A wolf is a dog without a few tens of thousand years of careful selective breeding needed to make it friendly and compliant towards humans. Which is a pretty significant difference.

I recall watching one experiment that elucidated that difference quite clearly. A piece of meat was placed inside of a cage inside of a large enclosure. First the handlers released a dog into the enclosure. The dog sniffed around. Pawed at the cage for awhile. Then sat down and started looking back and forth between the piece of meat and the handler.

The process was repeated. Meat. Cage. Enclosure. Only this time, instead of a dog, the handlers released a grey wolf. Initially, their behavior was similar. Sniffing around. Pawing at the cage. But the wolf soon became much more aggressive. Attacking the cage violently. Trying to tear it open. Far from seeking assistance from the human handlers, the wolf treated them like competitors. Charged at them. Growled and barred its teeth when they tried to approach.

Keeping in mind, this was a wolf raised in a wildlife rescue facility with no experience of life in the wild. The handlers had been known to it since birth.

Wolves are not pets.

They lack generations upon generations of careful genetic programing which has been selectively bred into dogs by humans. Wolves are wild animals and will behave in a manner consistent with their nature. Which is to say highly predatory, extremely territorial, very aggressive with regards to food, dangerously hostile to unknown people. They will not think twice about killing and eating your other pets. Will probably regard small children as prey. They’ll likely never be properly housebroken and will frequently mark areas inside your home. Will have little or no interest in obeying commands.

In most of the US, owning a wolf is not a legally straightforward process. Requiring significant real estate investments inorder to recreate their natural habitat at an appropriate (and large) scale. Continual monitoring by state and possibly federal wildlife regulators. A virtual library of permits and licenses. Without good cause such as wildlife rescue, it may prove completely impossible in many jurisdictions.

A dear friend of mine found herself living in a cottage in the woods of rural Germany, during the covid lockdowns. Unsure of how long she’d be locked up alone and in need of some company, she decided to buy a dog.

Specifically, she decided to buy a Saarlooswolfhund. This breed originated as across between a German Shepherd and a grey wolf, bred again with a German Shepherd to create a dog with 1/4 direct wolf ancestry. Wikipedia notes that, “This breed needs thorough socialization before the twelfth week of age to ensure prosocial behavior.”

This is an understatement.

Unfortunately for my friend, the breeder she bought from was less than reputable. He had decided that his Wolfhunde were getting too tame, and took it upon himself to spice up the breed by introducing some more wolf. The dog my friend received and named Anouk had one parent who was 1/4 wolf and another who was fully and actually a wolf. She looks far more lupine than the above photo, though I won’t share an actual photo of her for the sake of my friend’s privacy.

Anouk loved living in the wilds of Germany, walking miles every day through the woods and the snow, and only having the one human to interact with. But a couple of years later, lockdowns were thoroughly in the past and my friend decided to return to Cambridge. That’s when things started to go Wrong.

Anouk could not be left at home alone for more than 10 minutes, without becoming so anxious to escape that she would cut her paws bloody trying to scratch through a door. My friend had to work remotely and give up her hobbies and friendships, and tried very slowly to relax her and help her get used to being around civilisation.

Once, my friend came home from a short shopping trip to find Anouk had escaped out of an upstairs window and somehow made it up to the roof, where she was howling her distress – much to the consternation of the neighbours.

Car travel was no better, because Anouk was powerful enough to chew her way out of any dog cage and try to sit on the driver’s lap. And if you can imagine doing 70 mph along the motorway and having a panicked wolf try to snuggle, it’s not an event you’ll forget in a hurry.

Eventually, my friend had to return to Germany, because the lease ran out on her house and she couldn’t find any landlord who would let her bring Anouk.

A wolf is not a dog. Even if it’s trained and raised by someone with a history of dog ownership, it will not become a dog. Don’t buy a baby wolf, unless you want it to take over your entire life.