These dogs would not do well against large North American wolves, and they certainly wouldn’t do well if they had to fight off a pack of them.
We like to talk about how wolves will kill dogs that encroach upon their territories.
What we don’t recognize is that there are dogs that would do the same if they were also kept in large packs.
It’s a somewhat disconcerting concept.
But think about it. People have run dogs in packs against wolves centuries. Throughout history, I bet more dogs have killed wolves than wolves have killed dogs.
These numbers would be hard to prove, but if you think about it, it might make some sense.
Humans have trained hounds and guard dogs to specialize in hunting wolves, but very few wolves actually specialize in hunting dogs.
These wolves certainly do exist, but predation isn’t the main reason why wolves kill dogs. The main reason wolves kill dogs is to protect their dens and offspring. They will also kill dogs that come in to mate with wolf bitches.
But dogs are killing wolves because it’s predatory behavior, and predatory behavior is always fun.
In the same way many dogs enjoy chasing squirrels, these tazi are enjoying the wolf chase and kill.
It’s somewhat disconcerting to think of dogs killing wolves in this fashion and for these reasons.
But humans want to kill wolves with dogs. It is humans who have trained the dogs to course the wolf.
It is humans who maintain the packs for this purpose.
I cast no moral judgment on people who hunt wolves in this traditional way.
I didn’t live as a pastoralist in a former Soviet Republic in which firearms were strictly controlled.
The people of Kazakhstan needed dogs that could help them control the wolves under these conditions.
Wolves are complex creatures that always bring up complex questions.
So are dogs.
So are people.
When all three are mixed together, the issues become that much more difficult.
And these are issues we’re going to have to deal with as wolves begin to make a comeback across their former range.
***
Thanks to Sam Rizzardi for posting this video in the readers’ group on Facebook.
We who believe in a more cilvilized society viewing the video with car horn blowing surely find this practiced hard to stomach. When civilizations were restricted from firearms is not a comparsion in my opinion to this modern version.
It’s like pulling teeth to get farmers & ranchers in wolf country here in the United States to consider using LGDs. They throw one or two Pyrs they bought as pups at the flea market out there where the local pack numbers a dozen or more individuals, & then when the dogs get killed, they decide LGDs don’t work. They don’t even bother finding about the different working styles of the different LGD breeds & the advantages of running different types together in a pack, & no effort is put into selecting dogs from proven parents, raising them in the right environment & providing proper training & supervision as they mature. And when told they have to run a pack of dogs to protect against a pack of wolves (since the whole POINT is the working dogs claim the territory as their own & once they settle border disputes, rarely ever even have to engage the wolves again as the wolves learn to avoid that particular area), they whine about having to feed them. Fine, if your livestock aren’t worth the investment in an insurance policy to protect them, feel free to keep losing your livestock to wolves & other predators. But the laws keeping you from wiping out the wolf population will remain, so good luck finding a better option.
Obviously, I find this situation highly frustrating. As a wolf lover & a conservationist, as well as an LGD breeder & avid meat eater who genuinely wants a solution to the conflicts between livestock producers & the natural world they inhabit, it’s incredibly disheartening when people won’t even try something “new” (not that LGD use is new by any stretch of the imagination. Everyone else uses them, we just seem to think they can’t work here.) Instead they want to keep doing the same thing they’ve been doing, even though it’s proven not to work. Ranchers need to get the chip off their shoulder & really learn something. And conservationists need to quit acting like wolves are perfect little angels who magically know to ignore the dumb, slow cows as a source of food. Neither side will have a civil discourse on the subject.
Please, no one quote the Coppinger study regarding deployment of LGDs to me. I’ve seen it, & it’s so full of holes I don’t know where to begin.
To the original point, yes, I agree Tazy would not fare so well against a pack of our large North American gray wolves. Open field dogs mostly course coyotes & jack rabbits here, & only large packs of the large hounds, like Borzoi or Deerhounds, would be suitable on wolves. Honestly, as someone who has a Borzoi as well as my Central Asian Shepherds, I would not run Borzoi on them either, but would instead raise my Central Asians as wolf hunters. They don’t have the top end speed of the Borzoi, but they are just as agile, have more stamina, & have a LOT more power, & also have the advantage of being damned near indestructible with their thick, tough, loose skin, dense harsh coats, & heavy bones. There is a reason most big game hunting dogs used to catch & fight dangerous prey are of molosser type.
Hear, hear! What’s even more disheartening is that some ranchers want to run their stock on public lands and then expect Uncle Sugar to pick up the tab for protecting them; while some conservationists are really AR nuts in sheep’s clothing. I think a little required education might be in order for people on both sides of this particular fence.
As apex predators, wolves are necessary to the maintenance of a healthy ecosystem. By the same token, ranchers have a right to expect a reasonable return on their investment. Control (not extermination) is the watchword. And as usual that control should take the form of a multi-tiered response. In this case that response includes mixed packs of LGDs; herding dogs; shepherds/ cowhands; remuneration programs; and targeted hunting of particularly problematic animals (not broadcast poison baits or aerial hunting by publicly paid rangers.)
Oh, be still my heart! Someone who talks sense! 8-D
I love this video. We need a similar program here, complete with signage & educational packages.
I have made many fans of LGDs showing this particular video on my FB. And I am sharing it once again for the heck of it..
Yes, that’s what I always try to teach – it’s “just” a dog fight, when a wild and a domestic form of the Canis lupus specie encounter. And of course you must know which one is the fittest – your spoiled, in-bred poof or the dog of the woods ?
Those people are 100% nuts who deny the fact that also our domestic dog loves to hurt and kill other dogs – wolves or pets. Our dogs can in certain circumstances turn into cannibals too. This happens everywhere where dogs can still roam free and live the original doggy life.
As I’ve mentioned before, I have Irish wolfhounds and wolfhound crosses, and I believe any wolfhound or other coursing hound that would run down and attack a wolf would do the same with a strange collie. But I don’t believe this behavior is all predatory, but a mixture of (learned) predatory behavior combined with species specific territorial behavior. In much the same way a wild wolf pack will at times run down and kill a strange wolf, so will a pack of “hunting” wolfhounds run down any strange canid, wolf or dog that they perceive as an invader of their “territory”. And domestic dogs have come to consider as their territory any place their master takes them. I once had a large and very dog-aggressive shepherd-malamute cross named Blanco who was the main protector of my various forms of livestock and fowl. When he caught something like a big boar raccoon raiding my chicken coops and killed it he was happy, never showing any aggression, no matter how badly the coon might bite him during their (short) struggle, just enjoying the game with a smile on his face in what was true predatory behavior. But when he attacked a stray dog invading his territory intent on killing my goats or chickens he did it with anger, curling back his lips and showing his teeth as he tried to kill the other dog, and displaying a totally different attitude than when he killed “prey”.
I once worked with guard dogs, starting out as the guy in the padded suit and graduating to handler, and disagreed with almost all guard dog trainers in their assumption that the behavior behind a guard dog attacking a man was “prey-drive”. Having owned various forms of hunting hounds all my life I never saw any showing any kind of ‘teeth showing aggression’ towards actual prey animals, but only in territorial defense. Though none of my hunting dogs ever brought bear or mountain lions to bay, I have seen photos of dogs doing so, and in the instances where they showed their teeth I believe it was more in fear than anger, but one must know each dog as an individual before they can make a judgment.
Once when I was hiking in the Adirondack Mountains with the above mentioned Blanco, one night he warned off an approaching bear that was raiding campsites along the shore of the small mountain lake we were camping beside. As people at campsites down the lake yelled and banged pots together to drive the bear off, and then called, “Bear coming your way” as it moved on to the next campsite along the shore, Lobo stood rigidly looking down the lake shore and listening to the commotion in the darkness. When the people at the nearest campsite to ours started yelling to drive the bear off, and then called “Bear coming your way!!”, Lobo lowered his head and let the approaching beast know it wasn’t welcomed with a deep, vicious growling that he reserved only for threatening humans and other canids. He would never have given the same warning to a deer or even a dangerous domestic bull (which he’d handled before). So this aggression was not a form of prey-drive, but a warning to an adversary; to something other than potential prey that was encroaching on “his territory” (however temporary it may be) to “get away”.
That night Blanco soon stopped growling and then cocked his head as if listening and kept turning his gaze into the darkness on the mountain slope above and behind us until he’d turned in a full 180 degrees and was looking down the lake shore in the other direction when the people at the next campsite beyond us began screaming “Get away, bear!!” and banging pots together. That bear may not have been afraid of people and banging pots, but it knew what Blanco was saying and respected it.
Like Blanco not considering the bear prey, but treating it more like he would another canid, I believe attack dogs consider humans other than their handler invaders of their territory, and are simply displaying territorial (if exaggerated) behavior when they attack.
Of course, dog behavior has been modified by selective breeding for thousands of years, so trying to place any domestic dog behavior into a category recognized in wild wolves may be futile.
At what point a wolf becomes a dog is an arguable subject, but I believe the first “dogs” were still wolves physically, but with modified brains (i.e. behavior); which is why archaeologists long considered that the dog was domesticated only 14,000 years ago. If these first trainable wolves could still be considered wolves, then the first wolfhounds were probably still wolves physically, and the first ‘guard dogs” attacking wolves (if only to remove the competition from their human masters’ hunting territory)might well have been a wolf against wolf conflicts. As time passed and the tame wolves became “dogs” physically as well as mentally it became easier to label who were the dogs and who were the wolves in a conflict.
In the video of the Tazi coursing and attacking the wolf, the black and white dog to close with the wolf first shows little interest in actually coming into contact with its “prey”. And I must admit that during the whole encounter it and several other of the pack seem to just be in it for the fun of the run and the excitement, and not really interested in tangling with the wolf. I know if Blanco had been running with that pack (bringing up the rear) he would have been at that wolf’s throat and driving it into the ground as he tried to kill it. But none of those Tazi appear to be really displaying either intense prey-drive or territorial behavior, but are just having fun, much like wolves taking down a deer would (which does give strength to the “prey-drive” theory in this case), and seem to have learned to just nip at a wolf when it was caught, thus avoiding injury themselves. Off course, enough nips from enough dogs could eventually kill a wolf without any real killers in the pack.
Not to get completely off topic, but I interested in your experiences training guard dogs. I, too, think it’s incorrect to refer to what protection do as “prey drive”, & also that expecting all protection dogs to have this sort of “play drive” (since it really is more of a game to many of the so-called “high prey drive” dogs) is ridiculous. My Central Asians are quite predatory, but they don’t include any of their predatory behaviors in the sequence when they’re in guard mode against a predator or a human assailant, nor does my very guardy & very predatory Chow/Siberian mix. And my hound is *insanely* predatory, as a good hound should be, but he has no inclination to guard whatsoever. He also thinks it’s awesome when the Central Asians corner a coyote or something, & unlike them would follow it into the next county to run it down, whereas they come right back to their posts as soon as they’re satisfied that the critter is hightailing it out of there.
Anyway, would love some tips on how to find a trainer who knows how to work protection dogs that are pure defense.
Maybe this site can be of some help:
http://www.k9copsonly.com/drivescivil.html#top
Anna and Bridget; I didn’t see your comments before I posted my own, so I didn’t comment on them at the time, but I must say I agree completely with both of you. Though I don’t use my own dogs as LGDs officially, since I no longer keep cattle or goats, they do serve the purpose of keeping the large coyotes (some more than 70 lbs.) that we have here in Vermont off our property; well, off even more than our property since we only have 15 acres here, and our little farm sits at the rear of the piece so the dogs keep the coyotes away from a large section of forest well beyond our borders. It’s funny to hike through the woods in the winter and see the tracks of the coyotes come out of the forest on Buck Mountain, cross a large swamp and enter the woods to the south of our property and then make a very obvious circular detour around the territory claimed by our dogs. No coyotes cross a circular area that has our house and outbuildings as its center. The local deer have even learned to bed down on a ridge above our house because they are not bothered by the coyotes there, and our own dogs only chase them off if they get too close to our house, which is amazing, since the dog that usually heads the deer back up the ridge is Grizzly, an Irish wolfhound, Alaskan malamute cross. You would think a dog of this ancestry would be a dedicated deer chaser, but Grizzly only gets the deer running and flagging their tails and then turns around and trots back down the ridge, snorting in a way that must mean, “There, I showed them.”
I got the idea for an Irish wolfhound-Alaskan malamute cross way back in the 70s, when I was given a puppy that was ½ Irish wolfhound, ½ Bloodhound. This animal, while not particularly intelligent, was about the most physically impressive dog I have ever seen. His mother, the Bloodhound, was nothing spectacular, being shorter-legged than most, and sway backed and pot-bellied to boot (no doubt partially from having a litter of half wolfhound pups). I named this dog Hounder, and he matured at 36 inches at the shoulder and weighed 165 lbs., yet could run down red foxes. So I began thinking about breeding a wolfhound to some other physically sound and impressive breed of dog. I finally settled on malamute to further reduce ear size and to make the resulting pups as winter hardy as possible, winter hiking being one of my favorite pastimes.
As things tend to go, the right animals didn’t come into my possession until after the turn of the century. I now have Grizzly and his brother Tiger out of my Alaskan malamute, Denali, whose out of Cascade Kennels in Washington State (or at least her parents are), and Branigan, an Irish wolfhound of no particularly outstanding lines; as a matter of fact, his breeder never produce the “promised” registration papers or even a pedigree.
A few years ago I bought a Caucasian Ovcharka bitch puppy with the idea of crossing her with Branigan and producing some LGDs, but she proved a physical wreck, and now has myasthenia gravis, so she’ll never be bred. We even must keep her in the house when she is not at our side to keep her from barking incessantly for no apparent reason.
I am no LGD expert, but the one thing I question when I see videos and photos of some LGD is that many of them do not seem to be dominant dogs, and I would think it would take a very dominant LGD to confront wolves and give the rest of its “pack” the backbone needed to actually fight a pack of wolves for territory if needed. Blanco, the shepherd-malamute I mentioned in an earlier post was a very dog aggressive animal, and while his eagerness to fight any male dog he came upon was a major drawback in “civilized” society, I would think a dog with his attitude would be exactly what was needed out west where a confrontation with one or more wolves might be expected. A Pyrenees yearling that runs out barking and wagging his tail loosely at approaching strangers hardly seems to be the dog to back-down hardened wolves. Blanco never wagged his tail in a flaccid wave in his life; if he took the time to approach another dog slowly (he usually hit strange dogs at a dead run, knocking them off their feet) his tail would be up and vibrating tightly. He was a fighter through and through, and as Bridget said, any fight between a wolf and a dog is just a dog fight, and if your dog is going to be challenging wolves it better be a damn tough dog.
Being a confirmed advocate of cross-breeding to strengthen the domestic dog, I wonder what a tough specimen of Anna’s Central Asians crossed with a sound Irish wolfhound would produce. I have a friend who raises Borzoi, and I laugh when I think of Blanco, who died at 14 over 20 years ago, who, if given the chance, would easily have slaughtered my friends’ whole pack in no time, and only had a little more trouble doing the same to my Irish wolfhounds and wolfhound crosses (Blanco was an amazing physical specimen who weighed 130 lbs., yet in his prime could clear a six foot fence without touching it).
I, like most of you, am a wolf lover. They belong in our wilderness, and as massugu pointed out, if the government is going to lease out portions of the nation’s wilderness at pennies an acre as cattle range there will inevitably be wolf-cattle conflicts. I sympathize with honest ranchers trying to make a living, but times change, and if ranchers will change the way they pasture their herds so they can be protected effectively by a pack of LGDs there will be no need to shoot and poison wolves.
It depends on the breed of LGD, but most LGDs are extremely submissive to their owners but aloof & many even aggressive with outsiders. My Central Asians would probably let me cut their legs off without complaint, but I don’t recommend a stranger even raise his voice to my dogs. And you certainly wouldn’t want to attempt to force my dogs to do anything against their will! Yet with those they know, they are all wiggly wags, kisses, & belly rubs. They are highly packish & form hierarchies much like wolves, complete with noisy & often scary looking skirmishes at times that rarely result in even minor bloodshed. Dogs which are not part of the home pack are aggressively expelled, however. Mine adore each other as well as the other dogs in the family, & spend all their time together playing, sleeping, grooming, etc., but they WILL kill a stray dog if it doesn’t immediately vacate the premises when ordered to do. Strange humans are tolerated only if I require them to tolerate them. In my absence or in the case of an attack on my person, strange humans will also be aggressively repelled. They stand their ground in the face of any threat. They’re like a Mama bear with cubs, there is no back down in them.
Hi David; first let me say that I’m amazed that your Blanco lived to be 14–says a lot for cross-breeding doesn’t it? (my favorite cross is GSD-Collie.)
Also, not all Pyrs are so lackadaisical in their response to intruders or perceived threats. My neighbor has a male Pyr, named Harley, that, though people-friendly, is Hell-on-Wheels w/ other dogs–especially males. I lost count of the times he attacked my late Saint Sammie. The Samster always trounced him but that never stopped Harley, who uses a flat-out charge to the shoulder to try to bowl his target over when he attacks.
Hi all, yes, massugu, Blanco was an exceptional healthy and powerful individual. He was actually 3/8 German shepherd, 1/8 Siberian husky and ½ Alaskan malamute. His father was Lobo, a dog I got for my 15th birthday in 1965, and his mother was a big white Alaskan malamute. He was my constant companion for 14 years and I still miss him every day. His father, Lobo also lived to be 14 years old and was my constant companion before his son (they overlapped, of course).
That’s one of the things I’m trying to do with my wolfhound cross-breeding program; produce wolfhound-like dogs that are healthier and longer-lived than the AKC version. I believe cross-breeding will be the salvation of the domestic dog. Right now I have a litter of pups coming out of Boudicca, my female pure Irish wolfhound, and Grizzly, one of my Irish wolfhound-Alaskan malamute crosses (what I call my ‘Alaskan wolfhounds’). Grizzly is a superb canid athlete who can outrun any dog I have. He weighs about 120 lbs., but is so agile that one day he was running circles around the house and came around a corner and almost ran head-on into a carpenter we had doing renovations. The guy threw up his hands in surprise, and Grizzly did a right angle leap, cleared a pile of plywood and lumber about four feet wide and at least four feet wide, landed on the other side and took off in the direction he was originally going in without missing a stride. The carpenter looked on in amazement and kept repeating to the other carpenters working here, “Did you see that? I ain’t never seen nothing like that!”
I haven’t worked with attack dogs for better than 30 years, so I don’t personally know of anyone working with them right now. Anna, your dogs sound like exceptional animals. I love big dogs (and very small ones; I also have a Patterdale terrier). There’s a special feeling knowing a good dog has your back covered. Blanco and I could go anywhere together and never feel threatened by anything or anyone. He was born in 1975, at the time I was the assistant of the local country vet, but my night job was the bouncer in a rather tough bar. Because of having to “handle” unruly customers on a regular basis, I never knew who and their cousins were going to waiting for me when I left the bar at 2:30 in the morning. But Blanco always rode untied in the back of my truck, and would wait patiently for me all night long (I’d step outside periodically to call him to me and let him pee). Anyone could have stolen anything out of that vehicle and he would have calmly watched them do it, but if anyone laid a hand on me, or I just softly said, “He’s going to hurt me Blanco.”, he’d turn from a smiling, friendly dog into a roaring, spit throwing, raging demon (if held back) in a fraction of a second. If not held back he’d attack anything I pointed at; he had absolutely no fear. So if anyone with a grudge was waiting for me after the bar closed I never had to worry about being outnumbered.
Here is a link to a video that I think shows the absence of anger when a wolf is displaying “prey-drive”. This (obviously young) wolf is testing the deer, and acting like it wants to play. But if given the opportunity it will kill and eat that deer. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYI9lo27NVg&feature=related
People often mistakenly identify what motivates a dog to do certain things, and one of the misconceptions most often assumed is that dogs/wolves hate their prey and kill it with anger. As I’m sure all of you know, the truth is that most canids are happy and having a good time when they kill a prey animal. It’s true that many attack dogs go about their work as if it were a game of tug-of-war, but I’ve always believed there was a big difference between these dogs and the truly hard dogs that attack to kill; to really fight it out with an adversary and not just hang off a sleeve. I think the dogs that are just playing would “chicken-out” and quit if hurt in a fight with a human, where a truly hard dog would just get angrier and fight harder. I don’t see any kind of “prey-drive” behavior in this type of angry attack. Of course, I just make these assumptions from my observations of dogs, I don’t claim to be an expert on attack dogs.
I’m no expert on attack dogs either. The bulk of my experience has been w/ rescued Saints. I love the breed, but as a neighbor who has had Saints and Bernese over the years recently told me “My heart can’t handle the grief every 6 years.” They’re great dogs but just too short-lived, and I blame that primarily on the breeders.
My Sammie seldom barked, was highly social (he loved people), but he was intimidating to look at (the fact that he didn’t bark unnerved a lot of people.). But he didn’t have to be mean he just had to look that way. He also loved other dogs, as long as they approached him in a friendly manner. (Woe-betide those that didn’t.) He was also excellent w/ livestock–horses, goats, etc., but at the same time truly enjoyed chasing prey animals like chucks and foxes. (And yes I agree w/ you, enjoyed is the right word. That prey drive was a natural part of his evolved nature, he was doing what his kind was meant to do.)
Although we too really love the big guys, our next dog(s) will be rescued, mid-sized mutt(s). (We want to improve the odds that (s)he’ll live longer than 6 years.) I had considered looking into an “American Alsatian” based on the write-ups, but there are just too many adult dogs out there that need a good home. That’s something we can provide. As my late father-in-law used to say “When I die, I wanna come back as one of your dogs!” (LOL)
It feels so good to bring a grown dog into your home and realize that you have saved a wonderful life. Most of the best dogs I have ever had have been rescues, including the beautiful GSD that I have now.
Great posts from David, Anna and Massugu.
My two bits:
1. LGDs have been researched and reported to attack on the basis of territoriality and bonding with their charges.
2. Pyrs are frequently used as LGDs in BC and working Pyrs have been reported as quite an aggressive breed. .
3. Sight hounds do chase on the basis of prey drive. I have seen Salukis in the UAE ignoring rabbits that froze on the approach.
4. My Kuvasz hardly notices and bothers a frozen rabbit, but instinctively begins a chase if rabbit runs from its frozen state.
5. In the video above, Tazis are running purely for the joy of their humans who are basically morons chasing and killing wolves like that. Wolves aren’t really thriving in any of those ‘stan’ countries you know. .
what else,
Oh yes there is this chihuahua / Jack Russel mix in my neighbourhood, who hates my Kuvasz boy like anything. He would be alright till he sees a glimpse of my dog on the walk. Then he starts his attack putting his old lady in a total messy situation. Now my boy has also started hating him. I am afraid either this mutt will kill my boy one day by sneaking under him and biting him on his private parts or my boy will kill him breaking his back bone. This is neither territoriality nor prey drive. What is it?
I suspect that it is dislike–pure and simple.
Hahaha. That’s it, as simple as that.
Actually, there are 30,000 wolves in Kazakhstan, according to Mech’s “Wolves: Behavior, ecology and conservation”. No need to worry.
It’s really difficult to debate with someone with a pastoral lifestyle. They will see wolves as evil, no matter what anyone says. They don’t care about statistical improbability. One cow or sheep being taken as prey is enough evidence in their eyes.
Beautiful dogs, but they should not hunt wolves. Wolves also are beautiful and they need to be protected! Today, we have too many pets, but not enough wildlife in the world. Hunting dogs should be otherwise employed but not with killing.
What evidence do you have that wolves are severely endangered? They are endangered in some areas, extirpated in others, and some subspecies are actually quite endangered.
But Canis lupus as a whole as in not an endangered species at all. It’s listed as “Least Concern” by the IUCN.
There are really endangered canids, like the Darwin’s fox, which is, by the way, not endangered because it’s heavily hunted.
Hunting animals is a proven way to conserve them. If you have an animal conserved as a game species, then there will be laws and ethics codes among hunters to ensure conservation. Why does Romania have so many brown bears? Answer: the dictator wanted them conserved as a game species.
Why do they need protection? They number in the 100s of thousands.
Is it fair to rush hunting dogs on chained wolves? I must cry when I see such pictures.
And: The only kind in the world that is not endangered (yet), is mankind.
I don’t agree at all with that last sentence. My country (the USA) is actually at the forefront of wildlife conservation. It’s probably the only thing we’re good at these days, but we have tons of wildlife and a modern industrial capitalist economy. Even in densely populated states like New Jersey, there are plenty wild animals, including a huge population of bears.
But chaining up wolves and letting dogs fight them is something I don’t support.
True coursing, though, I think is okay.