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July 7, 2004 ~ Long-term Goals, Joyful Wolves
Wednesday.
I am working all day, every day, from dawn until well after dusk for two weeks straight, so what do you think I did on my one afternoon off? Sleep? No. Lounge around reading? No. Catch up on personal business that I'd been neglecting? No. Zone out? No. Hike? No, not even that.
I decided that the thing that I most wanted to do on my one afternoon off was get really dirty and sweaty doing some heavy physical labor. Working with wolves, in other words. I thought I could go two weeks without seeing them? Ha! I couldn't even last one week without seeing the wolves.
Grouse pointed out the signs of my addiction:
"Let's see... once you get a fix, you're already thinking ahead to the next one. When you're not with your habit, it's still on your mind. Your idea of Nirvana is to be with your habit 24/7. You think everybody in the world should try this, and talk about it to all your friends. You spend time trying to think of ways to bring this home with you, or to move out closer to where this is found. You give it most of your free time, and maybe some money, too. It wreaks havoc on your old lifestyle, and you don't care. It abuses your body, but you only come back for more. Yeah, it sounds like you have a Canis lupus addiction."
Add to that the telling bruises and cuts up and down my arms... I think I'm in trouble.
Actually, I've noticed that in the last few months, even though I've been spending more and more time at the wolf rescue, I hardly ever get marked up anymore. Muddy, yes, but not bruised and cut and scraped by teeth and claws. (Bruised and cut and scraped by the fencing material we've been using to construct pens, on the other hand... I tell you, fences are vicious! Much more dangerous than wolves.)
The lack of wounds speaks to the experience that I have gained in being a wolf-handler. I now know how to keep the wolves from giving "love bites," to keep them from jumping up in greeting. I can call them off. More importantly, they listen to me now, since they know me so well. And if they decide to test me, I can pin them, usually without getting nailed in the process (and know when not to pin them, too). Aside from the occasional scratch or stray bruise, my arms are looking fairly normal these days.
Last week when Morgan and I walked Banjo and Yetti, I couldn't believe how easy wolf-walking had become since the first time we attempted it. I mean, we actually walked. I didn't get winded. Or fall down. For the most part, I was actually walking the wolf, rather than the wolf walking me. Oh what a difference it makes, knowing how to handle these animals.
Ironically, the last line of that entry had been, "I've so much to learn." And boy had I! Back then when playing with them, we were unwittingly encouraging bad behavior. For instance, we don't play with hyper wolves like Banjo through the fence anymore because we know that it encourages behaviors that we're trying to train out of him. We don't allow "love bites" even though it's a sign of affection, because it's wolf-to-wolf language, not wolf-to-human language, and even if we know what they mean and are not hurt or offended by the occasional "love bite," we can bet an inexperienced human will be, so we need to train them to speak to other humans in ways that those humans will understand. "Off! Mine. No bites!! Only kisses. Only kisses, Banjo!" heh.
I knew quite a lot about wolf communication, behavior, and discipline before I ever set foot on sanctuary ground, but all of it was book knowledge. Now, after months of enrollment in the (literal) school of hard knocks, I am finally starting to feel as if that knowledge has become quite solid and tangible. We're making a lot of progress.
A lot of focus at the Rescue lately, both at board meetings and in general, has been placed on long-term goals. We are looking at where we are and where we want to go. How can we make quality of life better for the animals? How can we be a more effective Rescue?
Those questions are extremely important, but also extremely frustrating. The solutions that we know are the right ones, we unfortunately do not have the funding for. I mean, some months, just buying food and paying the vet bills puts us further in debt. We find a way to provide those bare minimum needs, we always do, even if it means a lot of personal sacrifice on the part of the board members or volunteers. These animals don't have anything but us, and if we fail them, that's it. It's the end of the line. It's a death sentence anywhere else, or continuation in an abusive or neglectful situation. So we pull the funds together somehow, and we always put the animals first.
It's the bigger, more expensive needs that have us stymied. Fundraisers haven't been bringing in enough. For instance, water for the Rescue has always come from a stream on the property. Unfortunately, there is now a development going in upstream, and not only is the water level getting pretty low, but we're afraid that the stream water will be contaminated. We need to have a well put in. But wells cost several thousand dollars. So we've started a well fund, and we are slowly, slowly putting a little money into it.
Then there are the problems with the pens. Some were intended to only be temporary, and shouldn't have animals in them for more than just a short time. Others have drainage issues and are muddy and too small. Some wolves aren't getting enough exercise due to small pens. So, we need to build new, large, well-drained pens. But the fencing supplies for these are expensive. So we save up the materials and slowly build as we can, tearing down the insufficient pens as we go. It's a very slow process, but we are chipping away at the problem.
This week, however, we got to actually see some results of these slow-working long-term plans. We finished construction of a wonderful new large pen. It is well-drained, with sturdy high fencing, dig-wire, lots of trees and space, and a large "den house" constructed inside.
Banjo and Yetti's pen has always been way too small for those two hyper wolves, especially since Morgan and I don't have time to walk them every week. Plus, in the last few weeks, it had become extremely muddy from all of the rain we'd been having. So, we introduced Banjo and Yetti to Coal and Ash (two lower-content adolescent wolf-dogs). They got along wonderfully. The four of them have moved into the new large pen, and oh! They are so very, very happy!
Morgan and I sat in the little laurel grove in their new pen on Wednesday for a time. They'd run and run and run and play together, then come over to us licking and smiling and begging for attention. Oh, it was a blessing to see them running full speed so freely around that pen, Banjo leaping over Yetti, Yetti turning to wrestle with him, Coal and Ash trying to keep up. Joy. Wolf joy, written all over their bodies. Yetti came to me and licked my face all over, then my hair, then my neck, and I scratched her everywhere. She gave me her belly, wiggling with contentment. Happy, joyful wolves, running, playing! There was a lump in my throat. Seriously.
That is what the long-term goals are about. That is what the fundraising is about. That is what the hours and hours and hours of digging post holes, pouring cement, stretching chain-link, hammering nails, bending wires, and crimping fencing is about. That is why I get blisters from the pliers and the hammer; that is why I don't mind the scratches from the wire. It took us a long, long time, and quite a while to gather the supplies, but oh, was it ever worth it. Happy wolves, running and playing at full speed.
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