I should know not to misspell that, as many of my patients have lupus.
So I’m familiar with it. 
This. Squared.
I used to be kind of laissez-faire towards exotic pets. But the older I get, and the less able to ignore the idiocy that so many people exhibit towards animals when they suddenly consider them a pet, the more I support a lot of the stricter anti-exotic pets laws.
You shouldn’t be able to buy a great cat kitten, or a barely hybridized wolf, or a large snake species, without first proving to someone with a clue that you know how to handle and care for such creatures. And that you have the facilities to house them, as well.
There’s a lot of backstory to these wolf-owners and their situation. I won’t go into it as much of it is innuendo and hearsay.
But we have reported them to the local Humane Society (who already apparently has a file on them) to try to ensure that the right thing is being done for this animal.
While I make light of it in this thread, I am certainly no fan of animals like wolves who are habituated to humans having free run of the neighborhood, even by accident. It would be far better for them to be viable members of a oroper pack than someone’s exotic pet.
I would go even further than this. I don’t believe people should be able to adopt such animals without the animals first being sterilized. The last thing we need is backyard breeders of wolf hybrids and great cats. The people irresponsibly allowing their domestic cats to breed, or breeding horses that they can’t afford to feed and no one wants to buy whose only future is auction and ultimately slaughter are bad enough. There is absolutely no reason why someone who isn’t part of a licensed breeding program should have an intact male wolf hybrid.
Qadgop, I never noticed before, but my, what big eyes you have!
Or Tigerwolves! Or Wolfcheetahs! :eek:
Surely they’d be even more terrifying than the Chinese monkey-pig!
CaerieD, I agree completely with you about sterilization, too.
KRC, that is some mind-boggling stuff there. :eek:
No one else is distressed at reading “tail between its legs” or “acting submissive?”
It’s been abused. No offense to the OP. I’m glad you’re daughter is alive. But the animal shouldn’t have been acting like that.
I’m glad the humane society is looking into it, though they don’t have law enforcement powers, do they? The cops should be involved.
Purebred wolves never become domesticated. By nature they are pack animals and they are afraid of man. If they weren’t afraid of human beings, they could kill us very quickly.
Wolf-dog hybreds are more dangerous because they aren’t afraid of human beings, but they still have the ability to kill us quickly. People think they’ve been domesticated, but they still have that wild animal impulse. They should be illegal.
If you are approached by one, don’t look him in the eyes or express any kind of dominate behavior.
I fail to see how a wolf retains “the ability to kill us quickly” in any way that’s distinct from any large breed dog. Many guarding dog breeds are bred and trained to attack humans, at least under certain circumstances. A wolf is somehwat different from a dog psychologically but very much exactly the same physically.
IMHO the dangerous thing about wolves is the “s” on the end – in a pack, they’re efficient murder.
Sailboat
You can’t make any assumptions about abuse based on body language in this case. Wolves never raise their tails, and a properly socialized pack animal shows submission toward higher status members on meeting and shows fawning behavior after a proper greeting. This is normal behavior for a mature wolf or wolf-dog; raising the tail and making eye contact or grinning like a normal domestic breed would not be normal, and could be a sign of aggression.
You also can’t automatically assume neglect just from the fact that it was running around the neighborhood. Wolves and wolf-dog hybrids are escape artists. Penning them takes some serious work, burying wire mesh at least a meter or more below the ground, angling the top of a fence in toward the pen to discourage jumping, or even enclosing the top of the pen. They are smart enough to figure out latches sometimes, so you’ve got to have a proper lock on the gate too. It looks like the owner may not be taking elaborate enough precautions, but that doesn’t necessarily indicate neglect.
Taking the background Qadgop alludes to into account, the owners are probably not as responsible as they should be, and the Humane Society may remove the animal because of past escape incidents. Any of these points taken by themselves means little though, and there’s no evidence of abuse from what little information has been related here.