Hello fellow wolf lovers!
A while back, we ran into a wolf dog and his family. The poor dog was paralyzed from the shoulders back. The owner attributed it to a rabies vaccination. He said that wolves and wolf dogs cannot receive a rabies vaccination because it disintegrates their spinal column.
Has anyone heard of this? Is there any truth in it? Perhaps the vaccine is different, has changed, or the protocol is different for wolves or wolf dogs?
Just curious...

Havnt heard of this but can tell you that I have successfully rabies vaccinated high % wolfdogs with no trouble whatsoever.

Owning hybrids and wolfdogs, and all rabies vaccinated, never had any problems.
I know a lot of Czeck and Saarloos wolfdogs and never heard it from them as well. But I did read something familiar on the internet... Somebody claiming that you can't vaccinate coyotes and wolfdogs at all! So, the pup wasn't vaccinated and got parvo

yeah, well who knows who this guy was. glad to hear that this is not the case.

I know an area where there is a highly endangered wolf species, they are vaccinating the wild wolves because there is a HUGE feral dog problem. The dogs are giving the wolves rabies They're losing huge numbers

Other question... Why is that poor animal still alive!
Paralyzed from the shoulders... poor thing

Oh, I don't know...my husband met the guy...he carried the dog around. I guess the dog was really sweet. The guy was at the Medieval Faire in Ohio. don't know much more about it. It just sounded odd to me and I thought I'd ask because you guys would know the answer...I knew you would

Or perhaps the dog had an adverse reaction to the vaccine...? I have read on the internet about vaccinosis, but I don't know how much truth there is to it. I do know that every individual is different, so the dog's paralysis could have been a combination of different factors - the vaccine being one of them? *shrugs* I was shooting in the dark.

Yes a lot of dogs have had adverse reactions to vaccinations, even resulting in deaths, I have read abuot this but do not know anyone who it has happened to, it is very rare, but to suggest that all wolves and wolfdogs will suffer from this reaction is a bit daft.
And like Lynn said we have vaccinated (rabies and normal booster jabs) a high percentage wolf-dog before with no problems.

Honestly, I'm almost certain that wolves and wolfdogs can (and, indeed, should) be vaccinated against rabies. Genetically they are almost exactly the same; all dog breeds are descendant from wolves so it doesn't make logical sense that the vaccination wouldn't work or that it would be harmful for wolves or wolfdogs. The DNA is virtually indistinguishable! To me it seems like a political motive: to prevent (or make it more difficult) for people to legally own wolves / wolfdogs. That being said, there are some individual dogs that do have adverse reactions to vaccinations but that can happen completely randomly and I don't think it's species / breed-specific at all. It's just a matter of chance.