Wolf hunting with dogs
[1] As wolves are not as fast as smaller canids such as coyotes, they typically run to a low place and wait for the dogs to come over from the top and fight them.
[2] Theodore Roosevelt stressed the danger cornered wolves can pose to a pack of dogs in his Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches: A wolf is a terrible fighter.
I have known one wolf to kill a bulldog which had rushed at it with a single snap, while another which had entered the yard of a Montana ranch house slew in quick succession both of the large mastiffs by which it was assailed.
The immense agility and ferocity of the wild beast, the terrible snap of his long-toothed jaws, and the admirable training in which he always is, give him a great advantage over fat, small-toothed, smooth-skinned dogs, even though they are nominally supposed to belong to the fighting classes.
A mastiff, if properly trained and of sufficient size, might possibly be able to meet a young or undersized Texas wolf; but I have never seen a dog of this variety which I would esteem a match single-handed for one of the huge timber wolves of western Montana.
[4][page needed] After the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland, Oliver Cromwell imposed a ban on the exportation of Irish wolfhounds in order to tackle wolves.
[5] According to the Encyclopédie, wolf hunting squads in France typically consisted of 25-30 good sized dogs, usually grey in color with red around the eyes and jowls.
Once the scent had been found, the hunters would give a further recitation in order to motivate the dogs; "qu'est-ce là mon valet, hau l'ami après, vellici il dit vrai".
The two teams of lévriers d'estric would be placed at separate points on the borders of the forest, where the wolf was expected to run to.
[7] Covers were drawn by sending mounted men through a wood with a number of dogs of various breeds,[8] including deerhounds, staghounds and Siberian wolfhounds, as well as smaller greyhounds and foxhounds,[2] as they made more noise than borzoi.
Of the latter, he took a pair of large, white, shaggy animals which he would turn loose against wolves in the Sioux sacred Black Hills.
Roosevelt wrote that many ranchmen of Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana in the final decade of the 19th century managed to breed greyhound or deerhound packs capable of killing wolves unassisted, if numbering in three or more.
These losses induced the state to begin a dog insurance policy in order to reimburse wolf hunters.
Both James Rennie and Theodore Roosevelt wrote how even dogs which enthusiastically confront bears and large cats will hesitate to approach wolves.
As pups, Russian wolfhounds are sometimes introduced to captured live wolves, and are trained to grab them behind the ears in order to avoid being injured by the wolf's teeth.
