Another great post at Borderwars.
I think he thoroughly debunked the theory that German shepherds are actually wolf hybrids.
When shar-pei are found to be more closely related to wolves and the breeds developed by crossing wolves with GSD prove to be failures as working animals, one might start to think that GSD are dogs that just happen to look like wolves.
And that wolfdog rumor prevented the dogs from being imported to Australia. It is truly amazing what people believe.
Never mind that most of the working sheep and cattle dogs of Australia actually have dingo in them…
I personally don’t think it far-fetched that the early German GSD breeders MIGHT have experimented with wolf-dog crosses, but it is quite silly that anyone would consider it any kind of influence HUNDREDS of generations later, unless they continued to occaisinally crossbreed with wolves, which they did not. Involved with wolf-hybrids as I have been for decades, I can tell you the wolf characteristics are barely visible or unnoticable(depending on the dog breeds involved) by the time a line of animals is only 1/8th or 1/16th wolf–much less HUNDREDS of generations later! And that IS ironic that the Australians banned GSD’s, and then used Dingo crosses as sheep and cattle dogs(although many modern Kelpie breeders still VEHEMENTLY deny the potential dingo ancestry in their breed, unlike the Heeler/Aust.Cattle dog people). I can vouch that GSD’s are NOT very wolflike in temperment or behaviour–but malamutes, Siberians, and Canadian Inuit dogs especially are VERY similar! None of these breeds are very trustable around livestock, or very subserviant to people, and have often lived ferally quite successfully. An Aussie ban on Siberian or CID’s would have made a LOT more sense! Although I have personally known some GSD X Wolf crosses that were splendid animals…….