Alaska May Ban Dog-Wolf Hybrids : Pets: Officials are concerned about rare incidents of violence and whether vaccinations work. But the breed has its champions.

Kessie is a canine that can’t be housebroken, won’t fetch and killed a 4-week-old infant. Her owner loves her but wouldn’t buy another like her, and thinks the state should ban her kind.

The state may do that--once it figures out what Kessie and her kind are.

Prompted by the increasing popularity of hybrid dog-wolves, the state Department of Fish and Game is consulting lawyers with an eye toward regulating--perhaps even banning--the breeding, sale and ownership of the creatures.

“The current law says it is illegal to own a wolf and legal to own a dog,” says Phil Koehl, a wildlife biologist with the agency in Juneau. “The question is whether it is a wolf or a dog.”

The state Board of Game could take up the question of hybrids when it meets this fall, Koehl said.

No agency regulates the breeding and sale of hybrids. No laws regarding hybrids are on the books, and a computer search revealed that no legislation dealing with them has been filed in Juneau since 1982.

Koehl said the breed’s increasing popularity--and not the rare incidents of violence--is prompting the department’s look into regulation.

But officials in the Mat-Su Borough, center of much of the state’s hybrid breeding, say there’s a problem with vaccinating the hybrids against rabies, and the borough is considering local regulation.

Burton Gore, state veterinarian in Palmer, said national veterinary associations recommend against vaccinating “wildlife.” Because it’s unclear whether hybrids are dogs or wolves, it’s unknown whether the vaccine works on them.

Jerry Pineau, the borough’s chief animal control officer, said the borough stopped licensing hybrids last year and is looking into its powers to regulate the breed.

At least a half-dozen breeders in the state sell hybrids, ranging, they say, up to 98% wolf. Pineau said counting hybrids is difficult because many Alaska dog-owners don’t license their animals.

Nationwide, the number of hybrids has been estimated as high as 500,000--a popularity, hybrid owners and breeders say, spurred by the wolf-dogs’ beauty and, especially, by their mystique.

Mystique is the wrong reason to buy an animal whose instincts and personality are wild, said Barbara Heikes, owner of the animal involved in a rare but widely publicized incident last year.

“The combination of the dog and the wolf personalities produces a very volatile personality,” said Heikes, who bought Kessie for her beauty.

“People who own hybrids are all a little strange,” she said. “The hybrids are getting a bad shake because the wrong people own them. I really would like to see the state stop the breeding and selling of hybrids.”

Heikes had given Kessie away, but got her back after she killed 4-week-old David Paul Mahler.

The baby’s mother, Linda Borer, was visiting Kessie’s second owner and offered the child to a pregnant Kessie to lick. Kessie, who Heikes said was in the midst of a difficult labor, grabbed the infant by the head, puncturing its soft skull.

Authorities decided not to prosecute.

Mother wolves carry their pups by the head, and the wolf-dog didn’t bite the child, Heikes said, but the incident underscores her argument that essentially wild animals shouldn’t be pets.

“A wolf is naturally timid,” she said. “Dogs are much more aggressive. The more dog in a hybrid, the more vulnerable it is to bite out of fear or aggression. Hybrids are incredibly unpredictable.”

Werner Schuster, who said his Wolf Country USA north of Palmer is the world’s largest hybrid-breeding operation, argued that the differences between wolves and dogs are situational and dietary.

“A wolf in the wild is a wolf. A wolf in captivity is a dog. It ceases to be a wolf when it leaves the wild,” he said.

“We feed them dry dog food,” Schuster said, pointing to the 80 or so hybrids that roam to the ends of 15-foot chains attached to log doghouses. “If we fed them raw meat, they’d revert to being wolves.”

Schuster said he sells hybrids for $100 to $1,500. Buyers, he said, get good pets.

“Can you housebreak them? You bet. They housebreak themselves. They’re easily trained if you’re willing to work at it. They’ll roll over, fetch, jump in the air.”

He opposes banning the breed, but agreed that “certain kinds” of people should not buy hybrids, and said he won’t sell to them.

“Three kinds of people buy them. The macho kind--he’ll say he used to have a wolf and it killed three other dogs and he wants another one. We say, ‘Sorry.’ The other kinds want a really good pet. But some people don’t have no place for them. They really shouldn’t buy them.”

He said his wife, Gail, screens potential buyers.

Heikes said her wolf-dog is beautiful--but not a pet. It lives in a 20-by-20 chain-link kennel.

“I’m glad I got Kessie, but I wouldn’t get another hybrid,” she said. “It takes so much effort. You can’t housebreak them, you can’t turn them loose in the yard to play or fetch sticks because if they decided they wanted to go for a walk they would just start walking and go.”