Many news reporters have been to the Wolf sanctuary. Most of them focus on the conflict that exists either between wolves and man or the facility and governing entities.

Recently The Coffee Cup Companion, a Rocky Mountain Region alternative newspaper, sent Bea Taylor to see what we were all about. We were so impressed with her story we asked and received permission to reprint it for you.   www.coffeecupcompanion.com

They were howling in welcome as we arrived. Through the dirt and gravel back roads we made our journey up Rist Canyon to the headquarters of Wolf. Lindsay Houston, Director of Public Support, rolled the windows down and called out affectionately to her friends, and they answered her in clear haunting tones.

Wolves don't bark, they howl. It was a beautiful, mysterious, floating sound that made me want to stop and inhale deep, cold breaths of the Colorado mountain air. My senses were saturated with the sounds and the visual bounty of the tall pines and rolling hills that span the 182 acres of Wolf property. Wolf, by the way, stands for Wolves Offered Life & Friendship.

The sign on the gate reads "I can make it to the fence in 3 seconds, can you?" Would I be afraid to walk among the wolves and wolf-dogs? All I could think of were stories of the unstable aggression of wolf hybrids and the simple raw wildness of wolf predators--swift and strong and lethal.

"That's why they should not be made a pet," Lindsay said in response to my sudden trepidation, "The difficult part of that is that they do not really present those characteristics until they're fully grown, which for a wolf is in 3-4 years. So all of a sudden this wonderful charming little puppy eats the cat, bites the baby, kills the neighborhood rabbits and then everyone is in absolute shock that this 'dog' which is not a dog at all, is conducting itself in a fashion that a wild animal conducts itself." Children under the age of 13 are not allowed in the sanctuary, however. Lindsay went on to say, they have "ambassador" wolves that have been socialized and are safe with their handlers. Ambassador wolves have presented over 200 programs this year. My guides were completely relaxed. Donna Nayduch, a trauma nurse and Regional Trauma Director for Banner Health, volunteers for Wolf. She smiled at me from behind the gate surrounded by the wolf-dog hybrids. One had soft fur and a curly tail and was clearly part Chow. In fact, to the untrained eye you wouldn't notice at first that these were not regular dogs.

"All domestic dogs, over 700 species of them, have evolved from wolves, so there is wolf DNA in all dogs." Lindsay told me.

She elaborating on the guests at the sanctuary. "Some are 5% dog and 95% wolf. It's very difficult to tell--even the vets can't tell because the DNA of wolves and wolf-dogs are the same. We have 40 animals now, a combination of wolves and wolf-dogs, and for the most part they are separated into packs of up to four animals, besides the house pack which has 14."

Lindsay warned me as we were about to enter the gate, "Nanook bites boobs and butts. It's not because he's mad, it's because 'I am the king and I want you to give me all the attention', but you just kind of be mindful of him. And Zeke is called Bite-Me-Zeke, same thing," she explained, "he's so excited he jumps straight up the air. He's so happy and he wants you to play with him, and again, you can't play with wolves. To a wolf, if you play with them, you are no longer alpha, you are equal. And if you're equal, you must be dominated, because the pecking order of the pack is everything," she stated. "Pat and Frank cannot both leave the sanctuary at once, because Frank is the alpha male and Pat is the alpha female--if they both leave, all the packs go nuts trying to establish who's the new alpha female and male."

As I passed through the gate the wolf-dogs surrounded me, eager to rub against me and be touched and to smell this new person. Sure enough, I was welcomed appropriately by Nanook with a gentle nip, and I was glad that I had been forewarned. I noticed how healthy and clean their coats were, and how tidy the facility appeared overall.

Outside the lodge, a shed was hung with elk and deer pelts and the skeletal remains of wolf meals. A pile of animal carriers was stacked nearby in the event of an emergency evacuation of the animals. A recent mountain fire even brought out neighbors who had fears about the wolves; they drove out to the facility to help rescue the animals.

With double-latched, double-gated enclosures over which a wolf cannot jump, it seemed rather unlikely to me that a wolf could escape. Moreover, considering that the wolves were well-fed and seemed quite content with their lodgings and extended family, I couldn't imagine they would have a true desire to leave.

Inside, the lodge was warm and inviting. Wolf artwork, as well as various animal and human family knickknacks filled each wall and shelf with sentiment and history. Frank Wendland sat at his computer dealing with the administrative details of the sanctuary that he co-founded with his wife, Pat. It was an office and home to be envied, overlooking a vista of the Wolf property, small and cozy, but always with room for the traffic of volunteers and wolf-dogs.

Wolf-dogs went in and out the door as they pleased entering to take a nap by the wood stove, to share a snack, or get some loving care from their human family members. It clearly was a place where family was blended between animal and man. As I came to understand this, I began to feel at ease.

Frank, outspoken and intelligent, was full of passion about his organization. "That irrational fear is what I think most humans worldwide have been brought up with. It's the Little Red Riding Hood syndrome. And people have this fear because they don't understand the animal. And there's a quote by Chief Dan George that I always use, and it's one of those--I don't know it exactly--but it's 'if you talk with the animals they will talk with you and you will understand each other. If you do not, you will not know them, and what you do not know you will fear, and what you fear you will destroy.' And I think that gets back to not only what's going on with the animals here, but also Pat and I--I mean people don't understand our motivations, they don't understand why we would basically check out of what they consider to be the American Dream and move to a little cabin in the woods and take care of a bunch of wolves."

"Bottom line we were blessed or cursed--dependent on how you look at it--with a connection to animals. When we look into their eyes, we see sentient beings, we see individuals, we see value, and we see an equal. We don't see a piece of furniture that is sitting there to serve our purposes. Consequently when this friend of ours was going to have Shaka euthanized because she does 'wolf kisses,' we said, you can't do that, we'll take her."

"The way wolves greet each other is with what we call wolf kisses, and it's a lick-lick-bite. After we took her, we wanted to make sure we knew what we were doing to keep her as well-adjusted as possible. We visited a lady who had been breeding and rescuing wolf-dogs for years."

Frank said that all the wolf-dogs that had ended up at the sanctuary were the result of breeding. The Wolf organization does not encourage breeding of these animals as they do not make good pets. All the animals at Wolf are either spayed or neutered, and extra care and understanding of wolf behavior is a significant part of volunteer training.

"You have to kind of define what it is that you are doing with [the] animal. I think they have a significant amount of information to teach us," Frank said. I think they have a healing that they provide to the human spirit. I think part of that is that in their wildness they have maintained what we have lost-- their sense of family, their sense of society. Their approach to living is far more refined and civilized than ours is. They don't destroy their children, they don't abuse," he explained.

"Even pure wolves that are bred in captivity cannot be released in the wild," Frank went on, "our belief was that the only place they belong is in a sanctuary, and those sanctuaries should basically be places that unwanted animals have a right to live out the rest of their lives. This problem is huge. There are thousands of these guys being euthanized every year because humans don't understand what they're getting involved with. The Great Spirit sent them here for a very specific purpose," Frank said, "and I believe personally that it is for what we as humans can learn from them, if we are willing to listen," Frank said, "and in order to listen, we have to be able to accept them on their own terms and to accept them as a valuable part of our environment."

Recently the Coloradoan had an article on Wolf regarding some technical, legal issues on the number of animals on the property and issues with local government. "Our head volunteer lives in a small cabin," said Lindsay, "and he has 4 dogs in fenced enclosures. And they have now determined that because he has four dogs, we are now in violation. And we just don't know how to reconcile it."

The sanctuary does not have large sums of money to engage the county in a legal battle, and they wonder just who is working behind the scenes to shut down Wolf. State and federal inspectors praise Wolf as being a model for how sanctuaries and animal rescue operations should be run. "And then our local authorities are apparently doing their level best to close our operation," Lindsay noted. "We comply to this ordinance, then they create a new ordinance, and as we comply to that one, then another violation is indicated," she noted with frustration. "We have no idea who it is, but we do know that there is an immense amount of fear surrounding large carnivore predators, and that's the category that wolves fit in."

"Frank and Pat are not wild-eyed wackos that live in the mountains," Lindsay stated emphatically. "Frank has had a very long and auspicious corporate career. He chose to leave the corporate world and move to Colorado and open a sanctuary. Pat has owned retail stores and trucking business."

They are educated, lucid people with a very large volunteer organization that consists of lawyers, medical people, and pro-bono veterinarian help," she said.

Lindsay, too, left the corporate world to do something meaningful with her life, and she's responsible for fund-raising and her goals are "to move the organization to the next level, which is to find a way and a means for more and more people to reach the healing qualities of these animals and to assist in saving them when their lives are in peril."

After drinking coffee and listening to Wolf's story, it was time to go out and meet the wolves. This time, accompanied by Donna and Lindsay, I was taken into an enclosure with full-blooded wolves. The enclosure was spacious and neatly terraced with logs to shore up any erosion and give plenty of space for the small pack of wolves to wander and burrow and play with each other.

We sat on the logs, as standing would imply aggression, and allowed the wolves to come to us. Unlike dogs who are bred for obedience, wolves have a will of their own and will only come to you if they feel the desire to do so. I met a beautiful wolf named Spirit who wandered across the enclosure to grace me with his mysterious presence. I was careful not to stare into his eyes, as that also implies aggression. Wolves show affection by licking your face, and as I was told, if I was brave enough to kiss him back, I would earn a pin with a photo of Spirit, which read "I Swapped Spit with a Wolf." Spirit's breath was astonishingly clean and sweet.

I realized as I sat out there with this lovely and powerful wild creature, what it was that Frank and Lindsay and Donna and all the volunteers were trying to tell me. For several minutes of my life I was transported, completely focused on the wolves--stroking Spirit's fur and watching him glide through the enclosure--swiftly and gracefully, coming back to visit each of us with welcoming licks and rubbing against us.

This was an experience of a lifetime, although not one recommended for the faint-hearted. This same animal, known as a ferocious predator in the wild, was also a gentle and loving creature, who ate pieces of string cheese from my hands more gently than a lamb.

I visited more enclosures, and greeted many more wolves. It began to snow in thick flakes and the wolves, in their fur coats loved it and began to chase each other. In a matter of minutes Wolf property was covered in several inches of snow, each glimpse like a Christmas postcard. Volunteers walked the facility to make sure that the enclosures were safe and free from falling branches, or branches slung low by a load of snow.

I was told that these animals can sense people's fear or dishonesty, and I likened it to a lie-detector test that hones in on certain vibrations that people give when they are trying to hide something. With their acute senses, it is not surprising that wolves are said to be more intuitive of people and their hidden feelings. Studies indicate that people with animal companions suffer less depression and live healthier and happier lives.

Reiki healing, an ancient art, is being used by Wolf specifically with the wolves to channel energy through people and seems to produce incredible results. Lindsay is a Reiki Master and is developing WolfReiki as part of the spiritual program at Wolf.

I had heard incredible stories of horribly abused, neglected, abandoned and deformed animals who were rescued and recovered and now lived happily at Wolf with their new pack. I was told of female wolves who adopted abandoned cubs, volunteer veterinarians who performed surgeries and caring people kept these animals clean, healthy and safe, and rebuilt trust between human and animal.

Although I was not a witness to any miracles, per se, I can tell you that by the time I had left Wolf, I had been thoroughly kissed and rubbed by these lovely enigmatic animals, and I went home feeling particularly happy and refreshed. The day I spent at Wolf, caused all my mundane cares to disappeared, and I know I witnessed something very special. I want to go back there again and have applied to be a volunteer.

If you are interested in volunteering, making donations, or would like more information about Wolf, please contact Frank or Pat Wendland at info@wolfsanctuary.net by email or call (970) 416-9531.

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