Gray Wolf

Keeping wolves as pets has grown in popularity. In the United States alone, there are an estimated 80,000-2 million privately owned wolves. Tame wolves tend to be less predictable and manageable than dogs. While dogs typically alter their behaviours to accommodate their handlers, the opposite is true for tame wolves. In contrast to dog pups, which are able to be socialised to humans at up to ten weeks of age, wolf pups are unable to do so after 19 days. Because wolf milk contains more arginine than can be found in puppy milk substitutes, an arginine supplement is needed when feeding pups below the weaning age. Failure to do so can result in the pups developing cataracts. Wolves lack any alteration of their predatory behaviour, and can thus not be fully trusted in situations where their prey drive can be given adequate stimulation. In contrast to dogs, which are usually accepting of strangers, treating them almost as an extension of their pack, wolves become increasingly xenophobic and intolerant of strangers not part of their immediate pack as they age. While dogs readily, and actively form social bonds with humans, wolves can only do so in the absence of adult conspecifics. Pups under one year of age are generally not aggressive toward strangers, though their aggression increases with age, particularly during the mating season. Males may be more aggressive and difficult to handle than females. Wolves are difficult to contain in standard kennels, as they exceed dogs in observational learning and are able to quickly learn how to undo latches by simply watching their handlers do so. Once wolves learn how to escape confinement, it becomes near impossible to contain them.
Though wolves are trainable, they lack the same degree of tractability seen in dogs. They are generally not as responsive as dogs are to coercive techniques involving fear, aversive stimuli and force. Generally, far more work is required to obtain the same degree of reliability seen in most dogs. Even then, once a certain behavior has been repeated several times, wolves may get bored and ignore subsequent commands. Wolves are most responsive toward positive conditioning and rewards, though simple praise is not sufficient as in most dogs. Unlike dogs, wolves tend to respond more to hand signals than voice.