Running with the wolves in Alberta – a visit to Yamnuska Wolfdog Sanctuary

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My parents come to Canada once every 12-18 months to visit me since I decided to emigrate to this beautiful country from the UK eight years ago. I’ll admit, I sometimes feel like I’m running out of new things to do with them. They love visiting me in Vancouver, and while I love my city, it’s sometimes nice to get out there and see something new to keep a bit of excitement in the vacation.

This year I decided we would travel to Alberta and through the Canadian Rockies. I’ve been more about the “experience gifts” in the last few years. Make memories, not garbage and all that. Why buy another thing that may never get used when you can experience something that you’ll remember. That’s when I found the wolfdog sanctuary, a non-profit sanctuary for wolf-dog hybrids.

What is a wolfdog?

Wolves and dogs are technically the same species, it’s just that dogs have been bred by humans as domesticated animals and somewhat engineered into the desired pet. But a wolfdog generally occurs when people are looking for a more exotic pet and breed a wolf and dog together to make a wolfdog. It’s not too common for this to happen naturally. Being more wolf than domestic dog, the wolfdogs end up sometimes being a bit much for their owners, and they are often given up which is where a lot of these wolfdogs came from.

We were told by our guide that the sanctuary was actually started by someone who ended up with a wolfdog without properly knowing what they were being sold. Instead of giving up the animal, they created a sanctuary for all others. The wolfdogs we met varied from low content (more dog than wolf – perhaps great grandma was a wolf) to high content (more wolf in them – maybe mom had a thing for a bad boy).

Where is Yamnuska Wolfdog Sanctuary?

The sanctuary is located between Calgary and Banff in Alberta, not far from Highway 1. The nearest town to the sanctuary is Cochrane, AB. From there it was only about a 15 minute drive.

From Calgary it’s about 40 minutes or so and from Banff, about an hour. It’s not on the most vehicle friendly of roads, and we were visiting in April when struck by an impromptu blizzard. That made driving even more fun. But with my phone playing GPS we made it there in plenty of time for our tour at noon.

Dogs vs. wolves – learning the traits

Before we started our tour, our guide Robyn gave us some tips about the wolfdogs. The high content wolfdogs have more traits of wolves, whereas the low content wolfdogs have more similarities to domestic dogs.

High Content:

• More timid than dogs (more likely to use flight response than fight)
• Leaner body and legs with long, slim muzzle
• Instinctual behaviours

Low content:

• More affectionate and interactive, especially around humans
• Bigger body with shorter legs and a shorter, wider muzzle
• Much more confident in social situations

We were lucky enough to spend time getting to know both kinds of wolfdogs, and interact with them.

Which tour should I take at Yamnuska?

There are three tours offered at Yamnuska Sanctuary:

• Sanctuary Walk
• Intro tour
• Interactive tour

The Sanctuary walk is the cheapest at only $25 and you don’t need a reservation. You will walk yourself around the sanctuary using the information boards to tell you about the wolfdogs.

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The Intro tour is $35 and you don’t always need a reservation. As well as having free run of the sanctuary walk, a guide also gives you a much more informative experience. You’ll get to go into one of the enclosures as the guide explains more about wolfdogs.

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We went for the third option, the Interactive tour. At $56 I thought this would be the best one considering we will probably not get to visit again anytime soon. We did need to reserve a tour time for this one. The tour gave us up close encounters with the wolfdogs and a guide for an hour.

What not to wear to visit the wolves

Since some of the wolfdogs are more on the wolf side of the scale, they are often more sensitive to smells and scents than domestic dogs. One of the big definitely not, can’t do things here is to bring your own dog. They aren’t even allowed in the parking lot.

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We also had strict instructions on what not to wear. It takes me long enough to decide what to wear on a good day, so I relished in the extra challenge. It should come as no surprise but you cannot wear fur or faux fur, even on the hood of your coat. Likewise down-feather clothing and coats are out, as are leather jackets and gloves. Leather shoes are OK, but ideally if you have something else that would be better. Last but not least wolfdogs, like any other dogs, love to play with things including anything dangling from your clothes. Pom poms, toggles, shoe laces. Keep them all under wraps unless you want a game of tug-of-war with a wolfdog.

Starting the Interactive tour at Yamnuska

The interactive tour was definitely the one I wanted to do. From the description, I envisioned us getting much closer to the animals and perhaps being lucky enough to touch them or feed them. That’s exactly what happened. As we visited the wolfdogs in their enclosures we were told how they had each arrived at the sanctuary and some of the problems of owning a wolfdog yourself.

In with the high content wolfdogs

We started off going into the enclosure with the high content wolfdogs. I actually didn’t realize we would be able to do this, so I was very excited when I found out. We were seated on a covered bench in the enclosure (just as well since it started snowing lightly). We were to remain seated the whole time and refrain from sudden movements in case we scared the wolfdogs away. Robyn, our guide, gave us a fistful of treats each and went to round up our furry friends. Kuna was the Alpha female and was instantly sniffing around us.

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I held out my hand with a treat on my flat palm and tried to contain my excitement as Kuna slobbered the treat from my hand. Some of the others like Zeus and Nova would not come too close and waited for us to launch the treats in their direction. Kuna was incredibly picky about her treats and was only interested in those with her favorite treats. Nikki came by the group vacuuming up all the remaining treats, sometimes backing up for a petting. I was sad to leave, amazed we were able to get so close to these amazing creatures.

Visiting the low content wolfdogs

After spending half an hour with the high content wolfdogs who were meant to be shy and timid, steering clear of humans, I was excited to spend time with the low content wolfdogs. However, it seems they were not in a social mood and preferred to sleep and stay a little further away. My handful of treats went largely untouched as only one animal, Rocky, made the rounds.Turns out he’s also pretty picky about his food so I opted to put down the treats in favor of taking photos.

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Rocky is 16 years old, relatively old for a wolfdog who typically live for 15 to 18 years. One of the other wolfdogs we saw in this enclosure was Loki who chose to remain sleeping. Apparently he’s pretty mischievous though and once destroyed an entire couch in 30 minutes, thus securing his place at the sanctuary. These animals were much larger and heavier looking than the high content wolfdogs we’d just seen. The snow was coming down fast and it was getting cold so we wrapped up the tour and went inside.

Make sure you visit Yamnuska

I had not heard of this place six months ago, so I still can’t believe I was able to take part in such an awesome animal encounter. Being able to get up close to these animals and experience the beauty of them was incredible. To be able to say I’ve fed and petted them is even more incredible.

The sanctuary is a non-profit and relies on donations, visitors and sponsorship of the wolfdogs to maintain costs. We couldn’t leave without a visit to the gift shop so I’d say we did our part. If you’re ever in the area though, make sure to stop by Yamnuska and visit the wolfdogs yourself, and I would highly recommend the interactive tour.

If you’ve enjoyed this post leave a comment below or share using the social media buttons. Have you ever been to a sanctuary like this, or even this one? What other animal encounters have you been lucky enough to experience?

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