Your dog is just like a wolf, right? Yeah…about that

We're on our second German Shepherd at our house. Axel's skinny, but he still has huge paws and teeth and he weighs 85 pounds. I've always thought it wouldn't be too different from owning Axel as it would be to own a wolf. I've changed my mind after what I read in The New York Times.

You've seen the TV commercials for dog food, with actual wolves either running alongside something that looks like your dog or "morphing" into a domestic dog? The inference is that our domestic dogs would turn into ferocious elk-killers, if we would just take let them off their leash for a couple of weeks. When I was a kid and we lived on our farm in Missouri, our dog, Sam, who'd never seen a leash or cage in his life, disappeared one day and didn't come back for three or four months. He'd been running with some other dogs, living "off the land" (and lucky he didn't shot or run over). But, running around in the woods doesn't make you a wolf.

Axel (and your dog, too) is not a wolf. They're completely different and scientists are still trying to find out why and how.

Turns out, for one thing, dog puppies and wolf puppies are pretty much the same until they're around eight weeks old. That's when the wolf puppies develop something like a sense of fear which makes them wild animals. Even if they're raised by humans.

Cool article. 

Banana Don and Stephanie McCoy amuse and thrill you every weekday morning from 5:30 – 10AM on the radio at 100.7 WITL.

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