The Topsy-Turveydom World of Our Inherited Wolf-Stories

Topsy-turvey: adverb [top.sy-tur.vy]

1: in utter confusion or disorder

2: with the top of head downwards

Topsy-tuveydom: noun

On Easter evening, during a photo shoot for a children’s book titled: National Monuments and Presidential Pets: with Zoe and Duka, I reluctantly entered the realm of Topsy-Turvydom. As we prepared to recreate former President Woodrow Wilson's famous sheep herd, the soft light that heralds evening, misted through the tender leaves of cottonwoods. While I hurriedly dressed Zoe a Basset Hound, and Duka a Boxer into their sheep costumes the beauty of the pasture would normally have been the site of a romp-and-sniff fest, but I had light to catch and they had costumes to wear.

Zoe's reluctance to wear her costume, I thought was her legendary Basset stubbornness. Normally, she is cooperative when given a favorite treat, followed by words of praise—“Good job, honey! You can do this! It's for the children!” Today, however, she evoked one of her superhero powers: she has the ability to reduce her body volume while increasing her mass. Thus, turning herself into a Basset-hound version of a black hole.

Duka, as usual, was nonchalant as he watched the dog-vs-human wrestling event unfold. Believing that she was just being Zoe, I wasn’t too concerned as I struggled with her sudden inertia. “Maybe the costumes are too constricting.” I thought, as I pushed and tugged her into sheep-stocking feet, ears, and a fluffy body suit. With a heavy sigh, she laid onto last year’s leaves. After an adjustment to her sheep ears, I dressed Duka who settled into his costume with a snort.

New blades of orchard grass tickled my stomach, as I propped up onto my elbows and began the photo session. When she began to tremble and her eyes suddenly darkened I knew that something was terribly wrong. Before I opened the contact list on my cell phone, I had removed her sheep headdress and sheep's feet. After selecting the emergency veterinarian clinic number, I hit speakerphone and began to remove the body suit. Her shaking intensified when a pleasant, calm voice finally answered. "Emergency Veterinarian Clinic, how can I help you?"

“Do you have another clinic closer to Little Valley?” I asked the technician as I described her symptoms. The technician replied, "No, we don't." Our conversation ended when I stated that I was on my way. Now completely free of all sheep paraphernalia, Zoe tried to wobble a few faltering steps before collapsing. As I knelt by her side, I alternated between soothing both her and Duka, while I tore off his costume.

Between her bouts of stubbornness and a traumatic back injury, I've learned how to carefully lift her. Her body is about ten times longer than her bowed legs. My arms slid across her chest, and up around her torso before crossing under, like alternating seat belts. Then I knelt and lifted her length against my chest and abdomen before I stood. Directing Duka to “Follow,” we ran back to the car.

I’ve developed the skill of opening hatches and car doors while holding fifty-five-plus pounds of Basset. With a trembling hand, I lifted the hatch and laid her inside. Duka, bound into the cargo, alongside her. Even under duress, I delighted in his aerial transition from top speed to stillness.

Speeding from Little Valley to St. George I alternated between speech, crying, and songs and made Zoe an amend for my own stubbornness. They say that dogs resemble their human parents, and we definitely share some personality traits. Darkness was complete when we arrived at the clinic. Once inside, we were guided into a fluorescent-illuminated examination room.

Duka positioned himself at the end of the examination table, while I stood at the top curling my body around Zoe. Mostly, for comfort, and to protect her from whatever had taken over our quiet life, and plans. After blood tests, x-rays, administration of intravenous fluids, and a Lasix injection intermixed with not-so-silent prayers we learned that our beloved Zoe had serious pulmonary edema and other organ issues. A light box illuminated her X-rays, bringing clarity to the seriousness of her condition.

“Most owners would immediately let their loved one cross over with such news,” the emergency vet stated.

Zoe’s chest rattled against my cheek. I massaged her every morning! How did I not feel her lungs, clogged with fluid rattling against her ribs? Her muzzle was slack, and her thick chestnut eyelashes lay against the face I loved to kiss. “She's not ready,” I replied while my tears fell onto her elder-girl thinning fur. “And if she’s going to go, we would prefer that she goes home.”

We left with directions from the vet: “You have to understand how sick she is. Don’t be surprised if she goes any moment. Just love on her.” On the drive home, I listened to her breath and thought of all of the unfinished projects that she had inspired.

Sleep was brief for all of us that night, but a week later, she was still with us. Walking, though minus the trot that made her signature ears wag in time with her tail. And without enough air to produce her rock-splitting bay. A raspy cough was a reminder that we were not out of the woods. In retrospection, I realized one early morning during a medical massage session, that her signature bay had been quieter for several months.

My sister and other friends graciously watched her when I had to return to work. When ten days had passed since the incident, I finished my day and returned to my sisters to bring them home. Across the excited yips and gyrating bodies of my sister’s three dachshunds, the boxer wiggle of Duka and Zoe's imperceptible wagging tail, my sister handed me a disheveled doll.

“What is it?” I asked as she placed it into my hands.

“It’s a topsy-turvy doll!” she replied. A wobbly head, with tattered blonde braids topped with a soft, dull-crimson bonnet fell forward upon a dress of matching cloth. The water-stained, muslin-constructed doll stirred a memory that eluded me.

“It’s a topsy-turvy doll!” she repeated. “They were really common a long time ago.” With a deft flip, she turned the doll upside-down and pulled the dress down over the blonde head. The underside was now a muted calico, topped with one head composed of two different visages that pointed in opposite directions. One had torn, curling upper fangs, and a snout. The other, grey-haired with rectangular hand-drawn spectacles.

“Where did you find it and what is it?” I asked, perplexed at the misshapen head with both glasses and fangs.

“It's Little Red Riding Hood, Grandma, and the Wolf,” she replied. Again, she demonstrated how to turn the doll upside down to reveal another doll, hidden under the skirts of the first. “One of my friends found it floating in a canal, in Idaho,” she explained.

The grace of a serendipitous, do-over-moment filled the kitchen nook, when the images and scenes concerning Zoe’s and Duka's closest relations—wolves, filled my vision. It had been one of the projects I had not completed. A story that had been loping around in my head for years; based on a series of disconcerting events that starkly illuminated the incorrect and harmful narrative we told our children about wolves. And the many incorrect perceptions society has about our place in their world.

“Can I please take pictures of the doll?” I asked.

“Of course, you can,” she smiled. “I wanted to take some anyway. Turning, she placed it on top of her wood-burning stove. “I was going to throw it away, but I want to try to make one someday.”

I didn’t admonish her to never make this style of topsy-turvy doll, yet. Nearby, Zoe lay subdued on the cool floor while I used a flower pot to support the doll during its photo shoot; ruminating about the topsy-turvy world of wolf stories we have inherited and continue to share with our children. Momentarily distracted by the high-pitched voice of my young nephew, trying to direct the trio of dachshunds and Duka was a reminder of how dissimilar our —Canis familiaris fur-babies are from their ancestors—Canis lupus, the wolves.

“Hey, did you know that all of the dogs are related to wolves?” I asked my nephew Sassy-Pants as he trundled past.

“They are not,” he replied. I felt my throat tighten. Granted he is only four years old, but the fate of species dwells within his and our hands. Moreover, I am not convinced that humans appreciate the magnitude of this responsibility. As we are often caught in our own struggles, we don't consider the suffering, other species endure because of our actions and lifestyles.

He and other children are still being taught today, that wolves are big and bad and we should be afraid of them. The song from ‘Who is Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf,’ is, unfortunately, more alive and well than the wolf populations of North America. While substituting at local elementary schools, I witnessed the use of old narratives that imperil our earth's wolf populations.

A second-grade teacher had assigned a writing assignment to her students. In their best penmanship, they were directed to write the following sentence, on their extra-wide lined paper.

Who is afraid of the big bad wolf?

Who is afraid of the big bad wolf?

Who is afraid of the big bad wolf?

Who is afraid of the big bad wolf?

I sat in a small chair, knees bent, to chest level, and watched a student's still chubby hand scribe these sentences--over and over. “Good work. May I borrow your pencil, and show you a new sentence?” I asked.

“Yes,” he responded with a downward glance.

I quickly wrote a new sentence onto the very bottom of his paper. Being careful to curve the letters, in tiny round clean lines, as there was only one-half of a line remaining. “Can you read this for me?” I asked. He nodded as he scanned the sentence. “Go ahead, you can do it.”

We sat quietly and I could see his eyes reading the new words. My eyes widened when I realized that current wolf populations dwell within the last lines of their story. Not one written by themselves, and natural events but by humans. “Who loves the smart and strong wolf?” he read slowly.

“Excellent! Did you know that wolves are smart and strong, not big and bad?” His only response was to shake his head back, and forth no. “Let's read the last line, one more time,” I urged with a smile.

Driving home after school, I considered the narrow line of habitat, the legacy of mistreatment, and the lies we've told for generations about wolf populations. Furthermore, how will the continued use of negatively biased literature and media affect the future of wolf populations? If you are taught from an early age that wolves are big and bad, how can you vote for legislation for their protection and view them as unique carnivores who positively contribute to a healthy, balanced ecosystem? How can you negotiate with the agricultural communities about wildlife management programs if you believe wolves are big and bad?

Similar to the reverberation of a wolf song in the wild, pieces of the story continued to appear at unexpected moments. A year prior to Zoe's collapse we had traveled to Northern Utah to attend a funeral of a dear friend. Before the ceremony, we visited a nearby elementary school yard where I was shocked to find white, chalked images of wolves with exaggerated teeth. Large, scrawled negative wolf propaganda covered the asphalt around their misshapen forms.

While I took photographs, the dogs aimlessly milled about. Suddenly, the quiet morning air was torn apart by gunfire. It popped down the foothills from a nearby shooting range. Zoe instantly panicked and engaged her second superpower, which is the ability to transform her misshapen Basset legs into a jet propulsion rocket.

Duka couldn't even catch up with her, as she streaked across the schoolyard. Her terror run slowed, when she veered into doorways, trying to push inside. When I finally caught up, lungs burning I managed to grasp onto her harness. As the gunshots continued to reverberate across the valley, she thrashed about, still trying to run away. I murmured soothing words and lifted her into my arms.

The eastern foothills of the Wasatch range rose before us, while I carried her back to my parents' house. Except for ATVs, cars, dirt bikes, trucks, tramping feet, drones, and occasional gunshots, the hills have been silenced from wolf songs for over a hundred years. Wolves are statistical outliers and have been relegated to the far northern reaches of North America. The only exception was the recent two thousand-mile epic trek by a lone female, a biologist named Echo.

When the solitary female entered Utah she was gunned down. I was working in the county where she was killed, mistaken they said, for a coyote. We learned about her death during a conservation district business lunch at Nedra's Cafe in Kanab, Utah. My feelings were instant sadness and dismay over her passing. They laughed and made snide comments about wildlife biologists. Perhaps someone in that group of county, agricultural, and other natural resource personnel grieved over her demise. I don't know. Instead of speaking my true feelings about the tragedy I covered my wolf-daily planner calendar with a folder because I had a sudden overwhelming fear that I would lose my job if I spoke up. Their laughter drowned out the sound of her beautiful wild cries and the questions I wanted to ask. However, Zoe's sudden illness gave me another chance to ask the questions I wished to discuss with them on that tragic afternoon.

What I had wanted to ask the natural resource and agricultural professionals gathered around the rickety tables was this: "Where will they run to hide from us, the humans in sheep clothing?' When will we change the songs and stories we teach our children about wolves? When did any of us walk two-thousand miles to find a new home? How will the remaining wolf populations survive the lies we tell our children about them?' Lastly, how can we honor the ancient pact we've had with wolves? "Leave your wildness, and sit by the fire with us," we said thousands of years ago. We need to profoundly change the stories and songs that we tell about wolves.

"Who loves the strong, smart wolves?

Strong, smart wolves—strong smart wolves.

Who loves the strong, smart wolves?" Tra la la la la

We do.

Additional Reading:

Indigenous Americans: Spirituality and Ecos