[Hansam]

I've trained upland game bird dogs for people who hunt grouse in Northern WI. That there is wolf country up there and after placing a few calls out to these former clients asking if their dogs had any adverse reactions to being in wolf territory the resounding answer was no.

The dogs have hunted in wolf territory and have even come across wolf tracks, scat and presumably areas with urine markings. None of them (6 that I called) reacted negatively at all. They simply continued on as they were trained and commanded to do, quarter, flush and retrieve.

There was one dog that got slightly nervous going into some deeper cover to find some grouse to flush but the owner simply issued the "Hunt!" command again and the dog pushed on. There were however no signs of a wolf in the area so it can't be said that the dog's nervousness was due to that.

These dogs are NOT pointers though, they are labs and flushing hunters. As such they've been trained to work close to the hunter - typically within 15 to 20 yards of the hunter/owner/handler. Perhaps pointers (which can roam long distances away from the hunter and even out of sight) are more susceptible to being scared by wolves' presence because of the fact they do not remain in close proximity to their people? After all dogs came from wolves and wolves ARE pack animals. A lone wolf is prone to be nervous and afraid of others if he's far from his pack. The same might be said of dogs too.