Do photos show 'scrappy stray' Chihuahua that joined wolf pack in Minnesota?

In September 2025, images circulated online that claimed to authentically show a Chihuahua near Ely, Minnesota, that had joined a pack of wolves.

According to one popular posting (archived) of the story on the StoryTime Facebook page, which had a headline reading "Chihuahua Joins Wolf Pack Caught on Camera," locals assumed wild wolves had eaten the small dog and were shocked to see it instead became part of the pack.

The story about the "scrappy stray" that joined the wolves also circulated with other imagery on Facebook (archived), Instagram (archived), X (archived) and Threads (archived). Snopes readers wrote in, asking whether the story was true.

However, the story about the wolf pack's smallest member appeared on Facebook pages with a history of producing fake content for likes and clicks alongside images that someone either edited or generated using artificial intelligence. We found no credible reports of the story, despite Facebook pages citing "local wildlife experts" (archived, archived, archived, archived). As such, we rate this claim fake.

Minnesota Department of Natural Resources wolf management specialist Dan Stark said, "We can confirm there is no credible information—or even a shred of common sense—to support the idea that a six-pound household pet has joined up with a pack of wild wolves."

Likewise, Grant Spickelmeier, the executive director of the International Wolf Center, a research and education center based near Ely, told Snopes via email, "We have not been contacted by anyone in the local region about this incident.  This story did not originate from Ely." 

We attempted to contact StoryTime and Jayven DeLuca, two Facebook pages that shared popular versions of the story, via emails listed on their respective pages to ask about the authenticity of the images and the accompanying story. However, both emails returned an "address not found" error message.

We also contacted the International Wolf Center, a research and education center based near Ely, to ask if it could confirm the story and await a reply.

According to the online AI detectors SightEngine and Hive Moderation, the images that the Facebook page Jayven DeLuca used to illustrate the Chihuahua story were highly likely to contain AI-generated content. This was also evident when looking at the wolves' coats, which appeared extremely high-definition despite the images allegedly being captured by a trail camera.

The StoryTime Facebook page that also shared the images used edited versions of authentic photographs, according to the fact-checking website LeadStories.com.

StoryTime's post used one screenshot from a 2022 video (archived) from the Voyageurs Wolf Project, a group studying wolves in and around Voyageurs National Park, Minnesota. The original version of that video did not include the Chihuahua.

(Facebook page StoryTime and Voyageurs Wolf Project)

The other image in StoryTime's post came from a research project at Northern Michigan University. Researchers captured that image, which also did not originally include a Chihuahua, using a trail camera in 2020.

(Facebook page StoryTime and Northern Michigan University)

It was unclear who edited the Chihuahua into StoryTime's images.

While wolves and dogs can and do interbreed, research has found the species behave very differently, likely due to domestication.

For example, a peer-reviewed study from 2017 found that "semi-wild" dogs were much less likely to work together than wolves in a challenge with a food reward.

Stark also said:

Wolves are extremely territorial, can be aggressive toward other canines, and are more likely to attack dogs that stray too far from home and are not accompanied by their owners. The suggestion that a Chihuahua—bred to sit comfortably in purses and bark at mail carriers—could integrate into a wolf pack is more suited for satire than wildlife biology.

Spickelmeier added that the experts at the International Wolf Center "strongly advise keeping domestic dogs leashed when in wolf range."

Snopes has previously debunked images from the StoryTime Facebook page that claimed to show a mountain lion raising two wolf cubs in Yellowstone National Park. We also debunked a satirical story about a man in Colorado who attempted to join a local wolf pack.