Why are wolves forever wild?

Even though dogs are genetically similar to their ancestor the wolf, wolves are difficult to train and never quite lose the streak of wildness even when born and raised in captivity.

Biologist Kathryn Lord and her team at the University of Massachusetts may have discovered the reason for the difference between dogs and wolves, according to Discovery News.

It starts with the way they enter the world.

Wolf pups begin walking around and exploring their environment at two weeks old while they are still blind and deaf. They rely mostly on scent. When they start to hear, they are frightened by the sounds. When they start to see, they are frightened by the sights.

At the age of two weeks, puppies are just blobs. They don’t walk and start to explore the world until they have hearing and sight, around the fourth week. Since they don’t experience the sensory shock that wolf cubs do, they love exploring and seeking new stimuli with no fear.

Through thousands of years of being protected by humans, dogs get a more gentle start in life without danger of predators and other threats.

Through those same thousands of years, wolf cubs have experienced fear from their own developing sight and sound.

This may explain why dogs are easily socialized at a very young age while a wolf never gets over those early fears.

Comments

[Becky]

That's very interesting.

[Colby]

That's very interesting! It's nice to just be a blog for two weeks. I usually do that when I take vacation from work.

[Donna]

Love wolves.

And now I have a new visual to smile over...
"Puppy Blobs" :-)

[Sherry in MT]

YUP! Wolves are NOT pets nor should they be made out as such.

[Anne]

What an interesting study. And it really makes sense. We have a neighbor who owns a wolf dog hybrid. It's a beautiful animal but one day when it was loose it almost killed one of our poodles.

[Dennis the Vizsla]

hello jan its dennis the vizsla dog hay yes this mayks sense!!! we saw a dokyoomentry abowt dogs wun time and they had theez wolf pups wot had ben raizd in the howse like dogs and wen they got bigger they wer snappy littel monsters wot tried to jump on the taybels to git food and wood tayk yore fingers off if yoo offerd them a treet in other wurds they grew up to be tucker!!! only with bigger teeth and more of an attitood!!! ha ha ok bye

[yellowdoggranny]

wow.I never knew that.

[klara]

I like this site very much

[Jodi]

I think they're beautiful and magnificent animals, but no they are not designed to be pets!

[Georgia Little Pea]

I'm a bit intrigued by the wolf cubs showing fear the first time they see or hear something. Shouldn't this be completely natural to them if that's the way they evolved? Surprise, I get. Fear?