Deflating a Wolf

June 23….Timber is not looking well. He is obviously uncomfortable. It is 8 at night By the time we get a response from an available vet it is 8:45 and Timber’s belly has swollen. A probable colic. An emergency. We load him into the truck and rush him down to Jane at Victor Vet. By the time we get there he is in agony. He is rolling on the floor groaning. It takes a lot for a wolf to show pain. We lift him on the x ray table, try to hold him still. His gums are pale and he is going into shock. Jane rushes to get a catheter into him. His veins are too scarred from previous operations. She tries again. And again. The pressure is telling on all of us. The seconds are ticking away. Finally she gets a catheter in and gives him fluids. We take him to the operating table and lift him up, place him on his stomach, his head hanging down over the edge. I crouch below, nose to nose. He is 12 – is it his time to go? He is looking at me, terrified, in excruciating pain - but there is no sense of letting go at all. He is fighting. I get the impression he is terrified because he wants to live. He looks up at Jean holding him down and gives him a quick lick. Never would this happen in good health. He has far too much dignity and fear of humans. Usually the hardwiring overrides the softer emotions such as gratitude or affection. But not here. Not now.

Jane gives him a sedative, prepares the anesthesia. Seconds keep ticking away. It is not looking good. The X ray comes back almost entirely black – his stomach so distended with gas there is only a thin rim of tissues stretched, organs squashed flat against his ribs. His gums are going from pale to gray, cut off from circulation. - we are losing him. The anesthesia is taking, and Jane tries to get a tube down his throat to relieve the pressure. If she can’t the only alternative is surgery to untwist the stomach - unlikely survival. She tries and re- tries. Suddenly it slips through! Gas pours back out of the tube from his stomach; we squeeze his sides like a balloon to help push the air out. Even in anesthesia we can almost feel his relief. Jane flushed his stomach. Color rushes back into his gums as the blood starts to circulate. He may make it…….

It was a matter of minutes before it would have been too late. We are weak with relief. He is not out of the woods yet- there is the possibility of heart arrhythmias. Of stomach damage. Of another colic.

It is midnight. We bring him home and give him another IV and settle him in to the living room. Cucumber has to stay out tonight- there is only room for one wolf at time. She is not happy.

In the morning we give him another bag of IV fluids, stand him up, lie him down, pull his leg out to put in the IV needles and bandage it into place. He allows it. It always astounds me, this huge wolf, so shy most of the time, so tractable when he needs medical care. How does he sense that we are trying to help him. How does that override the shyness and fear hardwiring.

I think there are three ways to be able to make intimate contact with a wild one – interact with them in the short window in their babyhood when they are open to things and you get to slip in and become one of the accepted ones before that window closes; have a momentary encounter in the wild where you are two creatures curious about one another before fear sets it; or caring for a sick wild one that also allows you into a little window of opportunity, even if is it closes again later. Biology, plus hundreds of years of selection to fear humans, takes over again. But on come level it seems you both remember the moments of intimacy, when you were in union and trust.

The next morning he is standing. By noon he is restless. We put him out next to Cucumber and – she is shameless. She took one look at this huge gorgeous male and went wolf-gaga, wiggling, making herself tiny and generally making a scene. No teenager with a crush could have been more expressive. He accepted the adoration. By evening he was starving and demanding food, banging his bucket in impatience.

So many directions you can go with an incident like this…..why spend money and time on an animal when you have no time and money. Why so often does a wolf defy the odds and survive. Why do you want to save an animal to begin with - what does it say about us as a species…as interconnected with other living beings. Then there are the contradictions….as Loren Eiseley wrote in The Immense Journey, we are a strange species – some of us do everything we can to kill wolves, others of us to save them. We are kind to some species and treat others with mindless cruelty. Why does one culture love dogs and another eat them. Who is in the “in “group and who is in the “out” group and why. And what can we do about it to see that all species and individuals are treated with respect.