My Day at Yamnuska Wolfdog Sanctuary

I did the coolest thing. I went to a wolfdog sanctuary. As you probably guessed by the title of this post. I am completely in love with big dogs, so being able to spend the day with them was so much fun. We got to feed them and pet them and I learned a lot of things about wolves and wolfdogs that I didn’t actually know. First off a wolfdog is any dog with a bit of wolf in them. A high content wolfdog has more wolf in it than dog, and a low content wolfdog is more dog than wolf.

For example, did you guys know that wolves in the wild are actually very timid and shy? They would rather use their flight response instead of fighting. The media does a bad job of representing wolves because they’re always portrayed as wild, vicious etc. In incidents where a wolfdog has attacked a human, people are always quick to assume that it’s because of the wolf in them, when its actually a dog trait. Wild.

We also got to observe the behaviour of the alpha male of a pack and how the rest of the wolfdogs act around the alphas. In this picture, Nova (the white one) was waiting for the approval of the alpha Zeus before he took the treats we were throwing at him. Our guide also gave us a rundown of behaviours that only alphas would do which was cool, because it was things you wouldn’t think twice about (for example, only the alpha male pees with his leg up, all the other male wolfdogs pee in a squatting-like position)

Here’s an action shot of Nova catching a treat in his mouth. We made a great team, but I do admit some of my throws weren’t the best haha.

I love doing things like this. Any opportunity to learn and have fun at the same time is the best. And the fact that it involved these majestic wolfdoggos made the experience so much more worthwhile. I definitely recommend for anyone to come here, or to just visit any kind of animal sanctuary. It’s a very eye opening and fun experience and I would definitely do it again.

These are low content wolfdogs. They were not shy at all and ate out of my hand and kept want rubs and pets. They’re HUGE.

💖, B