By Maddie Orton
Correspondent
Michael Hodanish has to turn down three or four requests each week asking him to take on a new wolfdog at his sanctuary, Howling Woods Farm. There just isn’t the room. Much of the time, the story is this:
“The breeder says, ‘Oh, it’ll be fine. It’ll be a great house pet…’ As they’re puppies, they’re fine. Well, they get to be 7, 8 months old — large enough where their adult teeth are in — they can cause damage, and all of the sudden, they become problems,” explained Hodanish, president of Howling Woods Farm. “They’re going to just start roaming the house, they’ll grab garbage and they won’t want to give it back to you, they’ll find the sofa cushions and play tug of war with them.”
Hodanish says that’s because wolfdog hybrids that are more wolf than dog are almost like having livestock. Wolfdogs are categorized by content — low, medium and high. The higher the content, the more wolf they have in them.
Hodanish says medium and high-content wolfdogs are not meant to be house pets. Still, he unknowingly adopted a stray one years ago and fell in love. That’s when he became aware of the fate that meets many of these animals.
“I learned that the animal shelters, when they get wolfdogs — even if they’re not really wolfdogs and people say they’re part wolf — the shelters will euthanize the animal,” said Hodanish. “Even if it’s perfectly good temperament, pet-quality, they still euthanize it. I guess for liability reasons.”
The result of his findings? Howling Woods Farm. The shelter sits on 10 acres of land and holds six wolfdogs at the moment that are available for adoption. It also has 10 permanent “ambassador” wolfdogs. These are the animals visitors meet on tours and Hodanish takes to scout meetings, libraries and senior centers for presentations.
“We’re primarily an educational facility,” he said. “We teach people that wolves are not the mean, vicious animals that we’ve grown up to learn through fairy tales when we were kids.”
Of course, there are people who want to adopt these wolfdogs, too. Hodanish says it can sometimes take few years to find the right home.
“For the high-contents, we recommend fences that are eight-foot or higher…dig guards, so they can’t dig underneath the fence,” he said.
That’s all on top of having another canine (wolves are pack animals after all) and being OK with feeding them their high-protein diet.
“A raw diet, such as chicken, beef or pork,” said Hodanish.
And there’s also the matter of waking the neighbors with howling.
So for the majority of us who will never own a wolfdog, Hodanish is happy to provide the experience of meeting one in person, even if visitors can be a little trepidatious at first.
“But it only takes about 30 to 40 seconds when the animals come up and start licking their hands, and they see people interacting with them, and they get comfortable real fast,” he said.
Howling Woods Farm offers tours by appointment. And word to the wise, their puppies are just as mischievous as yours. So leave that bag carrying your baseball hat in the car.