CZECHOSLOVAKIAN WOLFDOG – The Ultimate Guide / Animal Watch
hello and welcome to animal watch and
today I’ll be talking to you about how
to care for a Czechoslovakian wolfdog
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I will be explaining the origins of the
breed their character their dietary
requirements if they can be trained how
to groom one how to walk and harness
them up and finally whether this dog is
suitable for you in your home this is my
Czechoslovakian wolfdog
Kumi and she’s from an italian line but
where exactly did the Czechoslovakian
wolfdog originate from
the Czechoslovakian wolfdog was
developed by the Czechoslovakian army in
1955 when the countries of the Czech
Republic and Slovakia were joined
together the army was looking for a dog
that would have the temperament pack
mentality and trainability of the German
Shepherd dog and a strength physical
build and stamina of the Carpathian wolf
the weather extremes were very harsh
that the army were working in so they
felt that by introducing wolf blood into
the breed they could toughen the German
Shepherd up and improve their senses
initially they bred a female Carpathian
wolf named Britta to a male German
Shepherd called Caesar but the first
generation puppies were not trainable as
army dogs as they were nervous and
unresponsive but several generations
later with consecutive breedings back to
German shepherds puppies were produced
with higher endurance better sense of
smell night vision and hearing so what
about character well Czechoslovakian
wolfdog differ greatly
now Kumi here is very very different to
mr. blue who I’ve got at home some wolf
dogs are more nervous than others and
others are far more confident now COO me
here when I take her out in public
she’s very guarding she’s very wary of
strangers she tolerates dogs but she
doesn’t particularly like them if people
come up to her very very quickly she
often shows her teeth she likes people
to be respectful and keep their distance
mr. blue on the other hand is very very
friendly he’s a bit of a puppy he loves
to be touched and he loves a 10
so the general character with the
Czechoslovakian wolfdog is that it’s
never always going to be the same but
one thing you can say for sure is
they’re a little bit like a German
Shepherd so if you think about that
guarding instinct that a German Shepherd
has then that is sort of what you’re
getting with the Czechoslovakian wolfdog
and intensify that make that far more
raw and that is what you’re getting one
question I get asked a lot is do
Czechoslovakian wolfdog make good guard
dogs well absolutely not compared to a
German Shepherd and a Malinois that are
really brilliant guard dogs the
Czechoslovakian army did originally want
to breed them to become border control
dogs so you would think that they would
make good guard dogs but because of the
timidness of the wolf this has sort of
diluted that effect down quite rapidly
and to be quite honest these dogs can
guard you but they are more interested
in looking after themselves so if I’m
going out on a walk with Kumi and
somebody was to approach me and she was
to show her teeth it might be more
because she was worried that they were
coming towards her and coming towards me
mr. blue on the other hand who’s a
little bit more German Shepherd II and
Kumi here he could have the potential to
guard me but certainly nothing in the
capacity compared to a German Shepherd
or a Malinois now in my back garden if I
was to have people approach my house
these two would certainly look like they
were guard dogs they would probably bark
a lot they would probably jump up at the
fence mr. blue possibly would run at
people whereas Kumi here I think would
run away because she’s got more of a
wolf temperament and she’s far more
inclined to looking after herself so if
you’re thinking of getting on one of
these dogs as a guard dog and don’t
bother I will advise it you go for a
German Shepherd or a Mallory
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one question I get asked a lot is are
they good with children cats and small
dogs well let’s break that down a little
bit now I’ve got two children that have
raised with these two dogs and honestly
I haven’t found any more gentle dogs
than these both they are not aggressive
dogs to children and the children in
your family are going to be part of your
pack and these dogs will know that your
children are part of the pack and they
will be gentle and they will be lovely
with them but the one thing that I would
be very very careful is is they’re
incredibly energetic dogs they have very
very sharp claws and massive feet so
even though they’re going to be very
gentle and loving to your children
because they love them and they’re part
of their pack they’re still going to
jump on them and they’re still going to
accidentally scratch them so I would say
that probably these dogs are not for
families that have babies or very small
children and there would be much suited
to the older child probably age Aysen
above as far as cats go well I’ve never
had a cat so I can’t really comment that
I can talk about other people that I
know most people I know that have wolf
dogs generally do avoid small animals in
the house including cats now you could
have a cat that was living in the house
first and you could gently introduce the
dog to your cat and it might work out
but just to err on the side of caution I
would say it’d be probably best not to
have a cat in the same house these dogs
certainly enjoy chasing things so if
your cats like to run around a lot and
run up the garden then they’re going to
chase them and it’s going to become
incredibly stressful for your cat now as
far as small dogs there’s no reason why
these animals cannot live with a small
dog but one thing which I have found out
about my check is the vacuum wolf dogs
is that they do not tolerate bad manners
so if you have a small dog that is
really snappy and really nasty these
dogs will not put up with it so you can
only have them living with a smaller dog
if they’re very Placid
and a very nice well-behaved dog if
you’ve got one of those small little
Pomeranians or chihuahuas that growl and
snap and bite I would say that they’re
been living on borrowed time so what if
you want to abandon your war dog well
this is something that we do need to
talk about dogs get abandoned every
single day into shelters but what
happens if you want to abandon one of
these types of dogs well it’s completely
different because of the temperament of
a wolf dog and I’m not just talking
about a Czechoslovakian wolfdog I’m
talking about wolf hybrids all over the
world you become their world you are
their family you are their pack and they
are incredibly mistrusting to everybody
else outside the family unit so if one
day you turn around and you take them
down a shelter and you drop them off and
you don’t come back their whole life
crumbles and falls to pieces they can
become incredibly aggressive so anybody
else that isn’t you
they can not want to go near which makes
them incredibly hard to re-home they
sometimes end up staying in shelters
simply because they can’t be touched by
other people they can Pine and it hurts
them desperately they can shut down and
even when you find a new owner it can
take them months and months and months
to trust that owner again one thing that
wolves don’t do is they don’t forget and
this is something that a wolf dog has
inherited from the wolf everything that
has happened to them in the past they
never forget and they’ll never forget
being abandoned so if you want one of
these dogs it’s for life you never give
up on a wolf dog
one question I get asked a lot is can
you train a check as the vacuum wolfdog
she goes I’ve got friends that have
trained them really really well so yes
you can train them but for the average
person there might be a little bit lazy
and I’ve got to admit I’ve been a little
bit lazy training her but I have given
her some basic commands so I’m gonna
show you these on camera and you can
make up your mind so whether you think
that she’s a well-trained dog or not
Kumi kami come pay good go give me sit
good girl well done Kumi to me can we
pull good good go Kimmy Kimmy right Kumi
down good oh good goats to me all right
now Kumi kami kami up up good girl some
Czechoslovakian wolfdog can also do
agility very well some armed and trained
and others make exceptional sniffer dogs
one of the questions I get asked is do I
grew my Czechoslovakian wolfdog and how
well Kumi here I hardly ever groom now
you can see that she’s not entirely
short coated she’s got some long hair
around the neck or she’s got some long
hair on the tail but wolves in the wild
I’ve got the type of coats which when
they molt it just sheds out and it sort
of just gets blown out by the winds
luckily for this breed they’ve sort of
inherited a lot of that so unlike her a
salad or an Alaskan Malamute that really
does need to be groomed right down to
its base coat these dogs can get away
with not being groomed you should though
give them a little bit of a brush if you
think they might be getting a little bit
matted but
Kumi hair doesn’t really like it so if
you’ve got two Czechoslovakian dog like
mine you might have to think of some
of tricking them into being groom now
for a start we’ve got probably the worst
one of all which is a comb now let’s see
what she makes off the comb if I start
using that oh it’s actually okay today
she doesn’t let me do this Holmes that’s
that’s actually pretty good at home she
won’t tolerate this so if you find that
your check wolf dog runs away from you
and you want to use something a little
bit more gentle you could go for this
it’s a very soft bristle brush and if
you stop grooming them from when they’re
very young and a puppy it will become
something that they enjoy and she’s
actually doing really well with this
today and that’s all you really need is
a quick run over with one of these
brushes now these sometimes the dogs
don’t particularly like that but it can
really get that face kotel she’s doing
really well with this oh there we go is
that no no but when I’m at home with her
and this she likes to run away from me
but that’s a very good brush for getting
right down to the base coat and of
course if your dog is very very
squeamish and likes to run away you can
trick them with one of these brilliant
little mitts where they think that
you’re giving them a nice stroke
all right so what do you feed a wolf dog
well I recommend the bath diet which
stands for biologically approved raw
food for dogs which looks a little bit
like this but it’s a lot better than it
looks if you look at a wolf dog it’s so
very very close to a wolf now a wolf is
a carnivore it has a short intestine and
it has all of that wonderful gut
bacteria to process raw food
I only ever feed a bath diet to my wolf
dogs and I would recommend a hundred
percent that you do the same if you’d
like to find out a little bit more about
the bath diet you can check out some of
my other videos which go into more
detail about it but it’s very easy to do
a bath diet and you can purchase it very
easily from your local pet shop another
question which people ask me are
Czechoslovakian wolfdog distractive my
two arms but don’t take my word for it
because believe you me I’ve been into
other people’s houses and they have had
their houses pretty much destroyed you
know might be sofas torn up or curtains
torn off or cushions tore up but do you
know what that’s the owner it’s not the
dog these dogs are so easy to be trained
out of being destructive and the moment
they came into my house I’ve trained
them on to Nayla bones and they didn’t
touch a single other thing in my house
I’ve never had my carpets touch they
haven’t chewed up anything they have
never been destructive so in my
experience these are not destructive
dogs they don’t dig in my garden either
but it has happened to other people so
make sure you get your training in when
they’re very young one of the questions
I get asked the most is how do I harness
up my wolf dog in order to take them for
a walk now Kumi here is a very timid and
nervous dog and sometimes she’d like to
run away
if somebody surprises her on a walk and
this is why security to me is is really
really really important so what I do
with Kumi which is a very very good idea
if your wolf dog is also a little bit
mistrusting and a bit nervous is I
Walker on a collar and a harness at the
same time so for this I’ve got a typical
harness which fits very well and what
I’m gonna do is I’m gonna put it on her
so you can see and when I clip it on it
fits snug it’s not tight so it doesn’t
rub into her but it’s very very snug
this means that if she gets spooked
she’s not gonna run away when I meet
somebody on a walk now in order to keep
her on the collar and the harness at the
same time you need to get something that
is called a bungee and you can get these
on websites sometimes you can see them
on husky sled dog web sites these are
great because what they do is they have
a loop and each end can fix to the
harness and the other end can fix to the
collar so what I’ll do with this is I’ll
fix one end to the collar as so and the
other end rounds here will go on her
harness like this now this means that if
she decides to slip out of her collar on
a walk
I’ve still got control of her on the
harness and if she wants to slip out of
the harness I’ve still got control of
her on the collar
so it’s a double security method so I
never ever lose her and what you’ll want
to do then is to get your leash and it
simply clips on to that bit and then you
have full control of them now another
security measure that I often do is when
I’m walking I like to put a walking belt
on now this enables me to walk a few
dogs at the same time now a walking belt
is like this and you can buy these
online I’ve got this
I believe online many many years ago and
all it does is stay there a minute Kumi
is I put this around my waist like so
and it’s got a couple of bars hanging
down now those are used to put these
special double-ended leashes on there
you can get these from your pet shop or
again online and what I do is I click
one end on here and she is attached to
me and what I would do is I will take
off the leash the short leash that I
showed you a minute ago and I’ll
substitute it with this now this means
that when I take her for a walk
she is attached to me so if something
frightens her she can’t pull out of my
hand and run away
she’s always attached to me oh I think
one of the things you’re gonna have to
watch out for is not getting pulled over
because obviously if your dogs are very
very strong and you’re not a very strong
person this could potentially pull you
flat when I’m walking my dogs I only
ever take two at a time I’ve got her on
one side and I’ve got mr. blue on the
other side and that means that I’ve
always got them under control and as I
stand up you can see that she’s safely
attached to me and it’s great because if
you go hands-free it means that you can
use your mobile phone whether you’re
making a phone call
or whether you would like to take some
nice photos of her when you’re on a walk
and you know that she will not get away
from you now the final thing I’d like to
talk to you about is keeping your dog
safe and I mean keeping your dog safe
because this could save their life now
depending on what type of wolf dog
you’ve got some of them don’t
particularly like people some of them
don’t particularly like other people’s
dogs and she absolutely hates the vet so
I’ve got this muzzle here now she
doesn’t particularly like the muzzle but
I’m saving her life by preventing her
from biting somebody if a dog bites
somebody on your premises whether
they’ve even snuck into your back garden
accidentally you could be taken to court
or worse still your dog could be put to
sleep so when you’re walking your dog
and you’re not sure to whether they
might overreact in a situation you
should always carry a muzzle
you at all times it doesn’t mean you
have to use it all the time
but if you feel that the situation needs
that she needs to have something like
this on it could save her life
and I’ll show you quickly how it goes on
like so and what you have to do is you
have to train your dog to get used to
them because I don’t particularly like
them to start with I wouldn’t keep them
on all the time because it stops them
from drinking and doing other things but
if you’re in one of those awkward
situations and you’re not quite sure of
what the dog is going to do you might be
down the pub and you know that she
overreacts when people walk past then
definitely carry one of these around so
finally the most important question of
all who is the perfect person to own a
Czechoslovakian wolfdog well if you say
no to one or more of the following
statements then you are probably not the
right person for a Czechoslovakian
wolfdog but it doesn’t mean that you
can’t come back at a later point in your
life when you are ready to answer yes to
all of the following questions otherwise
go and look number one someone who works
from home or can take the dog with them
to work
number two someone who can have more
than one dog for company number three
someone’s strong as these dogs are
powerful number four someone kind and
positive as a wolf dog cannot be hit or
dominated number five someone who isn’t
fussy about fur and possible furniture
destruction number six
someone with older children or none at
all
number seven someone who doesn’t have
small prey pets around number eight
someone who likes exercise and will walk
them often number nine
someone with a fence large secure garden
and number ten someone who will never
abandon this dog and who will love them
for life well if you enjoyed this
episode of animal
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