Sara

sex: female
born: March 1996 (est.)
birth place: Colorado
died: 20 September 2003

given sanctuary: 31 January 1997

 

 

 

 

Sara's Memorial
see Newsletter - Summer 2003 (click)

Sara's Story

Sara has had a rather difficult past to totally understand and associate to her current actions and personality. When Wolf came into the picture, she was owned by an individual in Loveland, Colorado. He said he was trying to place her at a sanctuary because she had been escaping from her enclosure regularly. The last time she had escaped, she was picked up by animal control. They informed the owner that it was illegal to posses a wolf-dog in the city limits of Loveland. Due to the fact that no matter what he did to her enclosure she would always find a way out, he was concerned that she would get out again and not be returned to him.

Wolf did not have room for another animal, and told the gentleman to try other rescues and sanctuaries that were on the Internet and that, if he ran into a dead-end, to give them a call back. Needless to say, he called back. At that same time, Wolf was trying to establish a relationship with a private, nonprofit shelter in the Denver area that would provide interim shelter for wolf-dogs who needed a home quickly. The idea was to arrange some sort of placement opportunity through them and other facilities who would judge the degree of difficulty of the animal and search out appropriate individuals to adopt them. Wolf had Sara's owner place her at this shelter, and began looking for a new home.

Pat and Frank made a pact with each other, years before, that they would not personally 'take a look' at any animal they did not have space for at the facility. This approach happens to be the kiss of death; no matter what else happens, once you look into their eyes, you cannot refuse to give them a home. Pat and Frank happened to be at this facility for other reasons, and Frank broke the pact. Sara came home and was put into the house pack.

It became obvious after several weeks that she had very serious issues with certain individuals. For no apparent reason, she would absolutely come uncorked at certain people. She would bark and growl and run in the other direction, demonstrating this behavior until the individual was gone from the facility. As we tried to pin down what was common to all of the people she took exception to, we were puzzled. Male individuals with ball caps and beards seemed to be frequent but not always there. Likewise, individuals who had consumed any alcohol in the past few days also seemed to be frequent but not always there. What was all of this about? We were mystified.

Sara became one of our ambassador animals and, periodically, she would lose it at some one at the event she was attending. She never became vicious or tried to attack. It was just the opposite, she would take off the other way.

While attending one of these functions, some of the answers were provided when one of our associates recognized her as having been owned by her ex-husband. As we confirmed the individual's name and location, it was a match. However, the ex-owner did not wear ball-caps or have a beard, and was not even a minor user of alcohol. What did surface is that during one of Sara's romps from the backyard, she had visited a neighbors backyard and killed a pet rabbit. The owner of the rabbit was not very understanding, and proceeded to beat Sara with a 2"x4" before she could get away. Indeed he wore a ball-cap, had a beard, and was evidently a drinker. Even though this answered a lot of questions, it also raised a few as it was discovered that the individual in Loveland was not the original owner, and had rescued her from a bad situation before that. There were, however, no specifics about that situation.

Even though Sara has her occasional outbursts, she has adapted extraordinarily well at Wolf. She adores Nanook, and follows him everywhere. She adopted Kasha and Shaman as pups, and regularly regurgitated food for them as well as protecting and teaching them. She still goes out on some public events, and is so headstrong that when she wants to go somewhere, the strongest handler is always assigned to her. In short, she is a very sweet female.

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