The impetus for this paper stemmed from a lawsuit in California in which this author was retained by plaintiff’s counsel as an animal behavior expert. Although published some time ago, the findings and beliefs stated in this paper have not changed. This author published a paper in a the peer-reviewed journal Veterinary Medicine entitled Wolf hybrids: Are they suitable as pets? This paper presented a short overview of the wolf hybrid’s physical and behavioral attributes. Their behavior is unpredictable because of this hybridization, and they are usually treated as wild animals by local or state statutes.” In this publication committee members note: “Wolf hybrids are just that: hybrids between wild and domestic canids. The problematic nature of wolf hybrids was noted in a widely read publication authored by a committee from the American Veterinary Medical Association. American Veterinary Medical Association, 2000, Vol. Breeds of dog involved in fatal human attacks in the United States between 1979 – 1998. As a result, attacks upon humans likely happen at disproportionately high rates, and there are documented accounts of fatal attacks by wolf hybrids on people in the United States (Sacks, J. Wolf hybrids retain many wolf-like characteristics which make their behavior unpredictable in the human setting. Accordingly, from an animal behavior perspective, one would expect that an animal with this lineage would be unpredictable when placed in the human environment, particularly in an urban setting where contact with unfamiliar people, particularly children, may occur. A wolf is not domesticated and therefore any dog mixed with wolf, known as a wolf hybrid, should not be considered “domesticated”. A wolf hybrid is defined as an animal that is the immediate or remote descendant from the mating between a domestic dog and wolf.
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