Aurora gives first approval to lift ban on wolf-hybrids

AURORA | Gray wolves are returning to roam the Rockies, and wolf-hybrids will soon be allowed to call Aurora home, as the city prepares to do away with a ban on the crossbreed canines.

A package of changes to the city’s animal code made it out of an Aurora City Council study session on Feb. 7 with little fanfare and no discussion, and council members voted on first reading to approve the changes Feb. 14. One of the proposed changes would be to remove wolf-hybrids from a list of banned animals that includes foxes, coyotes and wolves.

Wolf-hybrids, also known as wolfdogs, are the offspring of wolves and domestic dogs. While breeding between the two species is rare in the wild — because wolves tend to defend their territory against other canines — wolf-hybrids are bred in captivity as pets, guard animals and working dogs.

City spokesman Michael Brannen said the move to get rid of the ban follows last year’s decision to lift the local ban on pit bulls, which didn’t affect wolf-hybrids but meant Aurora Animal Services no longer tests dog DNA.

“Rather than engage in the cumbersome process of acquiring such a test and relying solely on a dog’s breed to gauge its risk to public safety, Animal Services believes observing the dog’s behavior and actions is a better measurement,” Brannen wrote in an email.

Wolf-hybrids may be more likely than domestic dogs to act instinctively, for example by showing aggression toward humans. That behavior has fueled controversy over whether wolf-hybrids are tame enough to be kept as pets, a practice opposed by both the American Veterinary Medical Association and the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

Brannen said Aurora residents have been barred from owning wolves since 1979, when the city’s first animal ordinance was implemented.

That ban was used at least once to prosecute the owners of a suspected wolf-hybrid. Capone, a German Shepherd-Labrador mix, was impounded for nearly a month in 2017 after sneaking into a neighbor’s yard. The case drew statewide attention when city staffers questioned the dog’s lupine lineage, only to have their concerns debunked by a DNA test.

Brannen said just the one DNA test had been performed on a suspected wolf-hybrid since 2015. He added animal protection officers and the city’s staff veterinarian have used “visual IDs of wolf characteristics” to assess whether a dog is a possible hybrid, paying special attention to the animal’s teeth, legs, snout and behavior toward strangers.

Language specifically prohibiting the ownership of wolf-hybrids was added to the city code in November 2020 at the same time as the new dangerous dog ordinance, which otherwise focused on regulating the behavior of dogs regardless of their breed.

At the time, Anthony Youngblood, manager of the city’s Animal Services Division, said the rabies vaccine used for domestic dogs isn’t effective in the presence of wolf DNA. Brannen said Tuesday that the city still “abides by the (U.S. Department of Agriculture) stance that the rabies vaccine is not approved for use in wolf-hybrids.”

The language of the wolf-hybrid ban was further refined when the pit bull ban was lifted in 2021. The City Council’s decision to abolish the pit bull ban was controversial, in part because voters opted to keep the ban in place in 2014, around nine years after the council passed it into law.

Councilmember Francoise Bergan speculated that the lack of furor so far about wolf-dogs being allowed in the city could have to do with the fact that the city’s electorate has never weighed in.

“This never went to voters,” she said. “We do have the authority to make the change. I think it got confusing before because Council had let it go to the voters. … A few of us were basically saying it should go back to the voters again.”

“I haven’t heard anything either way on this,” said councilmember Alison Coombs, who voted last year to get rid of the pit bull ban. She said she still supports getting rid of breed bans, including the ban on wolf-hybrids.

“If the problem is dangerous behavior, that’s what needs to be addressed … and that was addressed in what we passed,” Coombs said.

Aurora’s wolf-hybrid ban is relatively unique within the metro area. While Denver’s municipal code prohibits owning “wild or dangerous animals,” there is no breed ban targeting wolf-hybrids specifically. Representatives of Adams, Arapahoe and Douglas counties said wolf-hybrids aren’t banned in their jurisdictions either.

Only the city and county of Broomfield reported an ordinance banning ownership of “any hybrid or breed mix between wild animals and domestic animals,” which would include wolf-hybrids.

The council voted unanimously to lift the ban Feb. 14. Other parts of the package would clarify the distinction between aggressive and potentially dangerous dogs and change policies for when a dog is seized by the court so that the dog’s owner would not have input on what happens with it.