Wolves as pets and working animals
Some wildlife centers housing captive wolves prohibit handlers from entering wolf enclosures if they happen to have a cold or other vulnerability which the wolves can detect. Captive wolves are generally shy and avoid eye contact with humans other than their owner, as well as not listening to any commands made by any other humans. They usually vacate rooms or hide when a new person enters the establishment. Even seemingly friendly wolves need to be treated with caution, as captive wolves tend to view and treat people as other wolves, and will thus bite or dominate people in the same situation in which they would other wolves. Ordinary pet food is inadequate, as an adult wolf needs 1–2.5 kg (2–5 lbs) of meat daily along with bones, skin and fur to meet its nutritional requirements. Wolves may defend their food against people, and react violently to people trying to remove it. The exercise needs of a wolf exceed the average dog's demand. Because of this, captive wolves typically do not cope well in urban areas. Due to their talent at observational learning, adult captive wolves can quickly work out how to escape confinement, and require constant reinforcement by caretakers or owners, which makes raising wolves difficult for people who raise their pets in an even, rather than subordinate, environment.
Predation
In mythology and folk fable, predators such as the fox and wolf have mixed reputations. The fox was a symbol of fertility in ancient Greece, but a weather demon in northern Europe, and a creature of the devil in early Christianity; the fox is sly, greedy, and cunning in fables from Aesop onwards. The big bad wolf is known to children in tales such as "Little Red Riding Hood", but is a demonic figure in the Icelandic Edda sagas, where the wolf Fenrir appears in the apocalyptic ending of the world. In the middle ages, belief spread in werewolves, men transformed into wolves. In ancient Rome, and in ancient Egypt, the wolf was worshipped, the she-wolf appearing in the founding myth of Rome, suckling Romulus and Remus. More recently, in Rudyard Kipling's 1894 "The Jungle Book", Mowgli is raised by the wolf pack. Attitudes to large predators in North America, such as wolf, grizzly bear and cougar, have shifted from hostility or ambivalence, accompanied by active persecution, towards positive and protective in the second half of the 20th century.