Utonagan

[Dharkwolf]

Hello Kelvin, and welcome to Wolfdog.org!

To be honest I am not quite sure what your question is, so I will clarify a few things, and maybe you can explain your concerns a little bit better.

A wolfdog is generally accepted to be an individual that belongs to a dog breed (an established dog breed, generally recognized by the FCI) that contains a certain known percentage of wolf blood.

A wolf hybrid is a cross between a dog and a wolf, (F1) or between a wolf hybrid and a dog or wolf (F2, F3 etc)

The main difference between a wolfdog and a wolf hybrid is that wolfdogs are the result of careful breeding which has resulted in lines of working dogs (all wolfdogs are working dogs) who have a stable character and therefore make good pets in the hands of the right owners (generally they do tend to be a little bit wilful and harder to handle than your average dog though). On the other hand wolf hybrids are the result of a cross between two animals of very different temperament whose behaviour cannot be predicted and which can be very difficult to handle at times. They may turn out to be great pets – then again they may not, despite all the effort that can be spent on working with them.

I should point out that this site (wolfdog.org) is entirely dedicated to a particular breed of wolfdog – the Czechoslovakian Wolfdog (CSV – initials are derived from the Czech name). The other recognized breed of wolfdog is the Saarloos wolfdog.

By those definitions, an Utonagan is not in fact a wolfdog, rather it belongs to a line of dogs which have been bred to appear as close to wolves as possible but which have been bred purely from a mix of dog breeds – odds are you know more about the origins of Utonagans than I do so I won’t go into details there.

1. Wolf dogs to us are completely loyal, trustworthy animals to their pack and family. Cannot be trusted with livestock, small pets etc and must have secure fencing etc and as long as they are brought up properly and with respect they have always given the same back.

This fits the description of a CSV quite well – with the exception that a CSV which has been raised around small animals and pets will not bother them particularly, our wolfdogs get along quite well with our cat (I admit, it is a Maine Coon so not exactly a small cat… but still) and I do know of wolfdogs which get along with other small animals such as guinea pigs without any major incidents. Naturally a wolfdog who is not used to such animals will wreck havoc and mayhem (though for him it will be just a game) if left with animals which it may consider prey (they don’t have to be small either!)

The issue of wolfdogs in the UK has been addressed several times on this forum. Currently wolfdogs are banned in the UK due to the interpretation by DEFRA of the dangerous and wild animals act – some people on this site have very strong opinions about this, as the clamp down of DEFRA on wolfdogs has been rather heavy handed.

So to answer this question:

Are any of these animals sold as other names in the Uk actually wolf hybrids and sold to unknowing families as good with small children/ cats etc.

Wolf hybrids as in a cross between wolf and dog – extremely unlikely for a number of reasons. First of all such animals are quite rare. Even dogs which are claimed to be wolf hybrids are more often than dog just simply dogs … There are currently less than 20 registered owners of wolf/wolf hybrids living in the UK and those people know what they are handling. Secondly DEFRA simply will not allow the importation of such animals. There is still a small (very small) chance that wolf hybrids may get through – but that is extremely unlikely.

3 If this does happen not only are these lovely dogs getting wrongly accused for things that shouldn't happen people and animals may be getting hurt from the incorrect advice they are getting from breeders. i.e. we have always purchased our wolf dogs knowing what they are like.

Unfortunately you don’t even need some uncontrolled wolf hybrid running around Albion for animals to get wrongly accused. DEFRA policy also stops legitimate dog breeds (ie the CSV) from entering the UK – at the time when the policy was implemented the few CSV owners in they had their animals confiscated… a rather distressing experience as you may well imagine.

I hope this answers at least some of your questions – feel free to share any other thoughts which you may have with us, worrying or otherwise!

J.