Alyeska, born on April 17, 1994 to Heather and Seamus of the Wildlife Science Center, was put peacefully to sleep on the evening of June 12, 2005. Though he had squamous cell cancer, which had eaten away a lot of the bone on the right side of his lower jaw, he could still enjoy soft food and visits from friends for about a month after his diagnosis. We did separate him from Karin and Apollo, with who he had lived for years, because of the danger that Apollo might break AL’s increasingly fragile lower jaw with a vigorous muzzle greeting.
Food had always played an important role in AL’s life so giving him lots of his favorite foods (Damn the cholesterol! Full speed ahead!) as long as they were soft, was ALimentary. He had his medication in cream cheese for several weeks and supplemented a diet of thawed Nebraska Brand Carnivore chow with one of Marla’s Blue Plate Specials, which she whips up for elderly wolves with picky appetites: scrambled egg, bacon, and cheese all cooked together. Alicia made him a plate of meatballs and potato “noodles.” He had hamburgers from a cookout at Monty’s. They had an egg mixed in and a little Woostershire sauce. AL was eager for us to break them into little pieces that he could gulp. He also evinced a fondness for vanilla yogurt with garlic butter mixed in (don’t ask).
Sandy Prantl, a cranio sacral therapist, gave him a “lymph drainage” treatment, and at one point it looked as if he dozed off while she gave him some therapy. This was quite a mark of trust on AL’s part. Sandy said the treatment should make him more comfortable and diminish the rope of thickened drool that often hung from the right side of his mouth. He was largely drool free (though he produced a normal amount of saliva when fed) for days after she worked on him.
Dr. Becker made a follow up visit to him about two weeks since he’d been to the clinic. She admired the spring in his step and urged us to keep seeing that he ate. She said that although the tumor was growing this was not the most aggressive example she had seen. We hoped we might have AL for a few weeks more. We had him for about another two.
The week of June 6 he began to slow down on eating. The growing tumor at the middle of his lower jaw was acting like a speculum and keeping him from closing his mouth entirely. It was also harder for him to pick up and maneuver chunks of food without help, so we helped him, feeding him by hand or sometimes with a spoon. We could tell though, that the tumor was spreading across his mouth and it would not be long before it would be very difficult for him to maneuver even small boluses past it. Amanda Shaad, our managing director, was concerned that he might reach a point where drinking would be too difficult, but his condition never reached that point. He was still outgoing on June 10 and 11, (literally asking to, and being allowed, to go on a walk) and, well, he marked Gale. First he did a standing scent mark behind her, very close. I told her. “As long as he doesn’t mark on me” was her reply. No sooner had she said this than he hiked his leg and doused her!
That evening Dr. Klinghammer visited AL and determined that AL needed to be put to sleep in a day or three. Gale and I had been thinking we probably could not get medication into him for many more days.
On the morning of June 12, when AL was having difficulty picking up and maneuvering small chunks of liver sausage into his mouth, we thought he was near the end. Usually, even if he started out slowly, he perked up after getting some food inside himself, but in this case it seemed that he only finished half a dozen small pieces with difficulty. We called Dr. Becker and she came out that evening to put AL to sleep. He got a dose of Telazol so he would be unconscious when he got the intravenous injection of euthanasia solution. He went to sleep being hand fed more liver sausage, for which he still showed great enthusiasm, by Gale Motter and Peggy Klinghammer. Once he was unconscious, Dr. Becker set him free from his failing body.
Alyeska is the old Native word for Alaska. It makes a lovely name, especially for a wolf. But to English speakers, names that end in “a” usually sound feminine. When we found ourselves repeatedly explaining to the public that Alyeska was a male we shortened it. As our then-staff artist, Jill Moore put it, in a song she made up, “We call him AL ‘cause he’s not a gal!”
Alyeska was an unusual wolf in several ways. Born at the Wildlife Science Center in Minnesota, AL was a contraceptive “oops.” The Center was testing a contraceptive for male wolves, and because it was expensive and had to be given daily for many weeks, director Peggy Callahan was trying to find out what was the minimum effective dosage. AL was the result.
In some ways he was an odd wolf. He never had the full complement of adult teeth, missing some from the middle of his lower jaw. At least one more broke off. AL did not possess the black pads that wolves and dogs have at the back of their wrists, like the pads on their toes. He had a large amiable face which often looked slightly worried. He had little behavioral quirks too. AL kept a weather eye on the weather. We often saw him scanning the sky, particularly when clouds were flying before a strong wind. He could be very shy or very calm. Sometimes he hummed as a mild protest against, say, being moved, while going limp like a fur covered bag of warm jelly.
As a puppy he gave the impression of being a little slow but very sweet. It was a standing joke that AL thought he was a coffee table until he was about six months old, and that he liked to be put in the holding pen because he could visit his friends, the furniture – wooden spools and huts. Once, however, he was much “swifter” than Orca. He and Karin got out of the nursery enclosure, which at the time was the old Wolf Woods West pen which was outside our current perimeter fence. He and Karin went adventuring in the corn. I still remember our anguish realizing the puppies were out and very probably in a field where it would be extremely difficult to see them even if they were moving. Luckily we found them not too far from the enclosure. Orca slept through the adventure, and Karin and Alyeska seemed rather excited by their outing.
As a young adult, Alyeska made an ill-judged attempt to topple Orca from his position as alpha. Not only did AL lose the fight, he had a serious gash on his Achilles tendon. He did not seem able to control his leg from the hock down. Rather than make AL walk, trot, and canter, on three legs for the rest of his life, we scheduled surgery to try to repair the injury. But then AL stood on the leg. Next he walked on it. Within a day or two he was trotting around. No surgery for AL after all. There was much rejoicing.
However AL did lose status and eventually had to be removed from the pack. Eventually we put Apollo together with them, and they were a happy pair of bachelor goofs until the addition of Karin. At the threshold of the following breeding season AL and Apollo had a riproaring fight, some of it standing on their hindlegs, bracing their forelegs on each other and bellowing. Watching with binoculars from across the pond, they looked larger than life, rather like watching a battle between fur-upholstered T. rexes. When it was over the damage was slight, though I think Apollo had a scratched eye and AL had a couple of punctures and spent the rest of the day prudently staying in a hut to avoid Apollo. Then life went on with the “Pillow Pack” as a predominately amiable trio.
AL, who had become rather shy, gradually became more outgoing. He went on wolf bison demonstrations and often put in a creditable performance. He was a beautiful runner and Dr. Becker, on the strength of some x-rays she took a couple of years ago (he was at the clinic for a urinary tract problem, which subsequently cleared up) assured us that he could get OFA certification with no problem. She still uses his x-rays to show dog owners what splendid, healthy hip joints should look like, even in a rather heavy older canine.
In our suddenly AL-less world, we are left with memories of his gentle face, with its rather quizzical expressions, and the thrill he gave us when he came over and wanted to be patted (especially tummy rubs) or just hang out, and his occasional outbursts of jollity. Eleven years was far too short a time to have AL but sometimes the most precious gifts are fleeting.