A Drink from the Fountain of Youth

Animal Story, Animal Tales, Wolves | February 16, 2010

We brought gentle, ancient Windsong into the cabin to ease her aching limbs from the cold. She likes it quite well. She has yet to give any indication that she is willing to leave. We take her out several times a day for exercise and sun but she makes it clear that she is ready to return at any time. She races as fast as her wobbly back legs allow,  directly to the cabin door. There isn’t much doubt as to her preference. It took her a while to settle in and believe her good fortune.  That it wasn’t going to be taken away. She was dazed and out of it when we first brought her in, acting rather like a  wolf with Alzheimer’s, going vaguely and woodenly wherever we gently, physically directed her, eyes vacant and uncomprehending. She had had that vagueness about her for about six months, so much so that she gave the impression that she was going blind and deaf.  We thought she would have only a month or so more to live, another reason we brought her in, to give her comfort and care. But we were radically fooled.  As the days and weeks rolled by, she began to realize that she might be staying and she allowed herself to expand into that sense of trust and belief. This 16-year-old wolf, 112 years in human terms, began to regain her youth!  Rather than fading away she had somehow reconnected to her life force. She became increasingly alert, her eyes bright and curious. She was clearly not blind. And she was clearly not deaf. She had just disconnected. Her energy level increased and she wallowed in the delights of the cabin, investigating smells and potential sources of food with proper wolfly interest. Coming back in she stretches luxuriously on her soft bed, enjoying the floor heat as it seeps into her old bones. We have created a monster – a wolf so obviously enjoying her new life that we will not have the heart to put her back out until late spring. How can you give a creature a second life and then take it away?  Now that she is in, it would be like putting a relative out on an iceberg. The disappointment would kill her. So we now have another wolf resident in the cabin.

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