  We met Crackers (left) in May of 1991, when we moved to "Sunnyside", the property where she lived. She was born somewhere in the Lower Mainland area on September 17, 1988, and moved to Ioco as a young pup (right).
After a short while, Cracks began to follow us on our daily walks. We would stop by the water, turn around, and there she was, less than 8-feet behind us. She was so quiet, if we hadn't looked, we wouldn't have known she was there. Hence her new name, Shadow; the (then) new name for our computing business (Shadow Support); and our evolution into 3wolves.org.
We became so fond of each other that, in August, we made it an "official" and mutual adoption. Her owner, who had moved into the city quite sometime before, bequeathed her to us. This seemed a good idea as Cracks was working on becoming pregnant again and would be in need of some support.
 A slight understatement—she had 10 pups(!)—a well-rounded balanced litter of 5 females and 5 males (4 are pictured here). The pups were adorable, and it was a wonderful experience helping her with them.
Her mate was an Akita X (named "Kita"), who was from the other side of the tracks (literally), and this was their 4th litter (36 pups in all).
With being pregnant again, Cracks seemed weary about it. She began to grumble (a lot!), a practice we had never witnessed before, yet our neighbour said she did so during her previous pregnancies as well. The intonation was such that she seemed to be saying, "Oh, God...I'm pregnant again....I wish somebody would do something about this...(!)."
 I had always had an affinity for the wolf and, though we knew Shadow had some wolf in her, after meeting her breeder, we discovered she was 5/8 canus lupus and 3/8 malamute. (Her father was pure wolf, and her mother almost half wolf.) In some ways, we weren't surprised. She had many wolf traits, and often people who crossed our path recognized the wolf in her. She loved to chase wildlife, especially deer and racoons, but she wouldn't go after a cat whom she knew "belonged". When we were visiting someone's house and we saw a cat outside, it seemed that she knew the cat lived there (...perhaps there are certain protocols?...). She had a rather large vocabulary, and she loved w-a-l-k-s (she recognized the spelled version). She howled when another wolf-cross came onto the property. Most notably, she was shy around people, very intelligent, quite sensitive, and she seemed to know what we were going to do before we did. She had a sense of humour and loved to play.
 In October of '98, Cracks went lame and, in November, was diagnosed with bone cancer. Quite synchronistically, we found a Naturopathic vet near us who gave her acupuncture and homeopathic remedies. After 2 or 3 treatments, she was putting weight on the afflicted leg again. She died March 5, 1999, and visited us for some time after, which was a revelation.
Shadow liked to be with 'the pack' rather than stay behind. She taught us about unconditional love, how to have fun, and how to be in the moment. We have many stories of happenings that have touched us and other people's hearts...perhaps some day we shall write more on these. |
