'Walking with Wolves'
Its not often one finds oneself taking a walk on a sunny Thursday afteroon with a couple of Wolves!
On Thursday 24th April 08, Frome K-9 took 30 of its members on a trip to Yellowstone Park in the USA (well, OK, we can all dream - we went to Reading in Berkshire)
to the UK Wolf Conservation Trust in Beenham near Reading, where we 'Walked with Wolves'
The day started at 10am with a coach picking us up in Frome to make our way to Beenham, where lunch waited us at a pub called 'The Cross Keys Inn' The pre-ordered buffet lunch was faultless! after lunch we relaxed with coffee (or wine) and then made our way back onto the coach for the 5 minute trip up the road to the Wolf Centre.
As we drove in we could see various wolves in their enclosures.
Upon arrival we were greeted by Toni Sheldon and her team, and had a 45minute interesting talk on Wolves. Time was also spent on teaching us how to behave around their wolves in preperation for our walk with them, & what to do in the event of a wolf becoming more than interested in us! The answer was to breath over the Wolf! Oh yes, I kid you not!
Firstly we had to let the wolves meet us, (not the other way around!) After a 'frisk' by the Wolf Team, i.e. not having anything the Wolves 'might' be able to grab at, such as undone shoe laces/pony tails/on veiw cameras/NO TITBITS in our pockets ect etc we all stood in a line and let the Wolves take in our odours and inspect US so that they were happy to walk with us.
At present they have 2 Wolves that are tame enough to walk with the public, Duma & Dakota; so accompanied by a chain & 2 handlers per chain + Toni watching their every move to check the Wolves body language that they were happy with us all around then, off we all went for a walk.
We were all able to stroke Dakota on her belly throughout the walk, firstly letting her sniff our closed fist, which we then told told keep outstretched near her face, and with our other hand stroke her.
After our walk we were able to see the other Wolves in their enclosures namely the
The European Pack
Alba and his two sisters Latea and Lunca were the first European wolves to be raised in the UK in over 500 years.
The Juvenile Pack
Siblings Mai and Mosi arrived in May 2006 from Dartmoor. They were joined a few days later by Torak, from the Anglian Wolf Society
and the wolves that we walked with
The North American Pack
Duma and Dakota are sisters and are het main ambassadors. They live with Kodiak, founder wolf of the Trust.
After the walk we enjoyed a nice cup of tea as we browsed in the Wolf Shop.
We are planning a return someday for a evening 'Howl in' and to watch the Wolves at night.
Sharon Arnold
Frome K9
