Does anyone have a good deal of experience with wolf hybrids?

 How did you come about getting your dog? What is his temperament like? He is beautiful!

 The majority of animals sold or identified as "wolf hybrids" are usually not. It is very profitable for people looking to make a quick buck advertise GSD, Sibe, Malamute or other "wolfy" looking mixes as hybrids. I have seen a lot of dogs that were supposedly wolf hybrids that were anything but, ranging from a 30lb ACD mix to obvious purebred Sibes or Sibe mixes and even an obviously purebred GSD. People ask me fairly often if my dogs are wolf hybrids and they are Belgian Sheepdogs. This is a good site about indentification of wolf hybrids:

 http://www.wolfpark.org/wolfdogs/Poster_section1.html

 They also have a great resource for wolf hybrid owners and people interested in them:

http://www.wolfpark.org/wolfdogs/index.html

Thanks a lot!

I rescued Denali from the local Animal Humane where he was listed as a shepherd cross. I can see that in him; I currently introduce him to people as a shepherd/malamute cross and insist a vet told me there's no way any time anyone mentions there being wolf in him.

As for temperment, he is a huge baby! He's very affectionate with my mother and I, but he's also very gentle with strangers (especially children and other dogs) but if someone (and more often with males than females) is bigger and tries to lean over him, it spooks him and he will back away or leap out of the way of their hands if they try to pet them. Once they have, though, he instantly warms up.
Often times he seems to get really spooked for no reason at all, though he is always well-behaved (he is a certified service dog who goes everywhere with me), but I know that wolf dogs are generally very skittish.

He is very, very playful and his favourite games are tug-type games, wrestling around, and, running. Or chasing, specifically.
In that aspect I think he has a high prey drive. At the dog park we frequently visit, he likes to chase the other dogs. He is always gentle with them if he catches up, but he does sort of mouth the back of their necks once, then go tumbling back into playing.
If someone throws a ball, he never goes after it, but, he does go after the dog chasing the ball.

Denali is also very non-vocal, which I know can be common in wolf dogs. He does have a bark, but he rarely uses it and hwen he does it's only after another dog has barked. Otherwise he makes a strange sort of half-hearted howling which is not something I have heard from dogs known for that sort of thing such as huskies. It's a very gruff, raspy, 'rooorooorooohh!'.

 The other thing I wonder about is he has a sort of ridge on his skull which cannot be seen, but can be felt. When I was volunteering at a teaching program at the local zoo, I remember handling a wolf skull that did seem to have that ridge, which, again, I have not felt in other dogs.
What do you think?

With his temperment - I'd say it'd be highly unlikely.

However. I did work closely with a hybrid at a shelter I used to work for. He was CRAZY smart, he'd open doors and let himself out of the office! He was friendly as anything, and loved other animals. I'd say Gavin was a huge exception.

In looking at your dog... something says keshond cross to me...

What area of the country is he from?

Well, I got him at a shelter in New Mexico, so I assume the owner was from here as well, though, you know, anything is possible.

Denali is also highly intelligent and I have seen him open doors (even locked, round-handled doors) before.

Also, if it is useful information, Denali is about...oh, three feet at the shoulder, and standing on his hind legs, he is only a little shorter than I am (I am 5'8).

Thanks for the feedback, everyone!

 i dunno if DNA testing is even worth it to find out, but i am kinda on the fence....... i mean he LOOKS like he could be.... but then again he could be just a mix of shepherd and malamute or perhaps shepherd/malamute x malamute. or some variation of that recipe.

i once had a husky/shepherd x chow and he looked like your dog ... except he was orange... like the chow. but his personality was very very .... umm... independent/dominant. i was a kid when we got him so i learned a few things like food aggression the hard way. food aggression and roaming the streets and stealing peoples groceries like ol' yeller were his worst crimes. but he was my best friend and EXTREMELY smart.

I wont say he is or isnt. i wont even say its unlikely because it IS likely because people do breed wolf dogs and sell them. our local wild life rescue had a pair of wolf dogs a few years ago that someone decided were too much to handle. and a woman not far from where i live used to breed wolf dogs and sell them in the paper. i met her ONLY because my mom was buying ducklings and peacocks from her. she had a wolf/shepherd male and a shepherd female as her breeding pair. last i heard though she had to have the male put down because he was aggressive and ended up GIVING away the pups. and no they werent treated like well loved pets. they were treated the same as her ducks and goats... livestock and a means for money.

and a shepherd i rescued from my cousin was supposedly a "king shepherd mix" and the kennel he came from actually had wolf infused into the breeding program. it was three generations back however. i met his mother's breeder actually, and by accident(much to my cousins embarrassment because she was with me when i had him examined!) this lady worked at our vet's office and had retired from the whole breeding/competing lifestyle because it depressed her. and when she saw the condition of the dog i brought in(the result of my cousin's hair brained breeding program and her misjudgment of owners-another story) she was reminded full force of how depressing it could be. he was a nervous wreck, weighed 80lbs when his healthy weight should have been 100bls, and he had a tear in one ear and a chipped tooth...

anyway..... Your dog is absolutely BEAUTIFUL!! and hey, post more pictures! you wont hurt my feelings!! i would like to see more because he's just that gorgeous lol 

also check out this person's art gallery. he/she owns a wolf dog and made a journal entry about how they feel about owning one and if they would do it again.

http://forsakewolf.deviantart.com/gallery/#Wolf-Hybrid-Stock

his muzzle is much more snippy compared to yours. 

and i agree.... there are people who will call any dog with pointy ears a wolfdog. i saw someone outside a grocery store giving away puppies that he called wolf dogs... after some talking(and he really was one of those well meaning idiots you love to hate) i found out the father was a lab and the mom was a husky.... "which is really nothin but a wolf anyway" ..... i would have taken the puppy just because it was cute and i felt sorry for it..... but to be honest glad i didnt.. 

the new puppy i have right now ((I WAS TOLD!)) is a dingo x golden/cocker.... she's more than likely australian cattle dog mixed with golden and cocker... as far as i know dingos are illegal to export unless you own a zoo... but she was given to me and i couldnt turn her down. whether or not she IS some kind of hybrid i dont care. i've handled worse..... and so far she's pretty darned smart and very affectionate. the ONLY thing that concerns me is if she's a bird dog mix can i ever trust her around my ducks lol 

Wow.

I looked at that gallery (and I actually saw a few of her pictures earlier today) and that dog looks very much like Denali, just with longer fur. His muzzle really isn't that much different than Denali's, either. Just a liiittle more tapered.

One other thing that may or may not be 'wolf-dogish' about him is that he is incredibly anxious when separated from me or my mom. So much so that in the rare instances when he is not going with us, he must be crated, or he will destroy everything. It's gotten to be a little less, but it was so bad at one point that he chewed through the floor of his crate and down to the foundation of our house!

In fact, he cannot even be trusted to be alone if, say, my mom has gone to work and I am still asleep. If left loose and unable to get into the room I am in (though he never 'asks', either, just sees the door is closed, I guess.) he will open the pantry, take a peanut butter jar, somehow unscrew the lid...He drags blankets off the couch, takes every thing he can out through the dog door. He destroyed a package of something like nine rolls of toilet paper just two weeks ago. ^^; He's...interesting.

But when he's not alone, he's an angel. xD

 Smart boy! My Chinese Crested does the "roo rooo woooo!" thing, when she's excited, LOL. I've rarely known non-northern breeds to do it, but her parentage is quite clear.

Your dog is SO beautiful!  I have no or very little experience with hybrids, so I don't have any input, there, but WOW what a beauty! 

8D Thanks!

You got pictures of your pup(s) up anywhere?

I have a tooon more of Denali up on my DevArt ( http://laskawolf.deviantart.com/gallery/ ;)

And even a video of his first time in the snow! Hehe. Who needs a boy friend when I got to spend Valentines in the mountains with my boy? x3
He had never seen anything but the city before, so he was amazed.

 the separation anxiety can happen in any breed. i had a coon hound puppy that trashed our house... when i got home from school i thought we'd been robbed because the curtains were missing off the windows.. but before i could get to the doorsteps i saw that big dumb red head pop up in the window... lord the mess was horrific when i got inside.....but i dont know if SA is more common in certain breeds or not. or if its a stress factor from when they are very young that just wasnt dealt with properly. the new puppy i have shows signs of having SA and i'm trying to deal with it before she turns into a monster lol

 my mom's collie would also howl. but only after meals and at 3am on the dot. she was just a strange little dog no matter how you looked at it lol

 His temperament sounds very much like a shiloh shepherd, to be honest, and it wouldn't surprise me if he was a cross from someone breeding for the 'giant original shepherds'. His face DOES look Keesie to me though. I really doubt there's any wolf at all in there.

Right, I know any dog can get separation anxiety, and Denali's could easily have been that he was totally emotionally neglected (he was fed and watered, I'm told) by his first family who gave him up because he had been "digging up the backyard". Surprisingly, he has not dug a single hole here. xD But I think I had heard somewhere that hybrids are more likely to have that sort of behavior. Described as "very needy" or "always needing to be with you".

 And howling huh? Cuuuute. I really want to teach Denali to howl. He has a beautiful voice and I wish I could get him to. I think I may have to take him up to the hybrid rescue someday so he can hear the wolves howling. xD

 lol i thought he looked familiar, i have seen him around DA a time or two

xD Awesome! I feel so famous....for him...

Famous for him...does that work? XD

 lol i think so - you ARE the reason why he's famous after all!