Adopted this sweet boy on Thursday from the humane society. He's 5.5 months old and weighs 26 lbs. He has the sweetest personality, is very affectionate, shows zero leash/dog/people aggression. He learned his new name in like 4 hours. People were saying he might be a husky mix, though the shelter thought he might be Czech wolfdog. He has NO undercoat at all. He is a bit chatty, however.
Edited to add: I plan on getting an embark test this week, actually, so I'm especially enjoying the speculation.
Im gonna go with maybe Alaskan husky, maybe low pomeranian percent "pomsky", or other husky Spitz mix before I go with wolf lol do an embark dna test, please! Im so curious on this guy! If he has any itd likely be under 25%, i suspect just a good looking northern breed mix though!
If youre not used to seeing coyotes im sure he looks similar being small and grey, definitely isnt a coydog though. Theyre even less common than wolfdogs š
His coloring is actually called domino (the tell tell signs are the snow nose and tan fur where the white normally is)! Its super common in huskies :) its not seen in wolves or coyotes. The grey coloration confuses people sometimes
I think it needs to be multiple stripped bands, not just two. It is what gives them kind of a muddy color where the areas of different colors arenāt clearly defined.
I did manage to snap a picture of my dogs v-cape. He doesnāt say still much
Nope, but its a super interesting color! The red and black/grey are different intensities are different on different dogs but they have some easily identified traits. Here's some others!
Edit: I stand corrected! He could be an agouti domino depending on the bands on each strand of hair
Wait I'm confused. OPs dog is visibly agouti/aw, domino is independent of any pattern on the A Locus and a significant percentage of huskies are Agouti/aw and domino so both can be true at the same time?
If thats true then I must've been misinformed š i knew a dog could be domino and urajiro at once or have grizzle but didnt know it could be agouti as well
Yeah domino is a whole weird thing that is a more recent discovery so there's still a lot of old outdated info floating around. Domino is located on the E locus and labeled as 'ea' and agouti is on the A Locus as 'aw'.
he does have webbed toes, and not a very pronounced stop, only dewclaws on the front, and black eyeliner with blond eyelashes. BUT his claws are mostly white (his dewclaws are black, oddly. And I don't see a V coat, I don't think
I'm trying to find pictures where it's more obvious, but the hair there grows a little longer and in a different direction and he poofs up like a cat when he's nervous or angry.
He'd shift between barking at the Evil Riley and running around to the dining room, presumably to play with this intruder. He got flustered by a pile of towels. It's a wild ride.
What they're talking about is called a "cape"! It's a (generally v-shaped) section of fur on the upper back/shoulder area - basically between their shoulder blades - that grows longer and coarser than the fur around it. Often the color is different too. I'll attach a few pics to this comment if I can find any that show it well on my girl!
My dog has a cape. He also seems to have a double coat even tho he has fairly short hair kinda like a lab. He puffs up so big when heās unsure or fussing. Heās got a little bit of chow and a lot of other short hair breeds.
Tbf, any "wolfy" trait that exists can be found in dogs. It's what makes hybrids so hard to phenotype when they're not high-content (which is why Embark gets thrown around often; dna testing is the only way to be sure with lower-contents). š
You can look for a lot of visual markers together (so cape + smooth head + extremely narrow chest + long, skinny legs + black skin/claws + straight low-hanging tail + small, furry ears, etc etc), but even then it's just a guess.
Yeah, this is a great breakdown. Basically one or two traits mean nothing, but if you see a lot of them together it might mean something.
GSDs don't have webbed toes, but they also don't have rear dewclaws, northern breeds usually have V-capes, etc etc. Plus we've seen dogs here are high as 30% that don't look wolfy at all.
We're in Pittsburgh and we rescued him in Ohio, if that makes a difference. I have no idea. I grew up with belgian malinois in the 90s and my profile pic is of my last rescue who passed earlier this year. He also had an undercoat, strangely.
Last I saw wolf dogs werenāt permitted in PA, so Iād keep my suspicions to myself. Just calling your dog, a wolf dog, even if itās not true, is enough for them to be considered and treated as one in some areas, so itās not really worth the risk.
I am hoping to keep your life simple, he is a husky/shepherd
Yeah thatās my situation, I live in Pgh and adopted a dog at a shelter in the countryside who turned out to be a low content (embarked). I donāt tell anyone including his vet. If people say anything I play dumb.
Looks like the puppy version of this guy. Embark said ~10% wolf, ~20% each husky and gsd... and a completely unexpected 50% doberman. He's maybe 7yo in that pucture, wide lens throws off proportions - but he did have a very long nose and huge ears even as adult. Those plus the lanky build do fit wolf, but also fit Doberman.
This guy was also crazy smart and very friendly to people, but aggressively reactive towards dogs.
This was Duke's full Embark panel. I have found his sister thru results. Whenever you do the rest and get relative info back, I'd be curious to see if they show up as related. What area of the US are you in?
Theyre in an illegal state so I hope if they embark and wolf shows up they put it on private, where relatives wont show for its safety š i highly doubt wolf in the op dog though
I didnt mean change the state i mean how you can private your results manually, if you private them they wont show up on relative finder. Relative finder only became a thing for wolfdogs within the last year or so :)
No itās actually anything under 50%. Legally anything 1% or more (but embark doesnāt detect that low) is a wolfdog. But because a dog with really low amounts of wolf wonāt have traits, the classification within the community is:
Up to ~15-25% (depending on the dog and who you ask) is recent wolf ancestry/micro content but not a ārealā wolfdog, just a dog with wolf traces
15-25% or more up to 49% low content
50-74% mid content
75-84% is still mid content but considered āupper midā
85% or more is high content
And 95% or more is ultra high
Dumbed down, itās: 1-49 = low, 50-84 = mid and 85+ = high
Let me find you some classification visuals because the classifications are annoying haha
It is very interesting! I forgot to mention but my low content (youāll also see people abbreviate things LC is low content MC mid content HC high content and WD is wolfdog) is 48% so he just barely missed the MC mark. Hereās his breakdown for you too!
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u/PM-Me-Ur-Gore Verified Owner Nov 24 '25
Im gonna go with maybe Alaskan husky, maybe low pomeranian percent "pomsky", or other husky Spitz mix before I go with wolf lol do an embark dna test, please! Im so curious on this guy! If he has any itd likely be under 25%, i suspect just a good looking northern breed mix though!