From the Internet, an interesting question. Since wolves are so much more vicious than dogs in terms of police attack dogs, why not train wolves to take down suspects instead of dogs? As it turns out, we’ve already tried it, and it is a total failure. Dogs, even German Shepherds, are pretty much great big pussies most of the time, and wolves are wicked, savage, untrainable, permanently wild beasts who do not belong anywhere near humans. We have even bred dogs down to where they were 1/4 wolf, and they were still completely wild and untrainable. Amazing.
A friend of mine lived in Alberta, Canada and he told me wolves were everywhere up there. He absolutely hated wolves. “Wolves are a plague,” he said. “If you don’t have any near you, consider yourself lucky.”
A long time back… I trained dogs. A lot of them were for the police. Someone had the idea that we should be training wolves. I have seriously never been afraid of a dog. They just like me. I know the right body language…I know their body language…they can sense that startle response, and you learn to suppress it. I know when to stand there and let them smell you.
We realized pretty quickly that full wolves were not going to be trained so we bred them with German Shepherds down to quarter wolves. They were still wild. We couldn’t make a connection with them under any circumstances. They almost never made eye contact, which made it seem like they had a crazy look in their eyes. They looked right through you.
When you attack train a dog, there is a lot of non-verbal communication while the dog is sizing up the situation…usually…it’s a game to the dog until the last second right before they take you.
None of that takes place with a wolf. There is no game. They don’t care what you want. When they get hold of you [wearing pads], it’s different than the same size German Shepherd. They fling you down and start towards your neck. And getting them to stop…they will turn on the handler.
They scared the shit out of me. I seriously doubt you could survive an attack without some fluke luck of some kind. None of the tricks I knew were recognized or acknowledged by the quarter wolf. We gave up with zero success.
