Northern Inuit and Ute Discussions

He is lovely.

As I understand it, long coats are seen as a fault in the NI, although blue and odd coloured eyes are acceptable. Utonagans can have both the double and rough coats and blue or odd coloured eyes are a fault.

Rough coats? Ive not seen a rough coat, do you mean long coats?

We differentiate between the 2 types of coats by calling one double coated and the other with a longer coat, rough coated. Cariad is rough coated, she has nowhere near the heavy thick coat that my old girl Tawney, and the other older dogs had. My girls' great grandma Hanuka still has the very thick dense coat, but lots of people prefer the shorter double coat nowadays

What would you class my Sky's coat as?

I think the NI referred to it as 'heavy coated'.

I know that if I take her out with one of the 'standard' coated dogs, she gets all the hugs!

Yeah Cariad gets all the cuddles as well as she looks like a giant teddy and the kids just run full belt over to her!!! We walked past a school today where it was playtime and they all came running over to make a fuss of them, but it is mainly Cariad who gets the attention.

So are these the main differences between the NI and Utes, accepted coat length and eye colour?

as I can't really see any major differences between the two breeds/types. but do see differences within the 'breeds'

Sandra, Sky is lovely, fantastic thick heavy coat, Alicia loved brushing and cuddling her.

Although coat and eye colour are only cosmetic,and there are more important thigs to consider. Is a thick coat like Sky's still acceptable in the NI, as there are more of the short coats, to me the short coats don't look as wolfy. And I agree that blue and Bi eyes don't look wolfy either and can see why they are now a fault in (most of) the breed standards. But very dark eyes, and black and white colour coats don't look wolfy to me either.

Can you bring Alicia over next time you come - Sky could do with another good brush!

Joking aside. Are there differences in temperament and behaviour between Utes and NI?

Some Utes that I have seen have had softer, longer coats than the NI that I know. They also seem more collie like in their behaviour in that they can get obsessed with a ball and will happily work for a toy - whereas the NI that I know don't.

I have deliberately posted that this is in the Utes and NI that I know, because I am sure that there are dogs out there that aren't like this - again proving the differences within each 'breed'.

mine are all obsessed with the tumble dryer balls, trying to get my washing out, they always manage to get them. Had to stop taking retrieving balls out on walks too as Sapphire would take the ball in the lake to stop the others getting it, and Talli and footballs and bursting them, obsessed but in a different way.

lol on their terms then, not yours

I don't come on these threads usually even though i have this 'type' of dog, but thought i'd give my own experience on this one. I have fostered both ute's and Ni's in the last year. I can say the ute's seem to be much calmer and easily managed than the NI's are. They seem to be going back towards the GSD in temperament, eg more trainable, calmer, and easier to keep one dog on its own. On the other hand i find NI's are over excitable, take a long time to settle after excitement, are much harder to train as they are more stubborn and are not as calm in the houseand are more likely to suffer SA. I personally think NI's lean more to the husky type. ( no offense to husky people) Now my boy is NI with a little extra GSD thrown in there and he is much more like ute in temperament. He can still get overly excited at times, but he's relatively easy to settle and pretty easy to train.

In regards to the breed standards of both types this thread actually reminded one that used to be on the TUA forum, someone suggested things to aim for looks wise that should be different from what we have..i pretty much ended up getting laughed at because i almost completely re-wrote the breed standard...by going on a picture of a wolf. Now thats what i thought was the aim??? Personally i'm yet to see an NI or ute resembling a wolf. As BD has said before they look like a mish mash of the breeds that have gone into them. I love my boy and i often say if he had upright ears and a straight tail he'd almost be what we are looking for, but i'm biased ;-) but yet i can still see the difference between an NI or UTE but cannot describe it... i've seen a few that look like both..usually because they are from similar lines,and these usually look the wolfiest to me...and usually because...they have the longer coats!!! In my opinion this is what a UTE or NI should be looking like


now imagine in shades of wolf grey and black also
( there was no copyright on this pic that i could see so apologies in advance if there is )

this is the closest my boy has come to looking wolfy



from what i can see so far most NI's and utes are not heavy enough in the body, their legsare too long, ears too large, eyes wrong shape, tail too curly, i could go on!

please do not start a massive arguement..just my own personal views

It is good to get different view points xxx

Your boy looks lovely xx

Lovely pics of the wolf and your boy Lupus and I agree with you.

Some NI look more like Utes and vice versa.

Doing a breed standard on a wolf is a good idea - but which wolf? The Carpathian wolves look nothing like Timber wolves and they again differ from Tundra wolves (which are my favourites). There are very distinct differences which, written into a breed standard, cannot be combined.

For eg. Timber wolves mostly come in grey or black, have more pointed ears and tight feet. Tundra wolves mostly come in lighter greys and whites, have smaller rounded ears and splayed feet. The Czech wolfdog obviously leans towards the Carpathian wolf and is nothing like the north American wolves.

There are two species of the wolf in North America, the Gray Wolf (Canis lupus ) and the Red Wolf (Canis rufus )

In North America there are 10 recognized sub-species of the wolf and three geographic races of the red wolf: the Florida Red Wolf, The Mississippi Red Wolf and the Texas Red Wolf.

The wolf has one of the widest ranges of size, shape and color of any mammal in North America.

Everyone has their own vision of an ideal wolf - but its not the same wolf. But you are right - we haven't got there yet by any stretch of the imagination.

my impression was always that the aim was for the classic canadian timberwolf, but carrying the different shades that any wolf can carry therefore going with everyones tastes..because surely if you go for a particular conformation of one wolf subspecies then coat and colour can be sorted as it goes... Most wolves are similar in conformation just vary depending on the area they live in like the ethiopian wolf for example is longer in leg and lighter in the body because of the arid region in which it lives. Yetis still instantly recognisable as a wolf. Surely the obvious ones would either be the grey wolf..which technically the timber wolf is a subspecies of anyway..or the european wolf. I personally have a soft spot for red wolves but that is because of their colour, but i do love the greys and whites and blacks etc. Coat length shouldn't really be an issue as long as it is double coated as wolves tend to have shorter coats in warmer weather and longer coats in colder weather. So thats by the by.
I would have loved to work on this sort of aim, but unfortunately no-one seems to be able to agree on anything :?

I guess it is about loose wolf resemblence......and I agree ref the Timber Wolf: Love the look in the pic below:

http://www.fws.gov/pacific/ecoservi...y/images/TracyBrooksMissionWolf-USFWS_000.jpg

and one more pic for you all
https://www.maine.gov/ifw/wildlife/species/endangered_species/gray_wolf/gray_wolf_picture.jpg

xxxxxxx

great wolf pics, Nes. I would love a dog that looked like that

that's what I thought as well,

Well for the NI - apparently the breed standard was based on one of Julies dogs and written up by her friend. Dont know about the ute's standard. Who wrote it Lupus or do they go roughly with whatever the NI committee go with?

Good post.

It would be nice if they did become recognised, of course I know it would'nt be for a great number of years. When we were looking at getting a NID, we were under the impression that recognition was not going to be that far away.