress and suffering. All should be neutered to put an end to all breeding. Surely every living soul has a right to live and be well in conditions that are best for spirit, mind and body. This does not mean captivity for wild souls unless conditions are comparable to the natural state.

We do not have the knowledge yet to create homologous habitats identical to the real. The best we can ever hope for are successively higher fidelity analogs. But such efforts should not weaken our commitment to the conservation, protection and restoration of wild animals’ natural habitat. An apartment, house, cage, or backyard is such a low fidelity environment for a wild animal that many states do not permit them to be kept and propagated under such conditions, except on fox, mink, and other fur farms or ranches that are an abomination to any normal human sensibility.

Part Wild: A Book About Wolf-Dog Hybrids
Many books I receive from publishers I do not review because they add nothing new for the benefit of animals, or are simply warm and fuzzy sweet nothings. ‘Part Wild: One Woman’s Journey with a Creature Caught Between the Worlds of Wolves and Dogs’ Scribner, NY $25.00) is author Ceiridwen Terrill’s deeply moving and disturbing saga of her dedicated and valiant attempts to share her life with a purpose-bred wolf-dog hybrid pup. Interwoven with well researched information about wolves and domestication, with visits to several breeding facilities and sanctuaries for abandoned hybrids, this book should be read by all who might contemplate purchasing one of these poor misfits of which there are some 300,000 in the U.S.. Their conflicted natures almost invariable lead to a tragic end, and yet the moments of pure wildness shared that united the spirits of the author and her wolfdog Inyo will touch the soul of every reader who feels her pain of a loss deeper than the one life she briefly shared with this beautiful creature.

For insights into wolf behavior, communication and development, see my book The Soul of the Wolf, now available as an e-book on Amazon.com and with Dogwise Publishing.