MALMO — The howls break the stillness at high noon.

They begin when the town siren blows and then fade as it winds down to a hum.

Every Sunday, churchgoers can hear the howls, too, when the bells are rung for a 9 a.m. worship service.

The howls come from wolf dogs kept by David Hall and his ex-wife Penny Hall. They live a few blocks from the post office. The three wolf dogs are in a large compound with a high chain-link fence next to house.

 When they hear the sirens or church bells, the wolf dogs stand on and near an old tractor tire — the highest point in the compound — and howl like they are baying on a hill or mountaintop. Ironically, they don’t howl at the moon.

The kennel area takes up a side lot and includes a shed that’s heated in the winter and cooled in the summer. Three other wolf dogs are at a “rescue kennel” about 20 miles away — the Halls won’t say  where. They fear that something will happen to the dogs.

Besides, the Halls have their hands full trying to keep the three wolf dogs they have in Malmo, a town of about 100 people northwest of  Wahoo. 

Some people, including the Village Board, want the Halls to get rid of the dogs.  They’ve been trying for several years without much success.

Two years ago, one of the dogs was shot but recovered from the wound, the Halls said.  Another dog was poisoned and died.

And the wolf dogs of Malmo keep howling.

Domestics mated with wolves 

Wolf dogs are a hybrid breed. 

Basically, they are the offspring of domestic dogs — usually a German shepherd, Alaskan malamute or Siberian husky — that have mated with a wild wolf.

Despite their wolflike appearance, there is no genetic test to determine what percentage of wolf is in a hybrid dog. The breed is not recognized by any major kennel club. People keep wolf dogs as exotic pets or breed them and sell the pups for hundreds of dollars.

“The percentage in each dog is different,” Penny Hall said. “They could be wolves or may not be wolves.”

In 1998, the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimated that there were about 300,000 wolf dogs in the country. The Halls say the figure is now closer to 1.5 million and possibly 2 million.

Because of the dogs’ genetic makeup, some people consider wolf dogs to be dangerous animals. They say the mixture of wild and domestic genes makes their behavior unpredictable. Wolf dogs have been outlawed in many communities or restrictions have been placed on their ownership.

“I can understand why people are leery of them — that’s a big animal,” said Keith Pokorny.

As the owner of RK’s Bar & Grill, Pokorny has had a ringside seat on the wolf dog controversy in Malmo. In some ways it’s old news, he said, because so much media attention has been paid to them.

  “The only time people talk about them is when it hits the newspapers,” Pokorny said. “I don’t hear a lot of complaints.”

He said most people in town are used to the wolf dogs howling every day because they’ve been around for so long.

Years of litigation 

A former Lincoln resident, David Hall moved to Malmo about four years ago with the notion of raising wolf dogs and selling the pups. He said he talked to a former mayor and then bought his home, in part, because the town did not have an ordinance banning wolf dogs. He also got a commercial breeder’s license from the state.

“If there would have been (a local ban), I  wouldn’t have bought the house,” said David, who sat with Penny Hall in their living room, adorned with images of his first two wolf dogs imprinted on pillow cases.

Initially, the village board granted him dog licenses to keep his hybrids. But a year later the board revoked the licenses after a neighbor filed numerous complaints with the village and state officials. David Hall then sued and he and the village board have been involved in litigation ever since.

Most recently, the village board sent a letter to the Halls, giving them several weeks to remove the dogs from town. The Halls fear they may be taken away and put down.

  “If they’re not vaccinated, they shouldn’t be here,” said Village Clerk Gary Swartz. “They need to remove them because they are not in compliance with the ordinances.”

Swartz declined to say what the village would do if the Halls fail to comply. He referred questions to the town’s attorney, Jim McGough of Omaha, who couldn’t be reached for comment.

Saunders County does not have an ordinance banning individuals from owning wolf dogs, said County Attorney Scott Tingelhoff.

 “As far as the county is concerned, it’s a Malmo issue since they have a village board and we don’t control what happens within the village limits,” Tingelhoff said. “So we have no authority to enforce any of the village ordinances.”

Vaccination for rabies appears to be the key issue surrounding the wolf dog controversy.  The village has an ordinance that stipulates that dogs must be inoculated with an “approved” vaccination. The problem is there is no such vaccination for  wolf dogs. The Halls vaccinate their animals with vaccines made for dogs.

“Oh, they are vaccinated, but the state doesn’t recognize that it works in this breed,” David Hall, 51, said.

The vaccination issue is just the latest in a series of  legal hurdles David Hall has had to face since moving to Malmo. He has been to court four times, he said,  and each time the judge dismissed the case.

 In 1999, the USDA allowed wolf dogs to be vaccinated with a dog rabies vaccine, but it withdrew its permission two years later after receiving a complaint from the American Veterinary Medical Association.

“They were upset that they (USDA) classified a wolf dog as a dog,” Penny Hall said. “Last year, the village challenged David to prove the vaccination works.”

Four of David Hall’s wolf dogs have been tested at Kansas State University to find out if they have antibodies to combat rabies and they do, Penny Hall said.

“I have a certificate that says the animals can be exported to any country in the world,” David Hall said.

However, that was not enough evidence to convince the USDA that it should change its mind and allow a rabies vaccine made for dogs to be used on wolf-dog hybrids.

“I’m caught between local laws, state laws and federal laws,” David Hall said.

Good dog, bad dog 

Depending on who you talk to, wolf dogs make great or bad pets. The three wolf dogs kept by the Halls range in size from 60 to 100 pounds. When you enter the compound with the Halls, the wolf dogs nuzzle up to you like big, furry cats.

But people have been bitten by  wolf dogs. Between 1979 and 1996, there were 14 wolf dog-related fatalities in the United States, the latest figures available from the Centers for Disease Control.

In 2006, an 8-year-old girl from Roca suffered serious injuries to her right arm when a wolf dog bit her at at her home. The Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office said the hybrid wolf dog bit the girl when she reached into his cage to pet him.

 To the Halls, that’s an isolated case. They claim that wolf dogs are very friendly, make devoted pets and behave like dogs because they are dogs. They say the genetic makeup between a dog and a wolf is almost identical.

“I’ve never been nipped at or growled at,” David Hall said. “They would never do it to other people either.”

 He said the only time the wolf dogs bark is at other dogs that come by or at a pesky neighborhood cat that likes to tease them.

“I’ve had hundreds and hundreds of people look at the dogs and say how wonderful they are,” David Hall said.

Jeff Petersen, who lives in Wahoo but owns a body shop in Malmo, said he has talked to David Hall about the wolf dogs and believes that the animals are not a threat to public safety.

“I don’t have a problem with them,” Petersen said. “But if I was his next door neighbor, I would feel differently.”

Big food bill 

Wolf dogs are not the easiest pets to keep.

 David and Penny Hall say each week they feed the six wolf dogs about 120 pounds of chicken parts, which they buy in Lincoln.

“The guys at Wal-Mart know who I am,” Penny Hall said, joking.

 The wolf dog’s diet also includes dry dog food, vegetables and fruit. The weekly dog food bill for the six   animals comes to between $125 and $175, they said.

 Although his original idea was to sell wolf-dog pups, David Hall said he is not making any money off the animals. Food, veterinary bills and other expenses eat up his income  and have put him about $30,000 in the hole — not including attorney fees, he said.

“It’s not about making money off  of them,” Penny Hall said. “It’s  about the love of an animal.”

When asked why he goes through all of the hassle and expense of keeping the wolf dogs, David Hall replied:

 “The animals can’t speak for themselves. I’m just a voice for them.”

Hall has owned 9

The wolf dogs all have names: Shawnee, Apache, Renegade, Timber, Lakota and Cheyenne.  All told,  David Hall has owned nine wolf dogs.

One of the animals, Timber, has red eyes, a very rare trait, according to Penny Hall. But the Halls say the dog is not an albino.

“It’s like owning a piece of history.  The Indians used wolves as pets to help them hunt. For a lot of people, it’s about history,” explained Penny Hall when asked what’s so special about the wolf-dog hybrid.

David Hall said he has tried to move the dogs out of Malmo, even going so far as buying an acreage  near Weston. But he sold the acreage after Saunders County officials denied his application for a permit to operate a dog kennel.

To try to keep the dogs safe, David Hall shipped six of them to a rescue kennel near Centralia, Mo., but after one somehow got lost and another escaped, he brought the rest back to Malmo.

David Hall believes many people fear wolf dogs because wolves have a bad reputation as livestock and man killers: think Little Red Riding Hood.

 “That’s the nail on the head. We all grew up to fear them,” he said. “If they were mean, I wouldn’t have them.”

For now, the Halls plan to keep the dogs in Malmo as long as they can and try to change LB25, passed last session, which requires the vaccination of hybrid animals with a licensed or approved  vaccination.

“Basically, I’m going to stick it out and try to convince the Legislature to go with the federal guidelines,” Hall said. “They (the USDA) say it’s a dog.”

David Hall said the ideal solution would be to change the state law to allow wolf dogs to be lumped in with other dogs so they could be vaccinated and issued dog licenses.

“There shouldn’t be a special vaccine,” David Hall said, because none is required for other canine breeds.

Unlike their dog cousins, the wolf dogs have to stay inside their compound. The Halls can’t take them for walks on a leash because they don’t have tags.

Releasing them into some remote wilderness is out of the question.

“They wouldn’t do very well in the wild without human contact,” David Hall said. “They’re very friendly dogs.”

Meanwhile, the wolf dogs of Malmo romp around the compound, play with the Halls, bask in the warm rays of a winter sun, and wait for the town siren to sound —so they can go a little wild.

Reach Algis J. Laukaitis at (402) 473-7243 or alaukaitis@journalstar.com.