Beverly

In 1993 dogs were reclassified as Canis Lupus Familiaris, a subspecies of Canis Lupus. There is no test currently, DNA or blood, to determine whether a dog has any "wolf blood" in him.

Nicole

There has been, to my knowledge, no court case against a hybrid owner that was lost by the hybrid owner when the issue involved was identification. In other words, the states, counties etc. have been unable to prove in a court the identity of a suspected hybrid. This is primarily because wolves and dogs are the same species and no scientist has yet found a DNA marker that will hold up in court to "prove" an animal has recent wolf ancestry.

They probably never will, partly because a number of dog breeds themselves have recent wolf ancestry (like German Shepherds - absolutely documented). Partly because scientists think dogs are multiphyletic, i.e. they probably arose more than once from different subspecies of wolves. This would make an Alaskan malamute more related to a North American wolf than it would be to a German Shepherd (which probably derived from a European wolf). We can all have our opinions about which animals look wolfy but this is just opinion. It does not hold up in court (at least so far).

.............Stephanie

Presently the answer to this question is no. There have been no genetic markers found to accurately do this test yet due to a lack of funding.

According to Dr. Robert K. Wayne there is about half a million dollars and maybe a couple years needed to finish the work needed to do this test. It has been on hold with no work being done on it now for many years.

One thing to keep in mind is that the wolf that all dogs descended from was the presently extinct southern type Eurasian wolf. This 40 lb. wolf very much resembled the dingo. Dogs descended from these wolves that man domesticated around 7 to 10 thousand years ago. This southern type separated from the northern wolf (the present day wolves) around 100,000 years ago.

There has never been a domestication of northern type wolf. Some of the so called northern breeds are the result of secondary domestication. That is that they were crossed with northern type wolves and then breed back with dogs again, these are the only dogs that are directly related with northern type wolves.

Just for a comparison, there is a genetic test to tell if an American Elk has any European Red Deer (European elk) in it that has quite accurately been used for over 5 years now. It is so accurate that they can tell you the odds of getting a purebred elk from the breeding of a purebred elk to a particular elk that is part red deer. This test was developed for the elk farming that has become quite common now days to prevent unscrupulous breeders from misleading people on the genetic background of stock they were selling. This test costs around $50.

BTW in Europe they call moose, elk. So elk are considered a type of deer there.

This test will be possible eventually.

Rick