I finally arrived at the Wolf Sanctuary, after a ten hour bus ride. You can surely imagine how I felt. I was picked up by Nadine and Stuart, who also live at the Sanctuary. They used to be regular customers and now they are integrated in the staff somehow. I live together with them and Tania, another Volunteer, in this house:
The Big House
My room in the Big House
Looks quite rustic doesn’t it. Well, it mainly is one thing: Arschkalt! Especially at night when the temperatures drop rapidly. Stuart took me on a little tour around the premises all across the different dens. The smallest pack contains of two and the largest of eleven wolves. On the whole, there are about 60 wolves here. 13 of them are puppies, which I got to feed right after the tour. The get a diet of meat (enhanced with vitamins and bone meal) and milk (at least in the first weeks).
Feeding Frenzy
Feeding Frenzy 2
Most of them don’t even have names yet. But I made sure that one of them is now named Barney. The puppies have to be fed every 4 hours, thus I don’t get much sleep.
Anyway, the Wolf Sanctuary is not only about feeding the puppies; the big packs are also very… very hungry. Their diet is meat, meat, and meat. You cannot feed about 45 wolves with the stuff you get from the supermarket. The meat comes usually in cow-form and is donated by the local farmers if the cow is sick or died under suspicious circumstances (they actually don’t like pork so much) and has to be slaughtered on the premises. Let’s cut to the chase: I slaughtered (not killed) a calf.
1.Take a sharp half-moon shaped blade.
2.Cut a hole in the two rear legs.
3.Hang the cow upside down (you actually hang her the other way around, but for the beginning it was easier for me)
4.Cut around the ankles and skin the whole thing.
5.Cut off the tail.
6.Open it between the ribs.
7.Take the intestines out. (The wolves love ‘em, because in a calf there is only milk in from the mother cow. So its quite healthy. too)
8. Take out a Butcher’s Cleaver (AAAAAH.. FRESH MEAT)….
9.and start chopping apart the limbs, ribs, head… basically everything.
10.Put all in a big bag and either feed it directly or cut off the meat for the puppies.
Cow Autopsy
So, on my second day I slaughtered a calf. One tip: you must not look into its eyes and just ignore the blood running out of its nose and the disgusting smell, when the stomach is opened… and you will be fine. Actually, the only thing I was worried about was touching the shit that was still in the calf’s ass. Weird, ey?
I am sorry that I cannot show you one of the most beautiful sounds in the world: a wolf’s howling. In the Sanctuary, it always starts at the bottom, the farthest away from the houses, where the wildest wolves live. And it builds up until every wolf is howling. It is an amazing feeling to fall asleep to that sound… Pity, that I have to get up in 3 hours to feed the pups.
