Hi Walker, Thank you for sharing your experiences with your 5-year-old wolf dog! Cruze is the same age now and he goes through the same annual shedding process where he blows his coat. It’s quite a task to keep up with the constant grooming during that time! He definitely is still a little destructive when he is in an ornery mood or if he is left alone too long. We are working on it. We definitely agree that wolf dogs require a lot of work, but the love and joy they bring make it all worthwhile. 🙂

He’s still a pup. Their behavior can change drastically around the age of 2. They can become much more difficult to manage as they are highly intelligent and will challenge your authority which needs to be well established by this age. They may use aggression or intimidation to challenge your dominance and they can sense fear and insecurity so it’s best to be prepared for these challenges so you can address them assertively and aren’t caught off guard. You can’t smack a wolf on the nose with a newspaper to discipline it like people do with dogs. That’s a bad idea to try with a wolf or hybrid. Physical discipline might not make a wolf want to comply and might cause a physically aggressive response. If wolf uses physical aggression towards you however which does happen, especially at this age you have to defend yourself. Someone was saying their hybrid got aggressive with him around the age of 2 and on 3 separate occasions he had to grab him by the neck and put him on his back and pin him there to let him know he’s not going to be the boss. The higher content wolf it is , the more challenging their behaviors are. They think for themselves and they don’t care about pleasing you. This Is the age most wolves venture off from their pack in search of a mate and wolves and hybrids are escape artists. They need large enclosures that give them plenty of room to roam around or they will become agitated and restless. Their fencing needs to be dug a couple of feet underneath the dirt otherwise they will constantly dig out from under it and get loose. Wolves are also very agile and their feet are designed to put more spring in their jump than a dogs. They might be able to scale a 6 foot fence from a stand still. . You have to be careful anything placed near the fencing isn’t going to give them the leverage they need to scale it. I’m guessing yours is a low too mid content hybrid if he’s cool with chickens and cats. I had an Akita and wolf hybrid growing up. We got him when he was 8 weeks old and he was good with cats and chickens. He was a super friendly, goofy, happy boy that loves everyone and never tries to hurt a fly. The only time he tried to bite anything he was already 14 years old and my dads Rottweiler picked a fight with him and he had to defend himself and as old as he was he overpowered him like nothing!! Wolves are beautiful animals but they aren’t good pets so the more dog traits they have the better. We bred traits we preferred into domesticated dogs for thousands of years so of course they are more ideal companions. Low to mid hybrids can still be awesome pets with the right owners.Mid- High content hybrids need experienced owners who are patient and can meet their needs. Its always a gamble with what traits they will inherit that’s why so many end up in sanctuaries!