Okay, since you guys like to guess breeds..

My first thought was Great Dane.

That's what I thought too!  The shape of his face looks Dane to me.

ORIGINAL: rwbeagles
I don't see anything but shepherd personally. They come in a silver/sable color and even "blue"...sometimes their ears don't go up....and sometimes they are very, very big....

 
I'm with Gina.  He looks all GSD.  My sister has a black & silver GSD.  They can be kind of hard to find these days, but they are out there.  Oh, just in case you don't know already- Rio is absolutely gorgeous!

ORIGINAL: rwbeagles
Probably help more to see a pic or get a description of the mixed parent? How do you know the parent was mixed?
 
You know puppies can have different fathers within one litter so the silver bitch might've had a different daddy [] 

 
Unfortunately we are pretty aware of the parents. One of them came from the shelter I got Rio from and the other was that persons friend's dog. Apparently the guy didn't get the dog he adopted fixed and his friend came up and brought his dog who just happened to be the opposite sex and wasn't fixed either and they put them together and voila, puppies. This is what was told to the shelter owner and it could be true. The guy who adopted the dog apparently had some sort of disability. So she knew one of the parents and was told the other was the purebred or the mix. I don't remember which was which. Seeing as it was 2 dogs put together, I doubt there's more than one dad.
 
I was thinking Dane too based off his size. But I'd really like to see what his litter mates look like now to see if you can tell the other breed(s) from them. There were 8 in the litter.
 
As for hound behavior, the only hound behavior I know of is the baying. If you give me some descriptions I can tell you if he does them.
 
The only thing that seems to point away from these breeds is the fact that he talks likes a Husky. I've never heard a Shepherd talk, I'm sure it's possible, but it's nothing I've heard described about Shepherds. But his size and the size of his brother when I got him oint away from Husky.  
 
Shiva

And thanks to all those who commented on his looks.
 
 

I say Dane, too. The muzzle is what makes me think that.

OK, I've got a wild and crazy one:

Anatolian and GSD. Or, Tatra/Anatolian and GSD. Or, fill in the blank with a shepherdy looking livestock guardian, and GSD. There's a TON of guard dog breeders up where you describe, exactly because of the wolves. Even cattle farmers use guard dogs. Even small farms keep three to six dogs because of the severe predator pressure.

It's a terrible, but kind of neat problem, actually. It's nice that they don't go poisoning and shooting them, or at least most people don't, anymore (yes, it's illegal, but when did that ever stop a really determined farmer?). The big livestock guardian dog project that introduced them to this country, twenty years ago, was done around there.

Anyway, I thought Anatolian the second I saw that face. I want an Anatolian/Maremma female for my next guard dog puppy. Or possibly Anatolian/Tatra. Something just a little more aggressive than my big mushy old girl.

Never even thought of that! But Anatolians aren't common around the cities, even though I'm in the suburbs, it's still close to the cities, so I don't see them all that often. What's a Tatra? Guess I have some searching to do. I went out of my way, by 2 hours, to adopt Rio as he and his litter mates were the only Shepherd mixes I found on petfinder that caught my eye, that were in this state that is. There were some in other states, but I went to Wisconsin to get Dizzy and I'm not gonna go out of state to get a mutt when there's plenty of good ones here that need homes just as much.
 
Guess I'll research Anatolians and see if their description fits him at all. That could explain some of his behavior, barks at everything: the cats running around upstairs, a kids plastic bat left out where he could see it, me opening the door even though he knows I'm upstairs, etc. Thanks for that, I turely never wold have thought of Anatolian.
 
Shiva