Googling seems to indicate that coyotes are less pack-controlled than wolves, but still do have packs. Since their diet includes a lot of small prey (mice, rabbits, etc.) they do a lot of solitary hunting. But when bigger prey is the target, they cooperate.
Rhodesian Ridgeback.
I also wonder if a true hunting Greyhound would fare. These dogs are fairly large, but when you combine this with a high impact speed, the force is easily enough to bowl any other dog over without exposing the Greyhound to much risk of damage.
I have seen a lurcher take on and absolutely batter a very oversize Doberman.
The Doberman was used for show breeding but was too big itself for show purposes, it also had a fairly mean temerament hence the name of Bodie(a ruffty tuffty character in a UK cop series during the 70s)
The Lurcher was just having fun, but it still battered the Doberman into helplessness, I would imagine a good Greyhound could just batter a wolf into submission, without even laying a tooth on it.
I have to bring up again a film I saw once that profoundly shook my image of wolves. It was on PBS, or some Nature channel, and it showed a pack of wolves attacking a moose. It was so utterly unlike what I would have pictured.
The moose was standing hoof-deep in a stream. The wolves were on a slightly raised bank nearby. But they weren’t a snarling pack of shining-eyed hellhounds tearing for the moose’s vitals or jugular. They were all kind of huddled together on the bank, looking wet and cold and very unintereseted in the moose. They looked like a bunch of dogs that had been collected from the backyards of some suburban neighborhood and told that, if they succeeded in bringing down this one moose, they could all go back to their warm doghouses.
Compared to them, the moose was BIG, witgh potentially lethal hooves. None of the wolves, clearly, wanted to get close. Maybe if they’d attacked as a pack they’d have a better chance, but they didn’t want to do that. Every now and then, one wolf close to the edge of the rise, jostled by the others, would get pushed down the slope and into the river. At this point he’d dash for the moose’s hind feet. The moose would object loudly, and move toward the wolf. If the wolf was lucky, he’d get in a nip, but then he’d run back up the slope and get at the end of the line, and start jostling some other poor wold toward the moose. This went on for a long time, and the moose didn’t seem to be getting at all tired. If he’d gotten into the stream it seemed as if he could just swim away from these annoying creatures.
Nevertheless, the narrator claimed that they brought the moosde down. How, I don’t know. Hamstrung him, maybe, eventually. It looked more likely that thwey’d annoy him to death.
But I’d put most of the dogs I know against that pack of wolves anyday. I know it’s not right to compare well-fed canines against ill-fed wild creatures, but , if nobody could retreat, my money’d be on the dogs.
In almost any wild encounter (discounting animals with venom), most fights are won by mass alone. Doesn’t matter how many animals on each side–whichever side outmasses the other will win.
So I’m going to guess that, if you get a dog that’s as big as/bigger than the wolf it’s facing (hence breeding those horse-sized wolfhounds), the dog will win.
The specific data I saw was on lions vs. hyenas; I’ll see if I can find a cite.
I think it is true that predators are cautious at all times. If a serious injury happens during a chase it’s usually fatal because it interferes with future hunting ability. The predators who survive are those bold enough the succeed often enough to survive but not so bold as to expose themselves to unnecessary risk.
Do you think animals are councious enough to realize “I could get hurt doing this?”
Little dogs will take on much larger dogs in a territorial dispute, or defending their young. They are smart enough not to jump off a cliff, but I wonder if they can comprehend the consequences of being injured.
They don’t have to consciously think anything. If their genetic makeup leads them to rash actions their genes don’t get passed on so often.
That would be some pretty obvious natural selection come to think of it, yes it would. 
And I think this would work to a dog’s “advantage” as well. Yes, packs of wolves routinely kill dogs, but that’s because they work as a team.
If we’re looking at one on one fighting, lots of dogs have had the caution bred out of them. If a wolf thinks it will lose a fight it will run away. A pit bull doesn’t think about whether it will win or lose, it attacks. There are lots of dogs that have no sense of fear. In a one-on-one fight the wolf will probably be thinking “How the hell can I get out of this without getting wounded?”, while a dog bred for fighting is thinking “Kill INTRUDER!”
there was a show on lions (no I dont remember the exact one, probably discovery channel) mostly about female lions in one pride.
one of the lions took a hit to the jaw (I think it was her jaw, might have been a leg) and took some time to heal and then in later hunts you can See her shy away from another blow. that cat definitly learned her lesson. it took her a few hunts to get back her confidence and was pretty cool to see.
I think you make a good point here.
The flip side of this is that the wolf (along with all his ancestors) has been in fights innumerable. So if and when battle is forced on him, he’s likely to give quite a good account of himself.
Keep in mind that dog breeds are not taxonomical entities: they’re culturally-defined divisions. Saying that Pit Bulls are not a real breed is a little like saying that lambics are not real beers: it’s a semantic argument with no basis in anything beyond semantics.
As far as that goes, wolves and dogs are the same species; I would guess that plenty of wolfdogs would be able to take on purebred wolves.
Daniel
I have a muttley who looks to be part Rhodesian Ridgeback, part retriever and a smidge of German Shepherd. She’s actually a medium-sized doggie, but smart as a whip and the fastest dog I’ve ever seen. Last winter she took on my brother’s Bernese Mountain dog (150 lbs) and whipped his bullying butt through strategy and quickness.
I think she would round up the wolves, tell them how it was gonna be, and spank any dissenters. OTOH, my black labs would give Mr. Wolf their wallets and plead for their doggy lives.
And I think you haven’t seen many wolves in action.
To be fair, nor have I. But I have a friend in Montana who has spent a career observing wildlife, including wolves, bear, moose, mountain lions, bison, etc. He has some great stories to tell about wolves. He has seen and heard of more than a few cases where wolves killed dogs. And not one where a dog killed a wolf.
Xema: It was a joke, a joke Wolves also don’t carry wallets.
I do need to say that I have, indeed seen wolves in action. I grew up outside of Yellowstone and my brother is a wolf biologist.
I’m sorry I didn’t get back any sooner.
I didn’t find your cites very convincing. I admit to glancing through them, lloking for info on the subject, but the overall impression was that these were sites trying totell people how great wolves are (I agree), and claiming that they are very bright. If the burden of evidence for their intelligence is that they hunt in packs, plan ahead and can solve problems, then there is little or no difference as compared to dogs.
Another thing - what is “intelligence” in an animal? Is it when we reognize something in an animal that resembles human intelligence (whatever that is)? In that case, dogs are surely more inteligent than wolves, having been bred to work with humans and catching mind from us. Is self awareness a sign of intelligence? Pattern recognition?
I think it’s obvious that dogs are more intelligent in the way the term is usually meant when casually used by humans, whereas wolves are obviously more intelligent at being wolves.