Wolf

[JustinJ]

My father has an awesome border collie that is a great dog but we have little rivalry between us as i have a heeler. Border collies are great for sheep but if you have to move cattle it takes more than a stare. My heeler is 65 lbs with a huge head, barrel chest and very protective attitude so he makes a great guard dog.

Another dog i find very interesting is the Carolina dog.

 

[VT Deer Hunter]

In Vermont, i guess wolves along with mountain lions lived there and not the VT F&G said in 09 that there are mountain lions in Vermont again. And the VTers had known that for a while. And my uncle had a friend of his drop a of all thing a wolf of at our camp. And the wolf was shot in i guess central VT. And the person who shot it thought it was a coyote and they look so similar. But the VT F&G doesnt want to say they are there. I dont know if it was just a single wolf that wondered in or what. But if you look in the VT F&G hunting rule book it lists mountain lions as a non game animal.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

One problem is, once you officialy admit there are wolves or mountain lions in your state, all kinds of expensive and restrictive Federal regulations kick in.

 

[barnetmill]

Relative to predators it can sort of depend on what you are doing when they are around also. I remember a few times being outside of my house doing pushups at about 10:30 at night and a grey fox would come out of the creek bed while doing his nightly rounds and sit and watch me. Surprising how big a fox looks when you are no higher than he is. If it had been a coyote or something larger I would have instantly got up since an attack from a larger predator is more likely when you are not standing. Some years we believe there had been a lion wandering around and black bear and feral hogs live within a few miles. Never heard of anyone ever getting attacked by any of these. Dogs and rabid raccoons are probably a bigger threat. I live in the extreme NW of FL. For the OP question I think any handgun with a large magazine capacity that you can readily carry and hit with is fine. The main thing is a gun will likely give you an alpha posture that is most important when dealing with a mammalian carnivore.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

The main thing is a gun will likely give you an alpha posture that is most important when dealing with a mammalian carnivore.

That is precisely the point Phil Shoemaker makes when discussing handguns for grizzley country -- they give you the confidence to communicate to the bear, "I am not bothering you, but if you bother me, I will hurt you bad."

 

[1911Tuner]

One problem is, once you officialy admit there are wolves or mountain lions in your state, all kinds of expensive and restrictive Federal regulations kick in.

That's very likely why Montgomery, Randolph, and Davidson Counties don't want to own up to Red Wolves in the Uwharries...but they're there. I've seen'em. So far, they've been very shy and retiring. I hope that lasts.

Border Collies use Wolf prey moves to herd, and the only thing that's been bred out is the final kill...but I meant that Mals and Sibes are genetically closest to Wolves. The others are about 2% removed...including Border Collies. Want to see just how close to a Wolf one of the sled dogs are? Let a pack of'em go feral for 6 months.

The prey drive is very much alive in Malamutes and Huskies, and even many family pets will kill cats and smaller dogs...even the ones that they've been raised with. That's part of their selective breeding. The kill wasn't bred out the way it was in Border Collies. Sometimes arctic dogs have to forage for their own food, so it was left alone.

The main thing is a gun will likely give you an alpha posture that is most important when dealing with a mammalian carnivore.

This.

Predators aren't at all interested in picking a fight that they think they might lose, or in fighting with another animal that they feel can hurt them. A serious physical injury is a death sentence. Even a moderate injury is bad news. If they sense that you can do them a hurt, they're more apt to leave you alone. Note that if you encounter a female bear with cubs close by, there's a completely different set of rules in play, and all bets are off.

 

[barnetmill]

The prey drive is very much alive in Malamutes and Huskies, and even many family pets will kill cats and smaller dogs...even the ones that they've been raised with. That's part of their selective breeding. The kill wasn't bred out the way it was in Border Collies. Sometimes arctic dogs have to forage for their own food, so it was left alone.

Many of the older traditional working dogs will forage for food. Dogs are always hungry. On a dog forum I frequent it was mentioned that their bulldogs would kill red hawks that were going for their pups and the parents at times would feed the dead hawks to the pups if they did not eat the hawk themselves. Most dogs will chase (prey drive) and bite (trying to kill), especially when in a pack. Some are better at it than others. Pound for pound the terriers are some of the best at killing on their own since that is specifically what these breeds were developed for. Relative to sled dogs owned by Inuit (Eskimos) I talked to someone that saw them used in a polar bear hunt in canada. i wonder how well they would survive if they had to compete with wolves. I thinks wolve, coyotes, and foxes all have the ideal anatomy and behavior for survival for their respective size ranges. Nature will not have it any other way.
By the way some border collies will kill other trespassing dogs. There was a sad thread at another forum about someone that was forced to kill his rescue border collie after repeated killings by it of other dogs which he did very efficiently. It was a most unpleasant experience for his owner that was even more traumatic than returning the small dead poodle to its owning family and listening to their adolescent daughter start bawling her head off.
Dogs are really only domesticated wolves and wolf like behavior still exists in them.

 

[vaherder]

Wrong

Final kill has not been bred out. Human ie me is the alpha and as alpha I make the kill. I dont know what my dogs think when I dont they just keep on working their 12 to 14 hour days for less then the minimum wage. A couple might have not entered the country legally. My herding dogs will kill prey if I allowed it. I had a rogue sheep who wanted go through me to get to the hay. My best dog saw it and the 200+ lb sheep jumped in the air about 6ft and she at almost 40lbs went up in the air after it. Snatched it in mid air and took it to the ground. Sheep hit the ground dying because she broke the neck.

Again all dogs being they working Border Collies and Polish Tatras or mini Yorkies are 99% wolf per their DNA. Scientific fact. No 2% about it. A working heridng dog of any breed is closer to the wolf then a Malmute or Sib. Yeah they look closest to their wolf ancestors but a herding dog is still the closest. Many Idatrod competiors will use working Border Collies to breed
in drive and determination along with speed.

Sorry in working lines of the herding breeds the final kill has not been bred out. DOnt know where you got this load of PETA propaganda. Anyone who depepnds on a dog to move sheep wants as much prey drive and killer as possible in the dog and lines. Its a lot easier manage this a dog with extreme prey drive then to try to gin up one who doesnt ahve the drive. A dog with extreme prey drive will make it through the training and want to spend 14hrs in 3 ft + of snow in temps in the high teens in a blizzard moving sheep so they
will survive the storm like in the WInter of 2010 here in VA.

99% of dog owners have never seen a real working herding dog. Thye couldnt handle one. They are too smart and too driven. The AKC and conformation/beauty pageants ahve destroyed the working herding dog. Dogs would be better off if the AKC went belly up. They aren't in it for the dogs but they are in it for the bucks.

 

[Freedom_fighter_in_IL]

Final kill has not been bred out. Human ie me is the alpha and as alpha I make the kill.

vaherder, That is about the biggest load I have ever seen. Could you please reference where it has been shown that the "alpha" makes the "kill"? It has been my experience (seen MANY kills by packs of both feral dogs as well as wolves) that EACH in the pack shares in the take down and kill. Usually whichever one was on lead point at the strike. And that is NOT always the alpha. It is whichever one happened to be at the right place at the right time. I've bred and trained hunting dogs most of my life. Coon and Rabbit hounds for the most part. Several of my rabbit dogs have had massive foot speed and would at times catch the rabbit. Do you think they would NOT kill that rabbit before delivering it to me? Nope! They would bring me the rabbit dead as a hammer. I still have a couple (patch hounds) that I call "shell savers" because 3 out of 10 times they CATCH the rabbit.

As far as your reference to the "kill" being bred out, ALL of my protection dogs would kill in a flat second to PROTECT me. Don't care if it was a 200 pound man or a 700 pound Brown Bear. They see me in trouble and you could bet your last dollar that whatever it was that was a threat towards me will have a VERY bad day. The "kill" is in EVERY predatory animal. Some may be more docile than others but given certain situations, they will go native in a heart beat. How else can you explain feral dogs? Given that situation, they will go native and pack up. It's been a problem for several years now. You trying to say that they are all boarder collies?

 

[vaherder]

Biggest Load Not

Obviously you haven't really observed wolf kills. The alpha as pack leader makes all the decisions. The kill is orchestrated and approved by the alpha.
The rest of the pack know their respective jobs. The alpha also decides who eats first and the order the pack eats in. The rest of the pack will not kill w/o the alpha's approval. Yes it is a community effort but the alpha makes all the decisions. One has to be aware of both the verbal and non verbal communication patterns in dogs and wolves. How they carry their tail etc tells you a great deal. Also knowing what their barks, yips and growls mean.

When you take a young 4 to 5mo herding pup on sheep for the first time it will gather the sheep to you just like its wolf ancestors cast out around the herd. The pup with no training will bring the sheep to the human. And yeah it expects you to kill it.

Feral dogs do not have the same pack dynamics as wolves.

I never said kill was bred out on the contrary in a herding dog we want the kill. I want big time prey drive. I want a pup who will kill sheep and that is his or her primary motivation because that dog will work for me for 14 hrs or more. That dog will also make it through training. I have the scars from training young pups and preventing the kill. Have I had o stitch up sheep yep and I have lost a few sheep to training accidents over the years. Most times its the sheep running into a fence post. Its the cost of training a good herding dog. My dogs are never trained with food or toys as a reward. Their reward is it pleases me. No clicker training because it doesn't work at 800+ yards. i dont have the arm to accurately throw a treat to my dog when she does a great job rounding up the 500 sheep and getting the stragglers a mile + from where I am standing.

Remember wolves and herding dogs are closest in their behaviors.

Sorry coon hounds and rabbit hounds are not herding dogs. A good herding dog is a barely reformed stock killer. Herding dogs are typically the most intelligent of all the dog breeds. They have to be to move stock. They rate the stock they are moving and act accordingly. One group of sheep or cattle may prefer a dog working close but a change in the weather ie wind speed increasing will change things. Dog will have to give the stock more space. My dogs are trained to sort out one sheep take it down w/o injury and hold it for me so i can check it out or give it meds etc. My dogs know enough to recognize when I give a wrong command and do the right thing.

I don't fear wolves. The wolves are going to go their way and let me go on mine as long as I am not threatening their pups. i drop a pit bull or feral dog when it looks at me wrong.

 

[lyrikz]

"i drop a pit bull or feral dog when it looks at me wrong"

Drop my pitbull, please.

I would love to see a video of one of your dogs, tackling a sheep and holding the sheep without hurting it.

 

[cassandrasdaddy]

When you take a young 4 to 5mo herding pup on sheep for the first time it will gather the sheep to you just like its wolf ancestors cast out around the herd. The pup with no training will bring the sheep to the human

funny you should say that. my border collie has minimal training. i was on a back road when we came on some loose cattle. i got out and started moving em towards the hole in the fence, he came out the window and got right after em took over all i had to do was watch and fix the fence farmer showed up and watched. dog was prouder than a 3 testicled tomcat. i want to get him out more. he was having fun

 

[paintballdude902]

any thing that would take down a cougar would take down a wolf

 

[KodiakBeer]

Obviously you haven't really observed wolf kills. The alpha as pack leader makes all the decisions. The kill is orchestrated and approved by the alpha.
The rest of the pack know their respective jobs.

Actually, the alpha's are the breeding male and female. The alpha male may or may not be the lead in hunting. In most cases he would be, simply because he would be a large mature male, but often enough another animal is the lead hunter. Another animal (often an old animal with a long memory, male or female) will take charge during seasonal migrations. Den sites are generally protected by yet another mature animal, while the mother hunts for food.

Alpha doesn't mean what most people think it does. Wolf packs are actually quite complex and various animals take the lead role in various activities. In a small pack of 4 to 6 mature animals, the alpha male might be the lead in most activities, but in larger packs various animals take on the many jobs.

 

[Certaindeaf]

Just don't dress up as a sheep when you go trick or treating and you'll be fine.

 

[JustinJ]

Obviously you haven't really observed wolf kills. The alpha as pack leader makes all the decisions. The kill is orchestrated and approved by the alpha.
The rest of the pack know their respective jobs. The alpha also decides who eats first and the order the pack eats in. The rest of the pack will not kill w/o the alpha's approval. Yes it is a community effort but the alpha makes all the decisions. One has to be aware of both the verbal and non verbal communication patterns in dogs and wolves. How they carry their tail etc tells you a great deal. Also knowing what their barks, yips and growls mean.

You do realize wolves often times survive for long periods on mice only? If you can link me a vidoe of wolves holding mice down waiting for the alpha to arrive to perform the finishing kill i'd love to see them.

The old convential understanding of wolf packs is extemely flawed in that it is based on unatural groups of unrelated captive wolves that were forced together. The hiearchy that develops in such a setting is very different from that of a natural pack. Wolf packs are actually a nuclear unit consisting of a breeding pair and their offspring but do adopt unrelated juveniles on occasion. Leadership of the pack is actually shared by the breeding male and female and both will actually take submissive and dominant postures with each other. This notion of males fighting for dominance is fiction. When the young become old enough they simply leave the pack and seek a mate to start their own. In a real wolf pack the young fight each other for their positions as do the young in all species. The alpha does not determine their positions or what order they eat in. The cohesion of packs does vary somehwat from region to region and packs have been observed to briefly join together but it is not common. Feral dogs do not mimic a wolf pack because they are not generally related.

My best dog saw it and the 200+ lb sheep jumped in the air about 6ft and she at almost 40lbs went up in the air after it. Snatched it in mid air and took it to the ground. Sheep hit the ground dying because she broke the neck.

Now that had me laughing. Mainly because I knew a guy who claimed the exact same thing about one of his border collies but his supposedly took down a deer. He had a reputation for inventing stories.

 

[cassandrasdaddy]

had a 35 pound border collie lab mix and a 85 pound lab husky mix. they would kill deer and it was the border collie that did the kills. she would whup the bigger dog as well. when she got old she would lure it under wifes suv to fight where she could stand erect huskie mix couldn't stand and took a licking

 

[Henhouse1]

Stinky bad Photo Shop!

 

[HarcyPervin]

The cohesion of packs does vary somehwat from region to region and packs have been observed to briefly join together but it is not common

That reminds me, did anyone catch the media frenzy around the "Superpack" in Siberia last winter. The reports were that multiple packs had joined together in a group of 400 animals and were targeting everything in sight. I had never heard of anything like that but it was reported that during extremely harsh winters that wolf packs would cooperatively hunt. A small pack in my area wouldn't bother me, they're around when we hunt, but that many predators, hunting together/hunting in the same area, might change my mind.

 

[Freedom_fighter_in_IL]

Obviously you haven't really observed wolf kills. The alpha as pack leader makes all the decisions. The kill is orchestrated and approved by the alpha.

I honestly stopped reading at that sentence because it showed me that you haven't a true clue. Unlike you with your books, I have been in the wilds of Alaska, Montana, Wyoming, Canada, as well as a few places in Europe and have witnessed first hand how the wolf hunts and takes down prey.

Further showings of your lack of first hand knowledge was you saying that the wolf doesn't take down more than they need. MOST of the hunts that I have seen, the packs would take down MUCH more than they needed. It's hardwired into their DNA to do so. As I stated earlier, they were natures population control and kept predator/prey balances very well. Unlike a lot of your African predators, the Wolf has very few, if any, competition for their kills. A Brown bear MAY try to take a kill away from a small pack but even that is highly doubtful. So there is no reason for the multiple kills other than that is what they were designed, and quite well I may add, to do.

You trying to equate herding dogs to wolves is much the same as someone trying to equate a quarter horse to a thoroughbred. It just doesn't add up to the same animal in any way whatsoever. They each share much on the scale, but there is still a TON of differences that come to play. I've seen toy poodles with more attitude than most of the Boarder Collies we had. And we had several growing up. Was my dads favorite breed of dog. Only time i'd ever see one get it's fur up was whenever they would see a fox out in the field. Or whenever my dad would raise his voice or hand towards any of us kids. I will admit they can get frisky when they see a kid in trouble. Just in their nature as it is with most dog breeds. ANY dog can be trained to show that killer instinct. They ALL have it. Just some are more domesticated than others and aren't that ill tempered. Piss them off and you will find out just how instinctive ANY dog can be.

 

[tarosean]

99% of dog owners have never seen a real working herding dog. Thye couldnt handle one. They are too smart and too driven. The AKC and conformation/beauty pageants ahve destroyed the working herding dog. Dogs would be better off if the AKC went belly up. They aren't in it for the dogs but they are in it for the bucks.

There is no widespread need now-a-days for the dogs that had real jobs and were specifically bred for those tasks. Society changed quite some time ago.. Fact is 99% of dogs are nothing more than companions.

AKC is much more than a beauty pageant. Course you probably wouldnt know anything about all those field/tracking/herding/gun titles, etc. In addition, AKC is only a registry they do not control what people breed, they only ensure that they are pure bred.

 

[rbernie]

This one has suffered from way too much thread drift - let's move along.