Misrepresentation of Wolfdogs.

[Rona]

Originally Posted by Ori

In Poland people are not afraid so much of name "wolfdog", of course SOME PEOPLE ARE afraid of any big dogs, but here people have much respect for wolfs and we (CsV owners) can only be proud of our dogs!

Ori, I think we don’t have problems with the acceptance of the breed in Poland or with the term “wolfdog” also due to the Polish language semantics. The root of the word WILK (pron. vilk), which means a wolf, is present in WILCZUR (pron. ‘vil-tchoor) – an Alsatian , i.e. popular name for GSD. That’s why nobody reacts hysterically to CWD - CZ. WILCZAK (pron. ‘vil-tchak) which sounds even milder and less threatening than ‘wilczur’…. If GSDs have popularly been called WOLSATIANS in Eng. instead of Alsatians for over a hundred years or so, the acceptance of the CWD breed would probably be now much easier in the UK....

[mau]

Yes, mr. Liverani make money fooling people, I too sent him an email (a couple of month ago) asking why he is selling CZW photos as wolf photos, but got no answer.
May be that one way to change his mind is to contact some international sites like Monty Sloan's and other ("//members.aol.com/wolfpark/") asking them to publish a note on this fraud. Another one (may be) is to contact "Passo del lupo" (www.passodellupo.com) making Fabio aware that in this way he is doing a damage to the breed. Btw Fabio is one of the counsellor of italian czw club and may be he is sensitive to this problem.

ciao

[massimo]

First of all I too agree that this Liverani should change his way of working.
Let me understand something though.
A man comes to your kennel and asks you if he can take photos in order to make a calendar.
He pays you some money for the photos.
He calls the calendar WOLVES.
Should you be blamed for this?
I do not think so.
Some friends of mine used a wonderful CZW in a film, he was interpreting a wolf.
I don't know if in the end titles it will be written : the wolf is not a real wolf, it is a CZW. But if the titles do not show this, are my friends to be blamed?
I do not think so.
A girl met me on the street and asked me if she could make some photos of my dogs. She said she was making a "pictural fable" and needed a photo of a wolf for little red riding hood.
She changed the fable becase she chosed this photo:
http://www.wolfdog.org/ita/gallery/pic19757.html
and put two wolves instead of one.
I saw the "pictoral fable" and she didn't mention that the wolves are really CZW.
Is it my fault?
I do not think so.
The CORRECT behaviour would be to specify WOLF is not = to WOLFDOG.
But if the producer of calendar or films do not do it, the owner of the wolfdog is not to be blamed (I think).

Originally Posted by Ori

Hi
so it is simply making people fools!
But in my opinion the problem is not a photograph - lier but a problem is in kennel Passo del Lupo and its owner! His dogs, his photos, his fault!

In Poland people are not afraid so much of name "wolfdog", of course SOME PEOPLE ARE afraid of any big dogs, but here people have much respect for wolfs and we (CsV owners) can only be proud of our dogs!
bye
Ela

[Mirkawolf]

Originally Posted by massimo

Let me understand something though.
A man comes to your kennel and asks you if he can take photos in order to make a calendar.
He pays you some money for the photos.
He calls the calendar WOLVES.
Should you be blamed for this?
I do not think so.

Hmm. If a man comes to my kennel and asks me to take photos of my dogs in order to make a calendar, then of course I want to have a written contract about such a thing. Or at least I ask questions first.
And if I am not totally stupid, I do ask what kind of calendar it is. And if the guy tells me he calls the calendar WOLVES, or that he intends to make calendar of WOLVES, then I explain him straight the dogs in my kennel are no wolves.
And if he is not gonna call the calendar Czechoslovakian wolfdogs, then he won´t take a single picture in my kennel. No matter how much money he offers.

So to me it seems, that it is very hopeless to write to kennel Passo del Lupo, because the breeder of course knows, where the pics of his dogs go and what Liverani is doing with them. He would have to be big fool not to know! But of course, he gets income from that, so why he would not do that, some people are more after money than others..

I think, Passo del Lupo is to be blamed to cooperate with Liverani on making fake calendars of "WOLVES". But of course, it is first of all Mr. Liverani who misrepresents our breed.

Mirka

[massimo]

I respect your opinion Mirka,
I see the case the same as the other examples I quoted, not so different.
Maybe Passo del Lupo has many faults to be blamed of, but this one is, in my opinon, marginal compared to the fault of Liverani himself.
If he came to me, I would oblige him to write on the calendar that they are not real wolves but wolfdogs.
This Liverani was contacted years ago from one of the people of our italian forum.
He said it was not a documentary calendar but an "artistic" calendar so it was not so important if the wolves were real or not.
He knows very well they are not real wolves, but as it's easier to take photos of woldogs in a kennel than wolves in wildlife....he took the shortest way!
Massimo

Originally Posted by Mirkawolf1

I think, Passo del Lupo is to be blamed to cooperate with Liverani on making fake calendars of "WOLVES". But of course, it is first of all Mr. Liverani who misrepresents our breed.

Mirka

[mau]

Well, Mr. Liverani has his own site (www.fabioliverani.com) and in the site there is a presentation of his activities and his customers:

Al presente collabora o ha collaborato con diverse case editrici e testate italiane ed estere quali: Oasis, Airone, Hydra ...... Universo,
Aqva, Ocean Realm, b.b.c.Wildlife, Mondo Sommerso, Porthos.
Alcune delle sue immagini vengono gestite dall'agenzia inglese Natural Picture Library, con la quale ha pubblicato su diverse testate e
libri in Inghilterra, Germania, Stati Uniti, e da quella italiana Grazia Neri, Colbel, con le quali ha pubblicato alcune immagini sulle principali testate italiane fra cui: Specchio, Cosmopolitan, Arca, Focus, Vitality, Corriere della sera, Libero, Venerdì di Repubblica.

Some of this customers are abroad, as the english Natural Picture Library, others are in Italy.
He says too that he teams with Sandro Bassi (he put the photos and Bassi put the text) which works in Emilia Romagna's Forest Service.
Sandro too has a mail address.I've found this informations only using internet, I don't know personally none of them.
If it is so important to make him stop this we can write email to his customers (sending him a carbon copy to make him aware that we don't like his fraud) denouncing his non-deontological behaviour (not to say fraudolent).
I first don't like his behaviour, but the real problem is how much damage is he really doing to the breed.
In Italy I don't think so much and I don't know how much he sells abroad, so may be that we make much noise for nothing.

Ciao