Gone to the Wolves............

Sunday May 23rd, I went to the Ernest Thompson Seton's exhibit opening at the Santa Fe History Museum. Seton is reputably the father of the American Scouting Movement, author, conservationist, and artist. Beginning as a hunter and killer of Wolves, he came to New Mexico from his Canadian home to kill wolves just outside of Clayton New Mexico. Having killed five wolves and the mate of a Wolf latter dubbed Loba, Loba came to find his mate and became trapped in a bear trap that Seton had laid for him.. As the story goes, Seton was so moved by this creatures concern for his mate, he found he could not kill Loba, and so began the transformation of hunter into environmentalist. Seton's rendering of a portrait of Loba can be seen as part of the Museums fabulous exhibit.

To celebrate Seton's penchant for Wolves, the nearby Palace of the Governors Courtyard held a four year old Timber wolf named Forrest. I approached Forrest and a cluster of Wolf gazers in the center of the courtyard with a white tent erected to provide Forrest with a shaded area as well as for the staff of Wild Spirt Wolf Sanctuary located in Rama, New Mexico just outside of Grants. My reason for visiting on Sunday aside from the draw of Seton's fabulous personal transformation, I was compelled to go and see the live wolf.

There has been a great deal of misinformation spewing from the lips, video cameras, and keyboards of a lot of so called "dog experts" regarding dog behavior likened to wolf behavior. Some of the true animal scientists and behaviorists ( such as Temple Grandin and Aleandra Horowitz among others) have taken this information to task and I thought it prudent to go and learn from the experts in person just what do dogs and wolves have in common and where do they part company?

According to the Angel Bennett of the Wild Spirit Sanctuary, who presented Forrest to the crowd, Wolves are 90 percent hunters, and 10% scavengers whereas dogs are 90% scavengers and 10 % hunters. What's more Wolves have no human loyalty (where as dogs have major human loyalty), and paradoxically mate for life, whereas dogs are indiscriminate. The wolf's brain is thirty percent larger than dog's brains and they have advanced cognitive abilities Wolves also have a high fear threshold, they don't adapt well to changes once they are over one year of age and they simply don't generalize as well as dogs to. In layman's terms, if I were to train a dog to jump into my car (which he could learn and perform only out of the knowledge that a steak or some coveted treat was promised and not because it pleased me as the neighborhood Border Collie would) and then I asked the dog to perform the same behavior into another car that may lead to confusion. A car is not a car to a Wolf! Dogs took the evolutionary fork in the road roughly 175,000 years ago, dogs evolving to become the ultimate experts on people. What shoes we wear tells them whether we are staying at home, going out to run, or headed to work. They have become the most observant of all to our movements, our body language, our moods, our sugar levels, or even whether we have an oncoming seizure! Wolves do not and are not concerned with us in this way.

Forrest was the antithesis of most captivity raised Wolf's in that he is quite social. His litter mates, also timber wolfs raised like he in captivity are not nearly as tolerant of humans. When I crouched in the circle around Forrest, he actually came up to met and licked me on the face. Angel announced to the crowd that this behavior was indicative that he trusted me and that this is common pup behavior when seeking feeding from an elder.

The Wild Spirit Sanctuary was established to rescue wolves and wolf-dogs from well meaning and uninformed members of the public who adopted wolves and who can cope with them in their homes. Tales of padlocked refrigerators, turkeys being removed from ovens as well as the contents of cooking crock pots and sofas being torn apart and dry wall being ripped to shreds impressed upon us onlookers with the challenges of Wolf ownership. Best leave them to the wild, or if not able to survive in the wild, let them live in Sanctuary!

Wild Spirit Sanctuary conducts tours where you can see nearly the 52 wolves they support. Visit their website at http://www.wildspiritwolfsanctuary.org/ or call them at (505 775 3304, open Tuesday Through Sunday Tours 11 am, 12:30, 2:00, and 3:30pm.

I was grateful for my wolf meeting and for my quick tour through Ernest Seton's exhibit at the Museum, an exhibit I plan to revisit before it closes down in 2011. (reach the museum at (505) 476-5200.) I think I'll take my dog out now, for a walk on the Wild Side!