Arkte (Ark-Ta’) came from Minnesota. She had been confiscated for abuse and neglect. It was reported that she had lived her entire life in a travel kennel in the bedroom of her ‘caretaker’.

Wolf had originally been notified of the situation and urged a rescue in Wisconsin to get her away from animal control, just before she was to be euthanized. It became apparent that she was an alpha personality and would challenge her new caretaker whenever she came into the temporary enclosure. This made it next to impossible to get her placed easily. The temporary caretaker would not let her go to an unqualified situation, which is very smart. It also made it impossible for her to stay where she was. The situation became critical when she was again slated to be euthanized.

We could not allow this to happen. These are indeed the kind of animals that Wolf believes belong at the Sanctuary. Although we did not have the space available at the Sanctuary, we arranged to keep this little girl in a foster situation until space opened up. Brandy & Michelle (two of our exceptional volunteers) drove to Des Moines, IA and picked her up on December 16th.

She has now come to the Sanctuary and is doing great. With a larger enclosure, there has not been any dominance issues. She also seems to be taking all the snow in stride, even though she is somewhat underweight and lacking as thick a coat as most of the animals at the Sanctuary.

Note: Although we usually do not change the names of animals accepted at the Sanctuary, we did change Arkte’s name from Jenny. This only seemed appropriate to us as she was not answering to Jenny and we wanted to allow one of our outstanding supporters to give her a name befitting her new life.

It was now necessary to find an appropriate companion. Again, we were limited, as we were at our county-mandated maximum. We began the search anyway, knowing that we would have to wait for space to open up. It would have to be a male who was not suited for life anywhere other than a sanctuary.

Finally, an email from Texarkana, Texas was received about a male wolf-dog in danger of being euthanized. It seems the original owner had moved and could not take either of his animals. They ended up being left in a small kennel in his father's backyard. He and his black lab companion found a way out of the enclosure and started exploring the town. Although they caused no problems, they were picked up by Animal Control and brought to the local shelter. The father was unable, or unwilling, to pay the $130 per animal in fines, plus daily fees, to get the animals back. The black lab would be put up for adoption, but the wolf-dog would have to be euthanized, as shelters consider wolf-dogs too much of a liability for them to adopt out. Fortunately, a concerned individual named Mimi was not about to let that happen. She contacted Wolf, eager to keep this gentle animal, Rachane, from an unjustified fate. We quickly began making plans to bring him home.

Mimi was a wonderful champion for Rachane. She scheduled him to have a veterinary exam and neuter, and found transportation halfway to Colorado! On the morning of February 10, Brandy and Kiley left for the 7 hour trip to Salina, Kansas.

They were met by Susan and Gail, who had generously driven the 8 hours from Texarkana. The first look at Rachane revealed a deep gash under his left eye, and fresh wounds around his mouth. What happened? The ladies explained the shelter had used a catch pole to get him out of the kennel, and were obviously not very kind about it. Brandy and Kiley were shocked, and quickly loaded him in the Wolf vehicle to get him home ASAP. He gave them no problems, but would not allow Kiley to remove his collar. Rachane was very well behaved in the truck, but had no balance! Every corner would send him flying around until he finally laid down and went to sleep. The return trip took much longer than the trip there, and included some very bizarre incidents. Brandy and Kiley experienced heavy fog, ice, a person driving eastbound in the westbound lane, and rush hour-like traffic at 10 pm. They thought they would never make it home!

Finally, a little after midnight, Rachane arrived at Wolf. He was walked to his new large enclosure on a leash with no problems. Once there, Kiley was again unable to remove the collar. Frank tried, but was also unsuccessful. Then Steve tried, but to no avail. The collar had been on him for so long, it was completely stuck! Finally, all 3 humans held Rachane and cut the collar off with a knife. Through all of this, he never snapped at anyone. It became very apparent just how unnecessary using a catch pole was.

Rachane, like Arkte was also given a name change from Neeko (see - Arkte and Rachane Introduced)