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Letter From The President
Thank you! To all of our members, supporters and friends, you are wonderful! This past holiday season we had the largest number of folks purchase gift memberships ever, for their friends and family as gifts. We also had a great number of people contact us because a friend of theirs told them about the Sanctuary. Spreading the word about the Sanctuary is the easiest way for you to help us grow. Consider passing this newsletter link on to a friend, or putting the Sanctuary’s web site address into the signature block of your email. Gratefully Yours, Frank Wendland |
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When writing our last update it was snowing. We ended up receiving about 10” of snow. As I am writing this update, it is again snowing. Over the course of December we received close to 2 feet of snow. What made it worse was on Christmas Day the wind kicked up. One of our staff members had been in the Denver area visiting friends and returning that night, he found the road in Bellvue (12 miles from the Sanctuary) was impassable due to drifts 4 to 6 feet high. He decided to wait for the next plow truck to go by, so he could follow it up the canyon. He parked at the local post office and waited. Christmas night was not a popular time to plow and the first truck passing the post office was at 6:30 am. |
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| Rachane was examined and operated on at the Sanctuary on December 22nd. He had an abscess on his muzzle that ruptured, drained and refused to heal over. It continued to drain and we needed to see what was going on. All of the pathology from the tissue taken during surgery showed nothing remarkable. It now appears to have healed over, even though a bit crusty looking, but took longer than is normal. We are monitoring his progress. The new year began with 2” of snow on the 2nd, but we have really only had a few flurries between then an now. |
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| Noel (a fostered rescue) passed away on January 5th from mast cell cancer (see page 8). |
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| Merlin began limping on his left front leg and it appeared to be somewhat swollen. Priscilla Dressen (our vet) examined him on Jan. 14th and recommended radiographs. He was taken to VCA Vet Hospital on January 21st. The results were not good. His entire wrist area was fully involved with osteosarcoma. The only treatment for this level of involvement would be amputation and significant chemo and radiation therapies. At his age, almost 13, we opted not to go that path and currently have him on pain meds and support supplements. We will let him tell us what he wants and when. So far he is doing great. |
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| Luna started limping in the middle of January as well. Due to the massive amounts of ice that exists on the mountain right now we figured she had slipped and twisted her ankle. After a couple weeks she started keeping that foot off the ground altogether. We decided we had better get her in for x-rays. This is always a tough decision to make when animals are not social enough to be leashed and transported -- they have to be darted. The darting process is very stressful for the animals, not to mention the humans involved and can cause more injuries. On February 2nd, Steve went out to dart Luna for the trip to town. As she began stressing and running, it became very apparent that there were no significant injuries as she was using all four legs very well. We quickly reversed the decision and got out of her habitat. We are monitoring her progress carefully. |
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| On February 5th Lakota was taken to the Deer Creek Animal Hospital and Dr. Peter Emily to have a mass taken off of his jaw. This site is the same place where Dr. Emily has removed a Spindle Cell Sarcoma twice before (Oct 2007 & May 2009). Although this form of cancer is persistent, it is not very fast growing and does not seem to metastasize readily. Lakota did great with the surgery and is recovering extraordinarily well. The mass went to pathology and the results indicated that it was a benign, atypical, ossifying epulis, which was explained by our vet, to be just a random noncancerous growth on the jaw bone. |
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On February 5th, we requested an Emergency Dispensation of our county-mandated limits in order to bring Noel’s companion (Tonka), to the Sanctuary. He was not doing well at all with the loss of Noel and we needed to get him matched up with a new companion in a new habitat. On February 22nd, the County Commissioners discussed our request and approved the addition of 3 animals over our limit. This will not only allow us to bring Tonka to the Sanctuary, but a new companion for him and for Lakota who lost his companion last year. We will bring you more news on this in our next newsletter. All of the other animals are doing pretty well and we are looking forward to Spring! Thank you again for all you do for the wolves. We truly appreciate your concern and support! |
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WOLF, Post Office Box 1544, La Porte, CO 80535 - USA