Akitas cannot retract their claws nor jump like cats. I speak from personal experience, having had one from the age of 8 weeks until his death at 8 1/2 years, and having rescued and fostered several others.

m_m,

I don’t have time right now to respond as thoroughly as I want, but when I catch a breather I intend to dive in. I really enjoy your posts; these are terrific!

Kittenz- That is a very interesting piece of trivia about Akitas. Thank you! Although I must say that was an uncharacteristically short post for you on something about wolves and dogs. I expected you to jump right in there.

Jeremy_Wells- Thank you for the kind words. I am pleased that you are enjoying this series. I agree that the Shikoku inu is a very beautiful, very wolf-like dog. The Shiba inu pictured here is a bit on the heavy side and quite dark in coloration, but when they are thinner, they even more resemble Honshu wolves than the one pictured. The curled tail is something to consider, but these dogs will lower their tails when they like, or when they are curious or agitated. When they do this, the tail is remarkably similar to a Honshu wolf tail. You can see one in the comparative picture with its tail lowered.

cryptidsrus- The Honshu wolf is not really in the public imagination here. In fact, there is a surprising number of Japanese who are not even aware that they ever existed. Since there are only a handful of stuffed specimens and no photos of living ones, it is likely that even someone who knows wolves once existed in Japan may not be really sure of what they looked like. I’m not sure how familiar the all of the people who had these sightings were, but it is curious that they described something like what a Honshu wolf really looked like rather than what a gray wolf looks like. That is something I feel a person making up a report who didn’t know the appearance of a Honshu wolf would do. Of course it could also mean they just saw a dog. Anyway, I also would not be too surprised if there was a remnant population out there somewhere.

doorslinger- I think for the researchers, that’s besides the point. I think what they are trying to do is not necessarily get a friendly response, but rather any response at all. If they could get even aggressive howls in response, that would accomplish their main goal of collecting evidence for the Honshu wolves’ continued existence. I have my doubts about these experiments as well, but it is an interesting approach.

shumway10973- It is commonly accepted by zoologists that the two Japanese varieties of wolf descended from Siberian wolves.

The howls of Honshu wolves could have changed due to their isolation, but they still made noises close enough for them to be described as howls. As I mentioned in the article, a lot of Japanese dog breeds make screams and howling noises rather than barks. I guess some of their noises could be described as the “short howl” you describe, or something quite wolf-like.

Ceroill- Oh I can believe that. Dogs tend to have their own individual personalities just like us. Same for wolves.

Not anything definitve but certainly “compelling” evidence.

Like I stated on the first post about this—I would not be surprised if the Honshu survived well into our times somewhere i the remote wilds of Dai Nippon.
Too bad about the destroyed carcass.

And the “howls” are very interesting as well.

Mystery_Man:
Do we know if these people who had the “canid” sightings were familiar with the Honshu??? Is it “popular” in the national imagination like, let’s say, the Kappa?

We just don’t know how much they did this, or what their howls sounded like. There are no recordings with which to compare, so we can only speculate. It seems at least possible that the experiments with wolf howls may not be particularly effective due to the fact that they may be unlike gray wolf howls in some key way. I think the rationale behind choosing these was that Honshu wolves evolved from Siberian wolves, which are a subspecies of gray wolf, and therefore it was seen as possible the howls could overlap to some degree. However we don’t know for sure.

As far as hunting goes, they definitely were pack animals, and many accounts and folklore from the times when Honshu wolves were plentiful are tied to this. I think the sightings of lone wolves in later days is just testament to the extent of which their numbers had suffered. I also think that Honshu wolves could have exhibited lone hunting behaviors away from the pack when opportunities arose. Some wild canids do this, such as the Ethiopian wolf Canis simensis. They live in packs that defend and share a territory, yet they primarily hunt for small prey solitarily. So they display a curious mix of pack and solitary behaviors. Although Honshu wolves did hunt deer or boar in packs, perhaps they had some of these solitary behaviors similar to the Ethiopian wolves as well.

Anyway, hope this information is helpful.