Not ignoring Promethean, setting aside for when I am feeling better ! I think I have already explained I am under the weather. Just started a course of anti biotics today, so I have a whole weekend of exciting reading to do ahead of me !

I most certainly do not have a romantic notion of wolf behaviour, I have seen too much to do so. What I do believe though is that the wolf is the noble ancestor of our beloved domestic dogs and for that reason alone does not deserve the villification, persecution and downright hatred that comes his way ... particularly in your country, it has to be said. Doubtless if we still had wild wolves in the UK we would be just as bad, if not worse, so I am not being racist here, just stating fact.

Yes I absolutely would, but I am trying to keep the thread nice and light by being "jokey" ! I do not want to see this fascinating thread going the same way that most controversial threads do on Dogsey, so I am really trying to not be too highbrow ... not that there's much danger of that, because I am no academic !

And to answer your second question, with certain limitations, yup, that is precisely what I am saying. Our genes are everything. Our upbringing, type of education, the way we speak, all this is icing on the cake. Scientists have now apparently isolated the "God" gene, for instance. There are some people who have this God gene, and they are predisposed to believe in a God.

Man and dog is of course shaped by the world around him, but not in a genetic sense, this again is "the icing on the cake". This is what I believe, what I mean when I say nature not nurture.

[ducks whilst torn apart from all you clever clogs !! ]

Apparently so. there are breeders of pure wolves in the States who will take the cubs off the mother before 3 weeks. This is because inbuilt in the wolf's genes apparently is a mechanism that kicks in for them to accept as "friend" what they see, in other words, most likely this will be Mother Wolf and Father Wolf. So, the theory goes that you must take your cub before the eyes have fully opened, else the "Fear Gene" for want of a better word will have kicked in and you will never ever get over this. Your wolf will for ever be frightened of humans other than those in his own human pack. The Eskimos believed this, and would frequently take one wolf cub from a den, leaving at least one or two (if there was only one wolf cub in the litter, then they would leave it) behind, at around the age of 2 weeks. They knew that if they did not do this, the wolf cub would for ever be fearful of all humans apart from, possibly, his own immediate human pack.

I personally have had experience of this, and have friends in the States with high % wolfdogs and in one case, a man with a pure wolf bitch who bear this out.

They have been persecuted by man for tens if not hundreds of thousands of years, and have fear of humans built into whatever it is built into ... their genes? Man is the ONLY predator that the wolf needs to really fear.

I do not want to get into an argument about the morality of taking a wild animal from the wild, I am merely stating the facts. The Anglian Wolf Trust will confirm this.

A hybrid normally, but not always, implies that the resultant offspring will be infertile. This is absolutely not the case with a wolf/dog mating. For this reason alone it is just not accurate to describe a wolfcross as a wolf hybrid.

If I mated with a pygmy or a Kalahari Bushman, if anyone described the resultant baby as being a hybrid, I would knock his or her block off ! The baby would be the result of a mixed race mating. It is totally ridiculous to describe it as a "hybrid".

Good point about the downsize in numbers Wolfdog. I am still not convinced that the siblings in a pack would allow their dam and sire to mate with them, but I do remember reading somewhere that inbreeding at this level WILL occur during dire straits, such as a dramatic reduction in numbers.

Thanks LS, more links to read ! I am especially interested in David Mech because he performed such a massive vote face, that I am wondering how anything he says can be trusted. However, I will withold my judgement until I have read up on him. Certainly I remember 15 years ago, when we were doing our researches prior to getting Hal, David Mech held very different views from he seems to do now, which makes me suspicious of his motives.

Apparently wolves will ONLY inbreed in very exceptional circumstances. The inhibition to do so apparently lies with the siblings, rather than the dam and sire.

That's interesting to know, thanks,

My girl was a rescue/rehome therefore a big no-no to breed from, she was also a crossbreed [ Lab x Poodle ], therefore also a big no no to breed from, either reason alone being enough to not have bred from her, my ethics and morals would never allow me to do such a thing regardless of how incredible she was for temperament etc, if I were given a top class quality pedigree purebred as a rehome I would still never breed from him or her, rescue/rehome = neuter as far as I`m concerned

[ apologies for being off topic ]

No, that's fine Patch, I didn't know this. I was really worried that I had been tactless to the extreme and the bitch concerned was no more or some such awful scenario !

I don't share your views about breeding from crossbreeds, but I admire you for having those views and for sticking to them, regardless of other issues.