Your story clearly indicates this has nothing to do with it being a wolf. It happened to have a body that was capable of killing, yes. But the owner picked it up and slammed it whenever it misbehaved, and the owner actively encouraged it to kill things.
If your parents did that, you would do the same thing.
You see this kind of prejudice against pitbulls too. They're some of the sweetest dogs.
Do you believe that if you can't domesticate an animal, that it's inherently and randomly violent? Every single one, in all cases?
People live with tigers. You'd never say that they were domesticated. The majority of the time, this works fine. you only hear about cases where they turn on their owner, which is rare.
I've spent a long time thinking about this question, and it seems like the ultimate truth is that we humans are uncomfortable with anything that can possibly threaten us. If we can't win in a fistfight, we classify it as subhuman.
We don't really classify dogs as subhuman. We treat them like family. We love them. They love us.
If you think back to when gay people were oppressed, and are still being oppressed in Uganda (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2W41pvvZs0), the rhetoric against them is pretty similar to the type of thing you'd say to convince you that wolves are randomly and uncontrollably violent. It's at least an interesting coincidence.
It's not fair to label them. "Only get a wolf if you can stomach putting a bullet in its head after it brutalizes your kids." Are you sure it makes no difference in how you raise them? The article seems to support this.
Again, the specific wolf matters. But there are certainly wolves that don't have a high adrenaline response, meaning they are genetically predisposed to being nicer. They're not dogs, but they're not mindlessly violent.
It's important to realize that the comments in this post suffer from selection bias. Obviously, if you make a post about how wolves become nasty, you're going to get ten thousand stories about all the wolves anyone has ever seen that were remotely nasty.
I have no experience with wolves. I don't know one way or the other. Maybe you're right, and literally all of them will bite your kids. But almost no one here is speaking from first-hand experience, except this top comment. And that wolf owner was more interested in having a killing machine than having a new member of their family. It's important to be actively skeptical in that context.
So, there you go. I've tried to be thorough and intellectually gratifying. I will say that I've been teetering on leaving HN lately because no one seems to be willing to engage with controversial ideas anymore -- they want to shout them down. I try not to generalize like that, because HN isn't a single entity, but there are a variety of ways to stomp on intellectual curiosity without breaking the rules. Maybe if I just attach that disclaimer to the bottom of all my long comments, things will turn out differently.
> Do you believe that if you can't domesticate an animal, that it's inherently and randomly violent?
The wolf in the story wasn’t randomly violent. It was vying for a better spot in its pack’s hierarchy. It was exhibiting ambition. Unless you’re willing to be seen as an equal by an ambitious animal willing to rationally dispense violence to obtain its short-term goals, you don’t want a wolf. You want a nice, subservient dog whose competitive instincts vis-à-vis humans have been bred out.
The wolf biting the children may be related to being raised in an environment that included brutally murdering other animals at the owner's whim. We can't know whether that matters.
Not from this anecdote, but there is research on the topic.
Studying puppies at 3, 4 and 5 weeks of age: “compared to wolves, dogs tended to display more communicative signals that could potentially facilitate social interactions, such as distress vocalization, tail wagging, and gazing at the humans’ face. In contrast to dog puppies, wolf pups showed aggressive behavior toward a familiar experimenter and also seemed to be more prone to avoidance. [1]”
Approach avoidance through biting and other behaviours are discussed in the same paper’s “discussion” section.
Later, they find wolves are worse at yielding to humans, keeping eye contact, sensing changes in vocal intonation or context when multiple people enter the room, et cetera [2].
You could say the same thing about introverts. (I promise that's a genuinely thoughtful point, not an offhand dismissal.)
Research into the question of whether wolves are different will discover that wolves are different.
I appreciate the cite, but it isn't evidence that wolves will maul children just because they're ambitious. Maybe they do; maybe you're right. All we can say for certain is that we don't know.
I think you could make the same points about lions, yet there is evidence of lions loving their owners and treating them with the same emotional bonds as a family member.
> it isn't evidence that wolves will maul children just because they're ambitious
I agree, the research doesn’t say this. It says wolves offer a lower tolerance for making mistakes, a higher cost when things go wrong and fewer aids (e.g. picking up on intonation, instinctive subservience) to help you along.
You can do it. (Our ancestors did.) You’ll just have an animal vying for your seat in the pack, because it honestly thinks (warning: anthropomorphising) it can do a better job than your weak, debilitated ass in promoting the survival of its pack. Which it sees as much as its as much as it is yours. If someone is okay with that, fine. But understand the risks, that lots of people who thought they understood the risks didn’t, and that the worst-case outcome involves your animal killing someone’s kid or having to be put down because of your hubris.
Ah, I didn't mean to give the impression that owning a wolf would be a good idea. It's certainly perilous, just like living with a tiger.
I just think they can love you in their own way. If someone wants to explore the question, and they're doing so safely and only risking themselves, then it's probably no one else's business.
On the other hand, it's hard to imagine how that could be done safely, so I concede. Thanks for the interesting debate.
> I just think they can love you in their own way.
Yes. In the same way your sociopath childhood friend might love you. They will prioritize you over others (probably because you're known and they can anticipate your behavior), and use you or allow you to use them when they think it is beneficial. Don't expect sacrifice or compassionate understanding though, and don't expect your feelings to have much weight beyond how they affect your attitude towards them (or how you can affect the attitudes of others).
I had two indoor outdoor cats, neither of which were neutered. I couldn't bring myself to do that to them. To my surprise, I found that none of the stereotypes were true, at least with one of them. He was the sweetest, most caring thing. He didn't care to assert dominance, he didn't try to fight, he didn't spray. He didn't do any of the things that people said cats will do unless neutered.
After an experience like that, you start to think differently about the world, and about people's unqualified opinions.
The fact is, you can't know. You are (and feel free to correct me) speaking based on no experience. I think there's at least one wolf in the world that would surprise you and defy your stereotypes.
But yes, you're probably correct in the general case.
> Do you believe that if you can't domesticate an animal, that it's inherently and randomly violent? Every single one, in all cases?
domestication is determined by a collection of genetic features that essentially stunt an animal's physical development as a juvenile, and it's not environmentally-instilled (or at least, not for the most part). you can treat a chimp or a bear like a pet from the day it's born, but one day it's almost invariably going to cause serious damage. people treat this as a proxy battle for racism but it's not even slightly controversial science.
i would also recommend reading about the effort to domesticate silver foxes. it was doable in about fifty years via culling of aggressive foxes, allowing the friendlier (ie, more juvenile) foxes to survive and breed.
You get my upvote for your last two paragraphs, and because you shouldn't be voted to oblivion simply for disagreement.
As for your comment further up the chain: No, pitbulls are not sweet. Pitbulls are unpredictable monsters. Where I live, they are prohibited, and for good reason.
> No, pitbulls are not sweet. Pitbulls are unpredictable monsters.
Do you have any direct experience with a well-loved, housebroken pitbull? In all my experiences with the breed, the only thing they're aggressive about is snuggling. /anecdata
Yes I have. She was sweet as sweet can be. But I never got to trust her.
They are bred for fighting. Not all that bright, and with fuses that are known to blow without apparent reason. Too many cases of owners suddenly attacked and maimed.
It's an American thing which has spread to the rest of us. Thirty years ago, we never saw these muscle- and fighterbreeds. I don't believe we were the poorer for it.
> It's an American thing which has spread to the rest of us. Thirty years ago, we never saw these muscle- and fighterbreeds. I don't believe we were the poorer for it.
Pitbulls as a general category have been around for hundreds of years and originated in Europe.
Pretty much. Imagine what it would be like to be born a wolf or a pitbull. If nature is stronger than nurture, what does that say about our own species? How likely is it that it's impossible to shape a wolf? Dogs came from them. It has to start somewhere; it's not a step function.
If your parents did that, you would do the same thing.
You see this kind of prejudice against pitbulls too. They're some of the sweetest dogs.