| 'Tro continued to be my fastest learner...by 4 months of age, he was trustworthy in the house--by that I mean that he was housebroken, and that he wouldn't eat the furniture or get into all sorts of other trouble. <g> He was actually the easiest dog I've ever raised or lived with, including some purebred shepherds and huskies in the past. But, I was learning even more from him, than he was from me and his canine pals. There were many times we found ourselves wondering how this could possibly be a WOLFdog--and an F1 (first generation cross, where one parent is a pure wolf) to boot! All the things you hear about F1's didn't seem to fit him--F1's always look very wolflike (although Lutro has a very wolfish build, head, and eyes, his amber shepherd-sable colouring gives the outward impression of being an off-standard GSD!), F1's don't make good pets (perhaps not high percentage F1's--but at 50%, this guy was as much a "pet" as any domestic I'd owned), F1's are still very wild, F1's will follow the wolf's breeding cycle (I don't know about his fertility, but this guy has a full sized "package" in August...). If I hadn't met his relatives on the wolf's side, and had enough background with legitimate wolves and phenotyping to be sure of what I was looking at, I might have even started doubting his heritage--this was too easy! LOL I found myself being amazed at how quickly one can "lose" the more difficult attributes of a wolf when backcrossed into the right dog, and it gave even more credence to Gordon K. Smith's claim that a number of his "Wolf-A-Dog hybrids" were slipped into German Shepherd lines, by simply exchanging their papers with those of a purebred, registered GSD. I was beginning to see firsthand, the value of putting the Wolf back into the "Alsatian Wolfdog" (GSD). At the 25% F2 level, using quality shepherd, surely you would be left with essentially a brilliant, healthy, personable domestic DOG that anyone with good, solid dog sense could own and enjoy! |
