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Eugene Animal Services On Rules For Owning Dangerous Dogs After Hybrid Attack

EUGENE, Ore. — Wolf hybrids on the loose in the Friendly neighborhood of Eugene caused a scare for locals and injuries to another dog.

Now, with the animals off the streets, Eugene Animal Services want residents to understand the rules around owning a dangerous dog.

Two wolf hybrids said to live near 32nd Avenue and Ferry Street were known for getting loose.

"In the past five years, they have been posted on Facebook that they have gotten out and either attacked a dog or attacked a cat," said Kenzi Miller, nutrition educator at The Healthy Pet. "I think it's really irresponsible for an owner to have a dog and not be able to properly care for them and especially a wolf hybrid dog. They require certain needs, and I don't think a neighborhood type setting really meets their requirements at all."

A resident posted on Reddit Christmas Day that while walking near Friendly Park, one of the two hybrid dogs attacked and bit their small poodle, but the couple fought the dogs off.

The poster said they hit the dog on the head with a mug to chase them off, and the dogs then ran down Monroe Street.

The city of Eugene Animal Services would later capture the hybrids.

"Our Animal Welfare officer responded, recognized the dogs from a previous welfare check we had on the dogs because the dogs were vocal they were barking. The owner recently passed away a couple months ago, so when they were off leash, one of the dogs attacked another dog that was being walked on leash," said Deb Sporcich, Animal Welfare supervisor, Animal Services.

Animal Services says the dogs are about four or five years old and could be a mix of malamute, husky, German Shephard, and wolf.

Workers at The Healthy Pet store in the neighborhood familiar with the animals say the dogs came from a breeder in Kansas and that breeders are partly to blame.

They say breeders should ensure wolf hybrids go to homes with plenty of acreage and opportunities to run off leash.

Neighbors we spoke with say they saw the post on Reddit and the Nextdoor App, but they never saw the hybrids themselves.

Animal Services tells us one of the dogs is now classified as a level three potentially dangerous dog (PDD) for the attack and warns other dog owners the designation comes with consequences.

"It's level one through five, so level one is a dog getting loose and chasing a cat across the street, and a level five would be a dog getting loose and killing the cat," Sporcich said. "Level one, it's a regulation that lasts for six months. It's a lower fee, lower restrictions. Level five -- higher fee, longer; it's a year restriction, and it's having the dog on a leash and a muzzle."

PDD owners must then buy a dog tag for a one time fee of between $25 and $200 based on the dog's danger level.

Level four, which comes from a bite on a human, requires a muzzle as well as level five when an animal kills a small animal or severely injures a human.

PDD must wear a collar noting their classification, and a sign must be posted on the fence where the dog lives.

The PDD regulations end after six months or after a year for levels three through five.

Meanwhile Animal Services warns that dogs within city limits must be leashed according to law, or they are considered at large when off their property.

"You are supposed to have your dog under control by a leash no longer than eight-feet long, and you have to be in control of that leash," said Sporcich. "The thing that I hear the most is that, 'My dog is friendly." Well, that's not okay to break the law if your dog is friendly because there are a lot of people out there that have had a negative experience with a dog that are scared of dogs."

Animal Services says there was a delay in classification of one of the dogs as a PDD.

As for the hybrids at the center of this week's attack, the dogs are now at Crux Sanctuary in Eugene; although, one of the dog's placed there could be in jeopardy due to the attack since Crux doesn't take in aggressive dogs.

Marra Watson, who owns Crux and houses and trains hybrid dogs at her own home, says one of the dogs in the attack is injured and had a vet appointment Friday afternoon.

"On our drive from their old home to their new one, they destroyed 2 leashes, 4 car seat covers, and one back seat. I didn't sleep the first 2 nights, spent working to settle them. Slept 11-4am last night. So that is improving & They have gotten increasingly less destructive and less howling every day."

"Wolfdogs are very sensitive and trust is not their strong suit. Getting new ones into rescue is like having a baby. You bring them home and struggle to figure out what they need to be happy and comfortable because that is largely different for every dog depending on what they're used to and what negative and positive associations they have, how much wolf content and how much dog, etc. Taking in new dogs equals sleepless nights."

"The boys are separated, Due to aggressive tendencies from the larger one towards the smaller. Both are placed with spayed female companions. They are awaiting their neuters and the small one is healing from an injury sustained to his knee on his walkabout when he escaped."

Animal Services has about 40 PDD classifications every year.

US Infant Killed By Wolf-dog Hybrid In Alabama

Wolf-dog hybrids are banned as pets in some US states, but are legal in Alabama

A three-month old infant was killed by its family's pet hybrid wolf-dog in the US state of Alabama, police have said.

The child died on Thursday in Chelsea, about 20 miles (32km) south-west of Birmingham, Alabama, from injuries that are suspected to have been caused by the animal.

The wolf hybrid was euthanised at the scene by a veterinarian, the Shelby County Sheriff's office said.

The city's mayor called the death "unfortunate and tragic".

"It's been confirmed that one of our children here in Chelsea was killed by an exotic family pet and succumbed to their injuries yesterday afternoon after being taken to the hospital," said Mayor Tony Picklesimer in a statement.

Police said they were called to the home of the infant on Thursday at around 13:00 (19:00 GMT) local time, after a 911 call was placed for an animal attack.

The infant was then taken to hospital, where they were pronounced dead due to injuries sustained from the attack.

Police described the animal as a "wolf hybrid" that was kept by the family of the infant as a pet.

They added that they continue to investigate the circumstances leading up to the child's death.

Mayor Picklesimer told BBC's US partner CBS that there were other children inside the home at the time of the incident.

A similar incident occurred in 2018, in which an eight-day-old baby died after being attacked by its family's three-year-old wolf hybrid in Virginia.

What is a wolf hybrid, and are they legal to keep as pets?

According to the International Wolf Center in Minnesota, a wolf-dog hybrid is the child of a domestic dog and a wolf that had been mating.

"These two species are interfertile, meaning that they can interbreed and produce viable offspring," the Center stated on its website.

"In other words, wolves can breed with dogs, and their offspring can produce offspring themselves."

They are often confused with wolfdogs, which are domestic dogs with higher-than-normal wolf ancestry, said Giselle Narvaez Rivera, a wolf curator with the International Wolf Center.

She added that wolf-dog hybrids are much less common in the US than wolfdogs.

Whether they make good pets or not has been a topic of much contention.

A few people are successful in keeping a wolf hybrid as a pet, according to the International Wolf Center, and the higher the wolf percentage is in the animal, the less likely they can be kept as a house pet.

Thousands of them are abandoned in the US every year because people purchase an animal they are not prepared to care for.

Ms Narvaez said owning a hybrid wolf-dog as a pet can be challenging because of their complex and unpredictable behaviour.

"If you are going to do it, you have to take so many things into consideration especially if you're having kids," Ms Narvaez Rivera told the BBC.

Federal law in the US classifies wolf hybrids as domestic animals, therefore making it legal to own one as a pet.

However, most US states have their own laws regulating the breeding and ownership of such animals that sometimes vary by county.

A few states, like Illinois, Michigan and New York, have made it illegal to keep a wolf hybrid as a pet.

It is not illegal to own a wolf hybrid in Alabama, though there are rules around how they should be kept and confined.

In the UK, first-generation wolfdogs - where one parent is a wolf - require a licence to own, as outlined by the Dangerous Wild Animals Act of 1976.

However, it is legal to own one as long as it is three generations away from the original parent wolf.

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Plug-in Hybrids Are A 'wolf In Sheep's Clothing'

Carbon dioxide emissions from plug-in hybrid cars are as much as two-and-a-half times higher than official tests suggest, according to new research.

Plug-in hybrid vehicles are

They account for 3% of new car sales.

But analysis from pressure groups Transport and Environment and Greenpeace suggest they emit an average of 120g of CO2 per km.

That compares with the 44g per km in official "lab" tests

Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) are sold as a low-carbon alternative to traditional vehicles and conventional hybrids - which cannot be recharged from an external source - and are proving increasingly popular.

The new research is published as the government considers whether to bring forward a proposed ban on the sale of new petrol, diesel and conventional hybrid cars from 2035 to 2030.

'Official' versus 'real world'

The BBC understands one suggestion is that plug-in hybrids should be given a stay of execution, with new sales allowed to continue until 2035.

That's because they can offer a 20- to 40-mile range as a purely electric vehicle and are therefore potentially significantly less polluting than other vehicles.

But this new analysis from Transport and Environment and Greenpeace suggests they don't offer anything like the carbon dioxide savings claimed for them by manufacturers.

The official tests indicate that plug-in hybrids emit an average of 44g per km of CO2. These tests are conducted on a circuit and see vehicles driven in a way that regulators consider "normal".

The real figure, however, according to the report, is more like 120g per km.

The pressure groups have analysed what they say is "real-world" data on fuel efficiency collected from some 20,000 plug-in hybrid drivers around Europe.

These are drivers who have chosen to record their mileage and fuel consumption for surveys or who drive company or leased vehicles whose fuel efficiency is recorded.

According to this data-set the lifetime emissions of a plug-in hybrid average around 28 tonnes of CO2.

By comparison, the average petrol or diesel car is estimated to emit between 39 and 41 tonnes of CO2 from fuel during its lifetime, a conventional hybrid would typically emit more like 33 tonnes.

According to these figures a plug-in hybrid would only deliver an emissions reduction of about a third on a typical petrol or diesel car - far less than the official estimates.

The motor industry acknowledges that lab tests don't always reflect real-world use but criticised the report, saying it uses emissions data from a test that is two years old.

"PHEVs provide a flexibility few other technologies can yet match with extended range for longer, out-of-town journeys and battery power in urban areas, reducing emissions and improving city air quality," Mike Hawes, the chief executive of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders told the BBC.

He says he expects the range and performance will continue to improve, making them an "essential stepping stone to a fully electric vehicle".

Greenpeace meanwhile describes PHEVs as "the car industry's wolf in sheep's clothing".

"They may seem a much more environmentally friendly choice," says Rebecca Newsom, the pressure group's head of politics, "but false claims of lower emissions are a ploy by car manufacturers to go on producing SUVs and petrol and diesel engines."

Driver behaviour

Transport and Environment's analysis says a key problem with plug-in hybrids is that so many owners rarely actually charge their cars, meaning they rely on the petrol or diesel engine.

Another is that many plug-in hybrid models include design features that automatically turn on the petrol/diesel engine at start-up on a cold day, or will kick in that engine if driver accelerates hard.

The latter mode means that the car's emissions will depend a lot on the driver's behaviour.

"If you always charge the battery and tend to do lots of short journeys, they will have very low emissions," says Nick Molden, who runs Emissions Analytics, a company that specialises in vehicle emissions evaluation.

"If you never charge the battery and drive very aggressively then they can have significantly higher emissions than the equivalent petrol or diesel model," he continues.

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