Looked just like the smaller one, but with about 30lb more muscle.
Posted on 05/25/2012 8:35:56 PM PDT by mamelukesabre
I became hyper-interested in canids awhile back when I read something about coy-wolf hybrids in the northeast part of the US. I've been reading about them lately. I know there is an ongoing effort to "re-introduce" wolves into certain parts of the united states. This upsets a lot of folks and makes others giddy with excitement.
So, I am sharing my only personal wolf story I can because it is the only one I have. It isn't much since they've been extinct in these parts for a very long time.
My cousin used to tell me stories about the old-timers hanging dead wolves from the eaves of their porch when he was a small boy. This would've been in the early 60s. He and I were business partners for awhile so we used to trade stories a lot. Sometimes I would wonder about the stories he told me and try to double check them by asking his brother, sister, and dad. This wolf story was one of those that I doubted since according to official history, wolves were extinct in that part of the country way before the time period he speaks of.
So I had a discussion with his dad one time when I was out to the old farm doing some odd stuff for him.
He told me "oh gosh no, those weren't wolves...he was mistaken and wasn't old enough to know the difference." I felt like the air was let out of me because I wanted it to be true. Then he said "those were wolf-dogs...half wolf, half dog...bigger and meaner than real wolves".
So then I said to him "you know, according to the experts there were no wolves alive in this area after the 1800s?" He says "yeah, I suppose. They might be right"
Then I say "well, if they were extinct in the 1800s, how the hell you get any wolf dog hybrids around here a hundred years later?"
He says: "Ya got me there, I guess there had to have been at least one more wolf around cuz those were not dogs. They were wolfdogs...And they were a serious problem around here in the 1960s. We were all out to get them around here. I bought a mauser to shoot them with."
Then I said "your son told me he remembers the dead wolves hanging from the eaves of someone's porch around here and they were so big, they were almost touching the ground."
"Yep...that was [i forget the name]'s place. He was old and strange and would hang them by the neck from the roof of his porch and the hind legs would be pretty close to the ground...let 'em hang til they rotted to nuthin. Those wolfdogs treed me once when I was new to this area. I was out on my old ford tractor pulling a wagon and mending fence. My dog warned me and I dropped what I was doing and ran up a tree while he kept them busy as long as he could. Best dog I ever had. He was free...came with the farm...lived under the porch. I was in that tree a long time waiting for the wolfdogs to move on."
I asked around after that. I decided the story wasn't made up.
Another person from that area told me there was a highway cut through some hills and it disrupted the hunting ground of a small isolated pack of wolves. The pack scattered and was on the run. Just a small number survived and bred with feral dogs. The resulting hybrids formed a pack and terrorized the area for years. This was the theory they come up with because the wolfdogs appeared shortly after a new stretch of highway was cut through some virgin hills.
Black mouth cur? perhaps
The scary part was that there were definately at least several, and maybe more. I've always thoughy coyotes were either solitary or worked in pairs, and the fact that there were clearly a bunch of them, coupled with the howling (honestly sounded just like wolves, and I didn't think coyotes howl like that) made me think they there coy-wolves.
one part dog or 7 parts dog?
Maybe. But the head was bigger. LIke a pit bull. Maybe a cross between a pitt and a cur.
Thanks for that link!
Looked just like the smaller one, but with about 30lb more muscle.
hate that movie as well....no redeeming qualities IMO....
Small feral dogs make coyote sounds. I had another relative that had a dog problem. the whole pack was started by a husky dam and a kelpie sire. they ended up with a bunch of wild inbred dogs that ate the weaker tamer of their pack. in a few years there were dogs that lived in the ditches and the berms and the tree lines. They got smaller every generation. Ended up about 15-20 lbs and creepy little animals that scurried around in the shadows.
They made sounds exactly like a coyote. eventually he had to kill them all. Traps and poison. They became a threat to neighbors.
Found some pics of her. She loved ham.
As much as I loved my hybrid...a fence never stopped him. He could scale a 7 ft fence or dig under as deep as it took and squeeze out a hole that was only big enough for a rat terrier. He always came home..but it was pretty nerve wracking wondering if he was safe.
I had several dogs at the time. Although, typically, the alpha is a female it wasn’t true with him. He would take the “girls” over to a spot he wanted dug out and point his nose at that spot. They would dig like crazy.Lazy bum! Off he would go. One of the “girls” would usually follow. But she had been “on the streets” and would crawl back thru. She was a smart old girl...but he was pretty darn canny himself.
Your fascination is going to increase when you do see one. They are beautiful and very dangerous no matter what Farley Mowat wrote in “Never Cry Wolf.” His books are enjoyable but do not paint a full picture.
That could well be. I never question what the geezers say.
But now you say that, it seems possible because a neighbor out walking her dog at night recently said a strange little critter ran out of the treeline and across the road in front of her -- said it was a smallish, pointy, black little canine-looking critter that barked (strangely, she said) before darting off.
Still, I cherish in my heart the possibilty that I was chases by a pack of coy-wolfs.
Best “dog” I ever had was a half-wolf half-shepard. Insanely strong, protective, smart, and (yes) gentle to those she knew. And timid around non-threatening strangers.
Now to a threat like the poorly raised mean dog next door who barked mean at me? Well, she would have gone over the fence and gutted him. Why didn’t she? I said, “No,” so she bounced off of the top of the fence and the looked at my like, “Huh?”
But I could see what a monster she would have been if feral or raised wrong. Terrifying doesn’t come close...
Chihahua= wolf. It’s all clear, lol.
I always thought chihuahuas were devils..their ears were big to cover their horns.
(no offense to any chi owners! I have had a few in my life.)
Mine never did bark. Barking is vulgar behavior to wolves. She would howl if she felt mistreated (nail clippings, baths) but she loved being brushed head to toe.
She could gnaw down a full beef femur in about half an hour. Her habit was to crush the bones into little bitty splinters and lick those up, and used her toes to hold the bone like we use our fingers.
I am more likely to think romantically about a wild strain of dogs. i liked those little wild dogs that were all killed. It makes me happy to think that a couple of ordinary dogs can give rise to a pack of something wild and different if given the chance. Someday we are going to lose our economy and our civilization. If all our helpless domesticated animals(livestock included) can revert to something that is wild and self sufficient, there might be hope for another civilization some day in the future.
Me, too. I think they’re one of the most beautiful animals in the world. (Along with bobcats)
In 1972 I was driving across a railroad track in my home town in Eastern Arkansas when I spotted a very small, gray puppy on the tracks. I stopped and put him in my car and took him to my mother’s house. I had a grown Colley and she was scared to death of this little puppy. My dad came in later and said “That’s a damn wolf.” I took it to the outskirts of town and let it go. Beautiful little pup.
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