American Alsatian or American Dirus

You guys ask some great questions!

I like to share the good ones here in case you may be wondering the same thing.

Here’s another one I received this week:

“Hey Jen, long time no talk. I hope everything is good! I was showing off Hati the other day and I realized I kept calling her an AA, but I’m not sure if that’s accurate. She was born before you and Lois split, would she be considered an AA or AD? I already directed them to your site but wanted to make sure I was being accurate in regards to Hati’s breed.”

Just to be very clear…

My mother and breed founder, Lois Schwarz, my husband, Jay, and myself own the Dire Wolf Project.

We have never split from one another.

What happened was a nuanced family disagreement between sisters in 2022 that (in my view) threatened the Dire Wolf Project’s integrity as Lois established it, so I set a firm boundary and, at the same time, legally secured the Dire Wolf Project’s future.

In setting that boundary, I had to permanently refrain from all commercial use of the “AMERICAN ALSATIAN” trademark that Lois holds.

To that end, I established a new trademark for the DireWolf Dogs bred under the Vallecito line: the “AMERICAN DIRUS”.

The Dire Wolf Project remains

a UNIFIED breeding back project.

While Lois disagrees with some aspects of the results of my work, and she has not refrained from sharing her distain for them, both Lois and myself continue to work toward the exact same goals using the exact same ancestry.

The Dire Wolf Project governs both strains of DireWolf Dog: the American Alsatian and American Dirus.

Generally, the American Dirus dog is the Vallecito strain and the American Alsatian dog is the founder’s strain… or the Schwarz Dogs as Lois sometimes calls them.

Both strains remain an integral part of the Dire Wolf Project.

Therefore, if you purchase a DireWolf Dog from Vallecito, it would be correct to state:

“This is Thor. He is an American Dirus dog from the Dire Wolf Project.”

If you acquire a DireWolf Dog from the Schwarz Kennels, it would also be correct to state:

“This is Esmerelda. She is an American Alsatian dog from the Dire Wolf Project.”

Let’s say you have two dogs, one from Lois and one from Jennifer. You could eliminate any confusion, regardless of where your dog originated, by stating:

“These are my two DireWolf Dogs from the Dire Wolf Project.”

Check out the founder’s American Alsatian dogs at her website:

www.schwarzdogs.com

Jennifer Stoeckl is the co-founder of the Dire Wolf Project, founder of the DireWolf Guardians American Dirus Dog Training Program, and owner/operator of DireWolf Dogs of Vallecito. She lives in the beautiful inland northwest among the Ponderosa pine forests with her pack of American Dirus dogs.