ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, December 27, 1996 TAG: 9612270020
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SANDRA BROWN KELLY STAFF WRITER
Three pet wolf hybrids were euthanized last month in the Roanoke Valley, pointing up the complexity of the animals' legal and biological situation.
The hybrids, which look like German shepherds, are legal to own and breed and are openly sold, including through classified ads in The Roanoke Times. But because they are hybrids, there is no guarantee that the rabies vaccines used on dogs work on them. The Virginia Department of Health requires that a wolf hybrid be destroyed if there is any concern that it has exposed a person to rabies.
Between Nov. 1 and 19, wolf hybrids from three separate owners in the Roanoke Valley were killed and their heads sent to state labs to be tested for rabies.
On Nov. 7, a 11/2-year-old wolf hybrid, described as 89 percent wolf, bit a friend of its owner at the owner's home on Forest Hill Avenue in Northeast Roanoke. On Nov. 19, a 11/2-year-old white wolf hybrid, owned by a Salem man, bit a veterinarian's hand at Hanging Rock Animal Hospital.
The third wolf hybrid was exposed to a rabid raccoon Nov. 1, and its owner chose to have it euthanized and tested because it had been around the owner's young child.
None of the hybrids had rabies, said Dick Tabb, manager of environmental health with the Roanoke and Alleghany Health departments.
Tabb said people need to be more alert to the potential for the spread of rabies, however.
Research is being done to pinpoint how rabies affects wild animals. Data is needed on how and when the symptoms appear and on whether the animals can be carriers and not actually get the disease, Tabb said.
A rabies vaccine is recommended for wolf hybrids, but its effectiveness has not been established, he said. Quarantining the animals to watch for signs of rabies instead of destroying them is not an option, either, because there is no established pattern for how rabies affects the animals.
Until recently, the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries required breeders of wolf hybrids to have a permit to own the animals.
Dr. Mark Finkler of Roanoke Animal Hospital said his office sees three pet wolf hybrids, and he described them as "real nice dogs."
"We explain the legal ramifications to the owners of wolf hybrids, though," Finkler said.
Pet ferrets also are considered wild under state guidelines, but Finkler said he disagrees with that designation because there is a rabies vaccine for them. Rabies is rare in ferrets, anyway, he said, because most are house pets and aren't outdoors.
Research on how ferrets react to rabies continues, according to correspondence from Dr. Suzanne Jenkins, epidemiologist with the state health department. Jenkins is chairwoman of the Compendium of Animal Rabies Control for the National Association of State Public Health Veterinarians Inc.
In November, the group reaffirmed its position that there is no acceptable rabies vaccine for wolf hybrids and ferrets.
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