Wolves!

A couple of months ago, my brother texted me asking if I wanted to see wolves with him.  I said of "always!", and then asked when and where.  Haha!  He told me that his wife had made plans to take him to Wolf Creek Habitat where you can pay to get in the enclosures to pet the wolves.  This would be to celebrate his birthday in May.  And he was wanted to know if we wanted to join them.  We said yes!  So last weekend they picked us up in the morning and we drove to Brookville.  We had gotten there a bit before they opened, so we waited outside of the gate with some others who were also early.  When they opened, we were taken inside and anyone wanting to go in with wolves were given waivers to sign.  My husband, Joe, decided that he didn't actually want to go in the enclosures but would just watch from the observation deck above.  So my brother, sister-in-law, and I signed the waivers, paid, and were put into group 1.  

As we waited, we walked the observation deck where we could see many of the wolves.  I tried to get photographs of each of them.  After a while, they called the first 3 groups.  We went down where they assigned 2 volunteers per group and decided which groups were going into which enclosures.  Our group got assigned a couple who have sponsored a wolf there which allows them to visit as often as they want.

We went through the first gate, cramming into the tiny space to close the gate behind us before opening the next gate.  We were directed to stand around a platform and let the wolves come to us.  Quite quickly the two wolves in the enclosure with us came up to the platform and went straight for the volunteers and sponsors with tags wagging as they licked the peoples' faces.  I was standing closest to the sponsors so the wolves were near enough to me that I could reach them and after a bit of time, they began working their way around the platform to others as well.  It was clear that they were most comfortable with the people that they knew.  But they did allow all of us to pet them, and many, including myself got licked in the face.  

After a bit, we were guided into the next enclosure which had 4 wolves: three 1-year old siblings and their uncle.  The younger wolves were quite rambunctious and the older one avoided everyone.  Eventually the younger ones calmed down.  Towards the end of our time in with them, one of them fell asleep laying on his back after getting lots of belly rubs.  I couldn't believe how soft his ears and snout  were.  Then it was time to go into the final enclosure.

The last enclosure was similar to the first one.  Although the male was fairly shy and didn't stay on the platform too much.  But I was able to pet him too.  When we only had a few minutes left, the sun came out and it instantly felt much hotter and quite humid.  The wolves felt it too and pretty quickly left the platform for the shade.  As we were exiting their enclosure, they headed to the shelter in the back to cool down.

I am so gratefully that my brother and sister-in-law invited us to join us for this awesome experience!  The weather was great which helped us have a great time.  There were apparently foxes that we normally would have been able to see, but we didn't have access to them that day as they were doing some tree trimming with large equipment that they had rented.  It really was so cool!