Spirit

At a young age, a white female wolf-dog cross named Spirit was sold to a puppy mill and spent much of her life producing puppies to sell.  Eventually, her owner left Spirit, seven newborn puppies and the male dog to which she was being bred in a hotel’s tennis court in Walsenburg, CO.  The hotel owners called Mission:Wolf looking for help, but they didn’t have room for the animals.

A month later, the puppies and the male had found homes, but Spirit was still living in the tennis court.  Unfortunately, the hotel owners decided to set her free.  Usually when this happens, the wolf or wolf-dog runs up to the first person they see looking for food and gets shot out of fear.  When this doesn’t  happen, the animal stays in the woods and starves to death because it doesn’t know how to hunt.  Thankfully, this wasn’t the case with Spirit.  Some kind people in Walsenburg found Spirit running loose and returned her to the tennis court. When Mission:Wolf heard about Spirit’s predicament this time, they agreed to take her in.

Upon her arrival in May of 2003, Spirit had little confidence and she shied away from everything and everyone.  The staff decided to try introducing Spirit to a confident male wolf named Mowgli.  Introducing wolves to each other usually takes months to work because wolves are so suspicious of new members in their pack.  However, after only two weeks, the staff opened the gate, and now Spirit and Mowgli can always be found side by side.  In the time since their introduction, Mowgli has taught Spirit to be more outgoing around strangers and not to bark as much at tours.  Now, after a couple of years of special attention from Mowgli and the refuge staff, Spirit’s health has greatly improved and she likes to run around her enclosure with the speed of a greyhound.