Wolf-Dog More Than She Expected ‘German Shepherd’ Let Into House By Woman With Baby

A Spokane Valley woman who thought she was rounding up a stray German shepherd accidently let a wolf-hybrid slip into her house, where she was tending her 3-month-old daughter.

“He ducked right between my legs and ran in and laid down under the living room table,” the woman said. “He sort of surrendered.” The animal remained docile until she tried to attach a leash to its choke collar. Then it struggled and “went schitzy,” she said.

The woman, who lives on Valleyway west of Pines, refused to give her name.

“Let’s not make a big deal out of this. I just want him taken care of,” she said of the animal as it sat in one of the small cages on the county animal control truck.

“What a shame. He’s beautiful,” she said.

From the back of the cage, the light gray dog-wolf mix looked a bit apologetic and uncertain about his predicament.

The animal, which had been seen around the neighborhood several times in the past few weeks, began hanging around the family’s home on Valleyway over the weekend.

“We thought it was a German shepherd,” the woman said.

After the animal attacked the family’s dog, the woman’s husband used dog food to lure it into the family’s garage. The animal jumped through a window, breaking the glass, to escape.

That’s when the woman decided to let the animal into the house.

“Then I thought I could keep it in an enclosed part of the house,” the woman said.

She let the animal in her back door, but it didn’t want to remain in the enclosed entryway any more than it wanted to stay in the garage.

When she opened the inner door, leading into the house, the animal slipped past her.

Once she realized she had a potentially dangerous situation, the woman called the animal shelter.

“I thought, ‘What am I doing?”’ the woman said.

“This dog is a wolf,” said Jennifer Kline, the county animal control officer who answered the call.

The first thing Kline did upon arrival was to tell the woman to take her baby into another room.

The young male is perhaps a year old, Kline said.

Kline called for back-up help to load the animal into the cage on the back of her truck. The animal struggled and snarled while the two officers loaded it.

Kline said the hybrid would be held at the animal shelter for 72 hours, giving its owner a chance to find it. By Wednesday morning, no one had contacted the shelter about the animal.

Animal control officers run into wolf hybrids about once a month, Kline said. It’s difficult for them to tell just how much wolf is in the cross-breeds.

“All the literature on them shows that they’re dangerous. That’s why we would like to ban them in Spokane County,” Kline said.

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