I can’t help with the OP, but has anyone ever read “The Wolfen” by Whitley Streiber? It’s definitely the best werewolf book I’ve read.
The Harry Dresden “Wizard” novels handled this one. “Werewolf” actually could mean several different things. People with the magic talent to turn into wolves; people involuntarily transmogrified into wolves by someone else’s magic; the magic wolfskin device; people who didn’t transform physically but were wolf-spirit berserkers; and the most feared of all, the Loup Garou, a wolf-demon or wolf-monster of supernatural strength and indestrucibility. And of course there was also a wolfwere, a wolf that could turn into a human.
So a wolf could conceivably turn into a Loup Garou.
And can you imagine a more humilating curse than to be a weredog? Someone who turns into a basset hound or a poodle every full moon?
There are no medically verified reports of lycanthropy affecting either dogs or wolves. The infrequent historical anecdote likely arises from folkloric accounts of rabies, which of course can be readily transmitted from canine to human. Lycanthropy, on the other hand, is in fact relatively difficult for even humans to contract (despite the ongoing media-driven misrepresentation on this topic), typically requiring the introduction of morphocytotic cells into the victim’s bone marrow, and subject to a host of diverse external and immunological factors. From a survey of the available literature, it has been estimated that fewer than 1 in 45 of such injuries result in transmission, by contrast with approx. 1 in 30: mortality rate as a result of systemic infection (Fahy, 1989).
Given the nature and structure of the lycanthropic microbe, many early researchers speculated that introduction into a canine host would result in an inverted transmission cycle-- a “reverse werewolf,” so to speak. However, experiments carried out in the 1920s failed to demonstrate this effect, and later research has demonstrated conclusively that L-1 is human-specific: its microbial genome encompasses only lupine morphocytotic sequencing compatible with human mRNA, and its transmembrane dimers are incompatible with canine cell receptors (Drake, 1992).
Werewolves are an instance of an inherent imbalance in the natural order. If a werewolf bites a normal wolf, the cosmic balance is restored: The bitten wolf isn’t affected any more than by any other bite, but the were is cured.
Unfortunately, werewolves being unnatural as they are, they’ve lost the instinct to bite anything but humans. So this spontaneous cure seldom happens except in carefully controlled circumstances.
Wolves Don’t Cry is a serious and marvelous take on a wolf who finds himself transformed into a man.
RE D&D
That would be a Wolwere. While werewolves are humans who become half wolf, wolweres are wolves who can become human. They have the additional power of a literally enchanting singing voice.
In White Wolf’s Werewolf The Apocalypse RPG, werewolves are born not made by biting. There are three breeds of Garou,- Homid humans who turn into wolves, Metis who are the sterile offspring of two werewolves, and Lupus who are wolves that can turn into men. One tribe of werewolves, the Red Talons, is made up exclusively of Lupus stock. While most of the werewolf tribes breed with wolves, one tribe The Bone Gnawers has been known to breed with feral street dogs. So in White Wolf’s World Of Darkness, there is a remote but real possibility that the mutt you rescue from the pound or street is a werewolf.
Terry Pratchett
Has addressed the issue in HogFather. One character is a wolf who becomes a half human creature during the full moon.
In the Discworld novel Reaper Man there is a wolf that was bitten by a werewolf and becomes Human at the full moon. A bit embarassing, since the transformation doesn’t include clothing. He has to hide stashes of clothes around and make sure he’s near them.
:smack: Of course Reaper Man! Not Hogfather.
Of course, none of these effects could be transmitted via bite, as Bob repeatedly pointed out. So, the hypothetical wolf-turned-loup-garou would have to have somehow pissed off a really powerful being (on the order of a saint, one of the Faerie Queens, or a Wyldfae lord like the Erlking) enough to get slapped with the curse. For an ordinary wolf to manage such a thing would seem to require a very odd scenario. Of course, a saint wanting to create a horrific monster like a loup garou seems pretty strange, too.
More plausibly, one of the other types (werewolf, hexenwolf, or lycanthrope), could wind up the recipient of such a curse, thereby becoming two different forms of werewolf at once: a squarewolf.
Callahan’s Lady, by Spider Robinson, features a werebeagle in a minor role, along with a genuine talking dog. Both seemed relatively well-adjusted, for characters in a Robinson book.
I’ve read a short story that deals with this issue, but since it’s a twist ending I’ll spoiler both the title and summary.
Ursula K. Le Guin’s “The Wife’s Story” is about a wife shocked to discover that when the moon is full, her husband makes a frightening transformation. The twist is not that the husband is a werewolf, which is implied early on, but that the wife is a wolf and her husband changes into a human.
There’s a splatterpunk goth RPG called Nightlife. One of the adventures for it includes a man who is a werecat, not a tiger or lion but an ordinary orange pussycat. He tries to avoid becoming angry, as anger causes him to shift forms. He has no fighting skills whatsoever, but cannot be killed by anything except silver. He’s carved out a niche working as a butler for other supernatural folk.
Another charcter mentioned briefly, is a were monitor lizard.
Oh, everyone in a Robinson book is well-adjusted, once they’ve thrown a few shot glasses in the fireplace, and told their story to the Drum Circle.
Or maybe I stopped reading Robinson too soon.
This is from Harry Turtledove’s early novel “Werenight”, part of the Gerrin the Fox series. It was originally published under the name Eric Iverson.
In Larry Niven’s story What Good Is A Glass Dagger?, the lead character is a werewolf. In this story, werewolves are born, not made. In the story’s climax, the villain casts a spell on him, draining him of all magic. He finds himself stuck in wolf form, and stripped of his human intelligence. He promptly mauls the villain to death. Afterward, he asks the Warlock what happened. The Warlock says, “We always assumed that werewolves were humans who magically transformed into wolves. But there was never any evidence one way or the other. Until now.”