A Wolf at Our Door

The phone rang as it did every afternoon, “Jamie called from work. He rescued an abandoned dog on his way to the mill this morning. Poor thing was so cold and starving, just wandering the highway near Lost Ledge,” my daughter informed me. “He’s dropped the dog off at Pat’s.”

Dr. Pat is our local rural vet and his kennels stand ready to take in abandoned or lost pets, usually brought in by the village dogcatcher. Winter is the worst season for the pets that find themselves homeless and many don’t survive the bitter mountain cold.

Jamie returned home that evening after a grueling day at the lumber mill. Despite his exhaustion from work that day, he couldn’t stop thinking about that dirty starving dog he fed his sandwich to that morning. “I’m gonna call Pat and see if anyone has called about that dog. I hate to think of him there and this close to Christmas.”

Five minutes later Jamie hung up the phone, “Pat says he’s just a pup and if no one claims him by Christmas, he’s gonna have to put him down as he doesn’t have the room for him… says he’s gonna be a small dog. What ya’ think?”

Christmas Day was upon us and no one claimed the pup, Minka asked me to go along with them to look at the little guy as Jamie really wanted a dog and maybe, just maybe, this would be the one, and besides… How could we stand by and let him be ‘put down?’

We loaded ourselves into Jamie’s truck and headed over the icy road to Pat’s to take a look, even though it was pretty much decided that we would be bringing the ‘little’ dog home.

Pat led us into the back where there was a single row of kennels filled mostly with hospital patients. “I think he may have a bit of coyote in him, but just take a look and let me know what you want to do.”

There he stood. Cleaned up and white, skinny, long legs and the biggest feet you can imagine. “Goodness, this is not going to be a small dog. I don’t see how Pat can say that. When he grows into those feet, he’s going to be a pretty big fella.” I told my young couple. “When I was a vet tech, I saw lots of pups, and this one’s got a heck of a lot of growing to do.”

Jamie picked him up the next day on his way home from work. As we were petting him we discovered a series of thirteen stitches closing a long gash on the underside of his neck. Apparently he had been in some kind of mishap, most likely attacked by a larger dog. Jamie phoned Pat who didn’t seem to know about the stitches and certainly he hadn’t put them in… and “No, no one has come forward for him.” It was just another mystery surrounding this pup. We speculated that he had fallen from the back of a truck and the owners were miles away by the time they had discovered he was gone, but why then weren’t they looking for him?

Two days later I answered the phone, thinking a bit too early for my daughter, “Mom… I don’t know what we’re going to do. We left him in the bathroom as you suggested and he’s torn the bathroom apart! He’s torn up the floor and eaten the walls. I don’t think we should try to keep him in there anymore.” I had recommended keeping him in the bathroom at night as part of his house training. The space was small and seemingly there was little damage he could do. In such a small space, we thought he would be okay and would go out dutifully in the morning. After all, he hadn’t gone potty and was holding… holding pieces of the linoleum in his mouth that is.

The next day started with another tearful and panicked call, “Oh my God! Mom, he’s eaten the kitchen wall and torn up the floor. The living room is a disaster. He’s ripped back the carpet and there isn’t a piece of underlay left larger than one inch in diameter. I don’t think we can keep him. What am I to do?” Unfortunately my usual recommendation of having him sleep near you with a light line tied between you and him wouldn’t work as they slept in a loft only accessible by a steep ladder.

“Bear with him honey and I guess you should start looking for home where they can handle him.” The thought of accepting defeat and giving him up left us both with a lump in our throats.

They called Pat and described the situation they found themselves in. “Oh, he’s chewing a lot is he? Well, that’s to be expected of pups, especially pups that might be a little bit coyote.”

“Hmm,” I thought when I heard Pat’s response. “I think he knows more than he’s telling us.” I remembered friends who had tried to raise an orphaned coyote pup… unsuccessfully. The pup had created a den inside the sofa and would not come out except at night to wreck havoc. He had done a considerable amount of damage while they attempted to integrate him into domesticity. He escaped one night through a window that had been left open and was never seen again.

Things were not looking great for Kaspar, who was beginning to look more ‘wolf like’ with each passing day. “ Oh Mom… He’s ripped out the sofa cushions and shredded them. There’s just no stopping him. He’s ruining everything. We wont have anything left.”

Finding a new home for him was not going well, in fact, not going at all. There was no interest in taking on a probable part coyote pup with chewing problems.

“Now he’s done it,” Minka said. “He’s chewed up the television remote. Jamie tried to tape it back together but after he chewed it up a second time… Oh well.”

Things weren’t any better outside the house where he dug a great den under the porch stairs. And, he had developed a ‘wander-lust.’ The fences grew higher but unable to contain him. He could slip a chain and as we are all opposed to chaining a dog, it wasn’t an option anyway.

All this time, he was growing into a magnificent animal. He was something to see and still is with the backdrop of our mountains he looks very much the wolf. He moved with such fluid grace along the lakeshore, totally in his element.

From time to time, my daughter, Minka, and I have seen a number of dogs like him. One day when we were collecting our mail from our post office, we ran into a woman who had an almost identical dog she was loading into her truck. We asked her where her dog came from and as it turned out, she got hers from a breeder who raises wolf hybrids. She told us that all the dogs that came from this breeder were at a minimum, 25% wolf. Well, that explained a lot of the behavior and some we are still dealing with.

Obviously Kaspar never found a new home. Eventually he stopped eating the house and endeared himself to his Minka and Jamie. Of course, he developed other doggie proclivities that both entertain and annoy us. He’s sneaky. He can disappear right before your eyes and especially so in winter. Being white, he slinks down in the snow and just evaporates and only returns when he’s good and ready. The dogcatcher made it her personal mandate to catch the scoundrel but he outwitted her for years and she’s never got him. He loved to ride in the back of Jamie’s pickup truck and was known around town as the ‘Drive by Barker,’ infuriating every neighborhood canine into a frenzy.

Kaspar is a senior now. Quiet and willing to sleep most his days, except for his usual morning and evening submission to the wanderlust in his blood. The local wildlife is quite safe since his old joints no longer allow him to run and nothing pleases him more than to find a nice clean patch of snow to curl up on for a nap.

The poor economic times have been hard on our family as it has been on many, but being close, our daughter has come home to live for a time, along with her fur family, Kaspar the most senior of them.

I step outside with the three dogs for their early morning and evening constitutionals, and as usual, Kaspar vanishes and I worry. I look for him in all directions. He is a dog that has never really accepted the leash and I worry for him. I know that in his present condition he is unable to harass wildlife, but I don’t know that anyone else wouldn’t see him as a threat. I worry that he might get hit crossing the nearby highway so I don’t call his name for fear that he would be distracted and my fear born out. Worried, I look out the upstairs windows to see if I can catch a glimpse of him returning. Finally after twenty minutes or so, I peek out the porch windows and see him curled up by the back door… a wolf at our door.