You can't! What's on paper and the actual gentic makeup of your dog are two entirely different things. One way to look is on paper. In this way....... wolf bred to shepherd = 50%wolfdog, wolf bred to shepherd =50% wolfdog these are what are commonly refered to as an F1 or first generation wolf x dog cross. The resulting half wolf half dog are 50% because the inherit half their genes from the wolf and half from the dog.

So the only accurate percentage is the first generation (F1) wolf x dog cross which is 50%

Now from here out is just gets more complicated. If you were to breed two F1 50% wolf dogs to each other on paper it would add up to 50%, genetically however it is not so simple, We are dealing with two things that happen to Chromosomes that mix them up in offspring. They go through two processes independent assortment and recombination. In independent assortment when germ cells are made they are split up randomly. Take into consideration that dogs/wolves each have 78 chromosomes so each parent supplies a total of 39 chromosomes to the embryo. Next you have recombination these chromosomes actually line up and exchange threads of DNA. So when these two F1 50% mate the chromosomes will undergo independent assortmaent and recombination, mixing wolf and dog genes randomly. So to put it bluntly after the 50% there is no telling which genes are actually passed on to the pup(offspring). Out of two F1 50% you could get a pup with 37% wolf genes, 45%, 67% or even a pure wolf or dog though the latter two is almost genetically impossible. So when all the 2nd gen half wolf predecessors such as Deke, Dinosaur, Flash, Mingo Zeus etc were born each actually inherited a different percentage of wolf genes from their 50% parents. I believe if some one was to phenotypically assess the appearance of the previous mentioned 2nd gen half-wolves they would see a degree of variance manifested in them.

Okay back to paper the above mentioned half-wolves were bred back to German Shepherds again, On paper you would have a 25%wolfdog.. 50%halfwolf + German Shepherd = 25% or what was referred to as the first generation quarterwolf. Now heres something interesting something to ponder about now that we see how all these genes are randomly mixed it becomes apparent that you are in for a long term project when it comes to actually setting type. It takes a few if not many generations of breeding to set the correct type, size and try to come to some type of uniform look or appearance. Now quarterwolf was bred to quarterwolf, 25% to 25% making second and third generation quarterwolves. The first generation 25% were eventually named ATS of course when we look back at how the genes randomly combine you can only imagine the RANDOM appearance of these 25% ATS. The process like I mentioned continued to breed 25% to 25% if a person goes by a magellen scale you could say that eventually things will even out and you would either remain at that level or breed it out dependent on course what a person is purposely selecting in the individual dogs selected for breeding. BUT even today there is great variance in size, head shape, body type etc. that exist in the ATS dog breed. 1st generation quarterwolves are still around even though they are registered as ATS. For example Ntl Ch. Grizzly of Catania, now here is a question he is out of the black & tan half-wolf Zeus and a white German Shepherd what can this animal possibly throw white shepherd? Black & tan ? does his offspring conform true to type does theirs?

In conclusion I must say the ATS is a purebred dog the days of percentages are over and highly inaccurate exect in the case of a pure wolf pure dog mating. In the continuing developement of this breed ATS breeders must focus of breeding the correct temperament and an agreed upon type as of this day there seemes to be two types of ATS guess what they are? One favors the wolf the other the GSD.

Tom Baswell

I guess this means a genetic article on the ATS is going to be in the works but to summerize quickly. There is no definitive test to assess the amount of wolf blood in a dog. Wolves and Dogs are nearly gentically indistinguishiable from one another and domestic dogs genotype differ from wolves by only 0.2% percent sequence divergence.

Original ideals for article from Nick Federoff



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