Dogs and Wolves

Many dogs or wolf hybrids look very much alike, and often only a genetic test can bring clarity.   In his book “The Dog” the behavioral scientist Erik Zimen details his years of comparative observations on wolves, as well as their hybrids and the offspring from the mating..

Even the practice of dog breeding has seen repeated attempts to improve breeds through crossbreeding with wolves, , the Czechoslovakian Wolfdog, and in Italy with the Lupo Italiano.  The expectations were not fulfilled in all these experiments.

Previously it was assumed that the behavioral differences between wolves and dogs are too big for mixed pairings. An additional constraint arises from the fertility cycles: Wolf variant and wolves are only fertile once a year. This differs notably from the males of the domestic dog.   They took and assume that mixing occurs only where there are few wolves, but there are many domestic dogs.

There have, however, in the Abruzzi region of Italy and the USSR demonstrated mixed wolves with domestic dogs, as confirmed also by Erik Zimen.  According to Dmitri Ivanovich Bibikow they occurred in the territory of the USSR hybrids sometimes very frequently, and even in populations that were not cleared up.

Similarly, it is assumed in the Arabian subspecies of the gray wolf (Canis lups arabs) that mixing with feral domestic dogs, wolves have brown eyes.  Whether this mixing has a positive or negative effect, has not yet been studied, but is often assumed by a negative effect (in spite of questionable criteria, and generally a lack of data).