Someone on here taught me to teach Wody how to do it and it's been invaluable ever since. He loves it when we say ''Woody, go find Wilson'' as he knows that means he gets a game of ball fetch. ''Find Goose'' means he gets tuggy games and ''find the doughnut'' is an invitation to play Woody Roundabout with Daddy ;o)

Well, it was my interpretation of a thread on here once but I may have mis-understood.

Ooops

I defo remember someone saying that the first lot bred went into domestic homes and all had to be muzzled. But I'm not sure what that first lot was.

As well as the foxes, I felt desperately sad for the wolves that they tried to bring up as dogs. It was never going to work anyway and I just hope that when the wolves were placed back amongst the other wolves, that they settled in quickly and that there was no trauma. The poor little fella barring his teeth against the other wolves as they put him back with them really got to me.

Good point. I forgot about that, it was quite sad to see.

I think experiments like 'some' of these are necessary to learn and research the behaviour of animals, but I wonder how many think through the long terms goals, effects and main achievements of them.

Its just as likely that the wolves being 'put back' would be attacked or even killed as they would smell wrong. People who work with wolves know that it is often impossible to re-introduce animals after they have received medical treatment etc and the animals have to be permanently separated.

Bringing wolves up as dogs has been tried scientifically for decades with the same result. This appears to be just another TV stunt.

Oh, am interested in someone telling me exactly what Shaun Ellis' experiment was about, if I've got it completely wrong.

Shauns experiment was to live with wolves and see what he could learn about them from within the pack.

He does not breed dogs or wolfdogs. There was talk of him developing a working dog (by crossing with a wolf) which came from a third party but this did not happen.

However there are other individuals in the UK who have bred and sold f1 crosses into homes with unfortunate results.

Personally I think that trashing a 50 year experiment due to admittedly bad cage conditions of the foxes would be terrible.

While everyone is going on about the conditions of these foxes I would imagine that the conditions in the fur farms (and indeed in many farms in the UK) would not be what we would want.

I think it may be the very fact that these tame - well actually domesticated foxes look and act very like our dogs that means that we are according them pet status rather than livestock status.

Anyway I think that better animal husbandry would be the way forward rather than trashing 50 years of groundbreaking experiments.

Well, ipso facto then neither dog nor wolf had any discipline whatsoever. I clearly saw a fully grown wolf jumping up on the table and grabbing food. The human present did absolutely nothing to stop it. This is appalling enough for a dog, but to allow a wolf this much "control and domination" over the humans is total madness. So although they were coming from a level playing field, the seriousness of the total lack of discipline is more acute in the wolf than it is in the dog.

Well, I don't want to be harsh, but wasn't it a tad unreasonable of you to post it like it was fact ... on such a serious subject?? I am trying not to be too critical here, because I am sure I am as guilty as the rest of reading something on t'internet and quoting it as fact.

In the case of Shaun Ellis though, it is a bit off Pidge. However, you have been so graceful, I am sure even Shaun would forgive you !!

I would imagine - after watching the possesive way that the same wolf as a younger cub was guarding the food - experience had taught her that interfering with this behaviour would end in pain!
I also noticed that they just focused on the one woman, but didn;t seem to mention the others.....I dread to think what happened with them....