We said goodbye with tears of love and respect to our beloved Four Socks as he made his journey crossing over to the other side.
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Shy Wolf Sanctuary does not breed, buy or sell animals. That being said, we have had our learning experiences. One of those was an accidental pregnancy by two wolfdogs we thought too young and too high content to breed under a year old. Boy, were we wrong! We had Lobo scheduled to be neutered at 10 months of age, literally, within a week of when he and Kawani mated.
Kawani was a very young mother and had only two pups. One of those pups, Nokomis, did not survive more than 7 weeks and died from a leukemia-like disease in which he had essentially no red blood cells and a lot of white blood cells.
The pups were born on February 29th (leap year) and were left with their pack to be raised, but were handled daily by volunteers. Anyone knowing these animals will tell you that Kawani and Waya, while wolfdogs, were two of our shyest animals we had at the sanctuary. It was interesting to watch the pack dynamics change. During the time the pups were very small and not mobile, the group welcomed those they recognized as volunteers and part of their extended pack. Kawani & Lobo actually allowed us to handle the babies, holding them, helping to feed and clean them as well as petting the adults.
Lobo stayed close to Kawani & the pups, while Waya kept the perimeter secure and barked at anyone strange walking past. When the pups got their legs under them at about four weeks of age, Waya and Kawani reverted back to their usual standoffish personalities.
Four Socks, however, is just as social as his father, Lobo, and willingly walks up to new volunteers. It is this experience with minimally social animals welcoming us as their extended pack that leads us to believe all the information being put out by researchers and breeders is inaccurate when it comes to having to “pull pups” from their moms for bonding. To date no research has been done regarding leaving pups with their social parents.
