Walk With Wolfdogs

4. Walk with Wolfdogs at Yamnuska Wolfdog Sanctuary
Done!
May 11, 2013


It's been a while since I last posted.  April started out with such hope and excitement for this list, but it just didn't go very far.  I'm trying to do a few extra in May, but that's been a little slow as well...

In any case: 

On May 11, 2013 my beautiful friend, Kristi, and I went to visit wolfdogs at The Yamnuska Wolfdog Sanctuary.  I had the idea in my mind that we would be going on a walk with the dogs at our sides.  We would snuggle and pet them and it would be lovely.  It was lovely, but that's not what happened. 

A few weeks in advance, I contacted the sanctuary and was told that it would be more of an information session, which is still really cool.  I picked up Kristi in the morning (our appointment was at 12:00pm) and after a couple of wrong turns, we were on our way.  The sanctuary was approximately 40 minutes from Calgary, just at the turn off to Exshaw along the Number 1 highway.

Our malamute friend

When we got there we were immediately greeted by Georgina, the young woman who lives in the home at the sanctuary.  We introduced ourselves and she lead us around the house to the caged in area, which was huge.  The dogs heard us coming and were all howling like wolves in the night.  It was entrancing!

As we approached the pen, they calmed down right away.  We went through the gates and sat down in some lawn chairs.  A couple of the dogs came over to sniff at us, but only one got within arms reach.  He is a malamute/wolf mix and was a real snuggler!  He was more dog than wolf.  Looking at him vs the others, it's obvious.

The dogs walked around a bit, but quickly found a place to sit in the shade.  It was pretty warm that afternoon, so they were very lazy.

Georgina told us all about the pack, which dogs are the leaders and what their days are like.  She explained about the traits of wolfdogs vs. regular dogs and other characteristics.  Contrary to popular belief, full wolves are a lot less confrontational than expected.  She told us that in the past 100 years there have only been two human deaths by wolf!

Wolfdogs care about humans and human reward a lot less than normal dogs.  Georgina explained about how they don't really care if a human disciplines them for something that they want to do; they'll keep doing it anyways.  She lives onsite and told us about a time that she forgot to lock the back gate properly.  When she got home, most of her bedding was out in the yard and there was a lot of destruction in the house.  She explained that if one of the dogs comes into the house when she's eating, it will jump on the table or counters.  Not just the front legs, but the full dog.  Can you imagine a full sized dog on your kitchen table?!

They had a 9 week old wolf-pup at the sanctuary.  She was so sweet!  Near the end of our talk, Georgina brought her over and put her in our laps, which was really cool.  First she sat in my lap and Kristi took photos of me.  Then she sat in Kristi's lap and I took photos of her.  She was pretty warm, so she scrambled back to the shade quickly.

After the visit, Kristi and I both discovered that our photos of that part were missing.  It was so weird!  We used two very different kinds of cameras (hers was a cell and mine was a handheld) and we had all of the other photos that we had taken.  Maybe there's a little magic to that pup and she didn't want her picture taken!

The visit was about 30 minutes long and very informative.  The dogs are incredible and a lot of them looked just like full wolves.  I couldn't believe how long some of their legs are!

It was nice to leave the city for a couple of hours and to experience something that I wouldn't have otherwise known about.  Thanks to my friends, Dan & Marianne, for suggesting this!  And thanks to Kristi for coming along!  It was great to spend the day with you.

Afterwards we went for an excellent mani-pedi.  Because that's the natural thing to do after visiting with wolves.