The owners of a wolf-like animal spotted in fields outside Cork city have said the public in the area need not be concerned - but they would dearly like to get him back.
Ivan Rumley of the popular Rumley’s Farm on Liberty Hill in Waterfall says the animal is actually a Czech Wolfdog, a crossbreed between a German Shephard and a Carpathian Grey Wolf, bred in Czechoslovakia in the 1950s to act as border patrol and search and rescue dogs.
The call to help find the animal came after earlier reports that a wolf was on the lose in the area with people urged to keep their pets indoors.
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They may be part wolf, but they are known for being intelligent, highly trainable dogs and Ivan Rumley told CorkBeo that their Czech Wolfdog does not pose a danger to the public or to smaller animals in the area.
This wolfdog is called Axel - he’s the second they have had after another - Diesel - died two years ago. Ivan Rumley says they are “lovely, intelligent” animals who are very shy of people they are not used to.
“He’s actually very shy, he’ll most likely run away when he sees people. A local told us that he actually fell in with another dog in the area yesterday and they were playing away, he was licking the other dog, but unfortunately, they couldn’t get close enough to get a hold,” said Ivan.
“We are very much hoping to get him back, we’re trying to get a tranquiliser gun, we’d hate to see him put down, if we could get him into a shed or something until we could get to him, that would be great.
“We are animal lovers here and we would hate to see him put down - that would be a last resort”.
Ivan said the wolfdog got out of its enclosure two days ago.
“We’ve been making every effort to get him back, we have cages set up with food, we’re hoping we can do this.”
Ivan said if anybody in the Ballinhassig and Waterfall area spots their wolfdog, they would like to hear from them at Rumley’s Open Farm (they can be contacted via their Facebook page).
Members of the public should leave catching the animal to the staff who are trained in dealing with the wolfdog and are familiar to him. And he said all of the team there at the farm are hoping to get their wolfdog back safe and sound as soon as possible.
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