Um, I’m guessing that dogs are at least a serious hobby for you? Wow.
Any comments re: the wolfdogs mentioned up thread? Have an acquaintance who raises them, or rather one family of them through 3 generations. Actually have met - and played with - a few. To the point they know/knew me, know I don’t put up with jumping on me, doggy kisses, or mouth play, so don’t, but will play chase (me chasing) and tug. The tug can get pretty intense because they’re so strong.
No problems, 10 years in. But all WELL trained with good masters.
So, are they looking at time bombs here?
Yeah, I’m into dogs a lot...due to no kids in the area to play with and disconnected parents, I was pretty much raised by dogs and horses.
[my human social skills suck but with critters, I’m perfectly comfy]...:)
My good friend in CA had a permit for full blood wolves.
Never had a bit of trouble with them but then she’s as into dogs as I am.
Her kids played with them to the point that her bitch kept trying to keep her son in the litter den in her back yard.
He’d climb up the dirt mound and the wolf would patiently go up, grab him by the shirt collar and drag him back into the den.
He’d scream “Mom! She’s trying to make me nurse!”
The neighbors kept seeing/hearing all this and called social services on her.
The SS people came and she just had them sit inside and watch it all through the back window.
They went away amazed and deeply impacted by the gentleness and care shown to the tot by the wolf.
*If* a person knows canine body language and habits *very* well, there ~likely~ will be no problems.
Few are willing to commit to all the study that entails, unfortunately.
Some people up the pike had wolves and wolf-hybrids in their back yard in a small fenced area.
They couldn’t really interact with them and basically just fed them and “showed them off”.
One elderly bitch had a huge tumor on her side but they couldn’t even take her to a vet to have it checked.
[I don’t want to know what eventually happened to her]
IMO, they were some of the most miserable critters I’ve ever seen.
Wrong environment.
Wrong understanding.
Wrong treatment.
Wrong reason for having them.
All just...wrong.
Also had a biker friend who got a hybrid because she thought it would be “cool”.
I told her not to.
[she was utterly incapable of dealing with a wolf, I -knew-]
About a month later, it ate the neighbor’s little dog.
She “got rid of it” and I didn’t ask “how”.
[didn’t want to know that, either]
Your friends sound like they truly know their animals.
For years, I ran a one-person Dobe rescue.
Never met one I couldn’t turn into a great family dog, regardless of what horrors they’d endured, previously.
[kept a lot of them for myself, too]...LOL