My fascination with wolves goes all the way back to my childhood. I never saw any in person back then, I just checked out every book I could about wolves from the library and read them from cover to cover. Perhaps my fascination with wolves comes from my childhood best friend - our family dog, a Cheaspeake Bay Retriever who accompanied me on most of my forest and field wanderings.

As an adult, I have had some wonderful opportunities to get to know these amazing predators a little more up close and personal, through rescue organizations.

Many folks think wolves are cool and want them for a pet - until they grow into a 130 pound, wild, meat-eating machine that can't be tamed, controlled, or disciplined. Some of these pet/captive wolves are lucky because they are given over into the care of a proper rescue organization that houses and cares for the animals in very large enclosures. I volunteered for a couple of these rescue facilities in Colorado. Here are a few notes and photos...

July 3, 2002

The Wolf Education Center is run by Darlene K. She has rescued 12 timberwolves from different captive situations and has given them homes to live out their lives. The male adult wolves are hip height on me and weigh upwards of 120 lbs. The females are a bit smaller and weigh 80 - 100 lbs.

These wolves have come from pet situations, movie studios, and zoos. All are still wild, some are more friendly to humans than others...Sabin is a 130 lb male, very friendly, and rescued from a college dorm (!!). He's a dark gray and the only wolf out of the bunch with a blue eye. He is a dominant wolf and will allow you into the enclosure, but it's best not to make any submissive motions (kneeling, squatting, etc.). He has been known to exert dominance over people in those situations  - not pretty for the human. Raven (his mate) is even darker than Sabin. She's only 85 lbs. She's pretty shy and won't even approach Darlene. Sabin is very approachable. While I was in the pen with him, he came up and rubbed against me, let me scratch his head and back, and really seemed to enjoy the human attention. But just when you think they act like dogs and are friendly like dogs, they suddenly let the wild side loose. As I was in with Sabin and Raven, there was a rather viscous display of dominance in the next enclosure. Yukon is the male there, another 130 pounder, but lower down in the pecking order. Two females were in the enclosure with him (lucky guy) and he and one of the females went at eachother, trying to establish dominance. Clawing, biting, snarling, growling were all part of the display, and it wasn't quite clear who came out the top wolf. The female came away bleeding a little on her neck ut Yukon looked a little "cowed."

Back to Raven...she was still shedding her winter coat. It was coming off her in sheets. Since she wouldn't let anyone approach her, no one could groom her. Her way of shedding the old coat was to roll around in the grass like a horse and it seemed fairly effective!

Wolf eyes are usually a light amber around the pupil with a darker orange/brown rim. They have a very intense stare.

I did get a chance to take one of the sub-adult males on a "walk." Shunka was 120 lbs and one year old. Very friendly and definitely a "submissive" wolf. His coat was a tawny brown and orange. When I walked him on a lead, it took every muscle in my body to keep him going in a relatively straight line. The strength in a wolf's body is incredible, even though they may look a bit scrawny without their winter coat. Shunka certainly had the strength to take down an elk.

The other thing that amazed me about Shunka was the size of his head! I'm guessing it was close to 18" long and built like a Mack Truck....

Shunka's paws , unextended, were the size of my hand! He seemed to like humans holding his paws; when he was in his temporary home (a barn stall) he'd stand up with his paws through the bars and reach around until he felt a hand. Then he'd put his paw square in the palm of my hand and just leave it there. If his paw slipped he'd reach around until he found my hand again. It was a little strange at first, holding "hands" with a wolf, but pretty moving at the same time. Here's an animal that could easily kill me with one swipe of his paw or one bite, and all he wanted was for some human to make contact with!

The wolves were definitely NOT "tame" in the way a dog is tame. With these wolves I sensed more of a truce. They are not domesticated. They know they can kill you one-on-one, they just choose to be friendly at this particular time. That can change in an instant though. More than anything, today taught me a very healthy respect for wolves. Leaving out anything mystical, they are very powerful animals created by Nature, and that really just want to be left alone to live their lives. We can learn from them if we choose...