I came as a young man, refugee from the Plains.

Looking for higher ground.

Where the sun shines through the rain.

Where the mountain folks and the old cowpokes have found a ppeace of mind I guess loving Mother Nature makes you naturally kind.

Colorado everywhere I go I'm in your shadow And you're callin' to me Colorado the sun's melting the snow making the river flow to the sea.

All the little tail biters and tail wagons that we have.

All of them are derived from the wolf.

Hes the basis of the canine family W e bred the dog from the wolf to have the traits.

We wanted to be subservient and timid and obedient.

I mean, every kind of trait that we look, you know, in a dog for hunting, the wolf has as part of his nature.

Lonely wolf howls filled the night, crying for life.

Slowly he moves, hearing all sounds.

Where have they gone?

The packs of the past forever.

He'll search for a place to call home.

The most distinctive thing that most people encounter with the wolf in the wild if they ever encountered is the wolf.

Howl is the calling because very few humans view the wolf in the wild.

They're very impressive animals, and yet that animal can be extremely tender.

I've watched a big male stealing eggs off the kitchen counter, reach up and take an egg down and walk away with it, and never make a mark in the shell.

Come here bear.

I became interested in studying wolves or wolf hybrids, probably in a biology class at Cal Poly.

It got me interested into the habits of the animal, and why we had exterminated them from the basic lower 48 states.

I have 13 hybrid wolves on the property.

It's a 40 acre parcel.

I've called it Wolf Haven as one word.

Not to be confused with Wolf Haven of America.

I have never taken a wolf and bred it to a dog.

All of the ones that I have obtained have already been hybrid.

I have brought back animals that people have not been able to handle, and I've had timid animals that have not been treated properly.

Therefore, there are some that I have that I can't touch or get close to.

These hybrid wolves, if were turned loose, would starve to death.

They are trained and taught in the wild by their parents and by the pack members.

How to kill and what game animals to go after.

These hybrid wolves do not know how to hunt.

They've been raised in captivity.

They would chase the doe if she ran, but I don't believe any one of them would know what to do with her if they caught her.

The wolf is not a good pet for the majority of people.

They demand lots of time.

They demand a lot of affection, especially by themselves.

Oh, you've got to be into everything, don't you?

Once you take on the responsibility of of having wolves or wolf hybrids, you have them for their lifespan, which is in captivity about 15 years.

You can't give them away to someone else.

They bond with you.

Bonding occurs in the first 4 to 6 weeks of life for a wolf cub or a wolf hybrid, and they do not like to change.

What I would like people to come away with is the idea that all that we have been taught and raised to believe about the wolves is not necessarily true.

He is a very timid, very social, very, you know, really solitary animal in the wild.

There's stories of the Alaskan wolves and whatnot going miles out of their way to avoid crossing a snowshoe track put down by a man they do not desire to be seen or in any proximity of humans.

We have not treated them well for centuries, and I'm afraid modern man is treating them even worse.

This is my dog Snookie, and she's a Australian shepherd and a different kind.

A dog that I don't know about.

And she is four years old, and I love her because she's playful and she she's fun to chase.

A dog party, a big dog party, big dogs, little dogs, red dogs, blue dogs, yellow dogs, green dogs, black dogs, and white dogs are all at a dog party.

What a dog party!

Not long ago had a and her friend bowler is sitting back here pound a skunk on the highway.

It was about two months ago and of course brought it in here into the yard and played with it, I guess, for probably two weeks.

Antill.

I decided I'd better bury that sucker.

So I hold it out in that big field there behind us and buried it, and they left it alone.

& probably a week ago they came out & disced this field and the next thing I knew, I began smelling something dead as I started walking around it.

And sure enough, they had returned with the skunk.

They had found it again.

There was nothing left but hide and old bones and maybe a few maggot carcasses in there, and there was nothing there to eat.

So what they were doing, I think, was bringing them something to.

Add to their dog rolling collection.

Fresh horse manure is like chocolate cream pie to them.

You're coming on.

Their whole side will be green.

Or of course, as I pointed out, anything dead.

And I'm not sure why dogs roll.

Annie, do you have a comment on this?

Why do dogs like to roll in fresh manure and old dead things?

I think it has had something to do with dog courtship, and there are probably similarities in the in the human species as well, considering the kind of stuff that we see on perfume counters all over, everywhere.

You ain't nothing but a hound dog crying all the time.

Well, you ain't never caught a rabbit and you ain't no friend of mine.

Hi, I'm Pete, and this is Chinook, and this is.

And that's Jean over there.

Are our pals there?

They're a little camera shy.

They get a little tense, you know, but I think.

And they are the best Colorado pets.

They're very well.

They love to run.

Love to pull you.

Yes, they do pull you.

So you don't actually have to walk.

They just pull you.

Very loyal.

We're sure they love to play.

Yes.

I've got a lot of personality.

All right, well, we're at the 16th annual Granby Classic now.

16 years ago, these people got together as a team and actually as a town and put together sled dog racing.

Well, the Colorado State Sled Dog Championships came out of that.

Let's go.

God put these dogs on the earth with all that energy to run, and we're giving them an avenue to run.

And they love it.

You watch these people with their dogs.

You know, there's a real bonding that goes on there because this is an athletic endeavor for human and canine athlete.

You can't pull a key out of a dog.

You can't park them.

There are 365 day, 24 hour task, and it's got to be a labor of love.

If it isn't, you're in the wrong business.

Dog sled.

He's the kind of thing you never can do.

Too much of it, especially when you see how happy it makes the dogs.

But it's like life.

They have different things that make them happy and lead.

Dogs like to be happy leading and the dogs in the team are happy being happy, the dogs in the team.

I know everybody's read Jack London and Call of the wild, and they've read this thing about the lead dog fights the rest of the pack to be the lead dog.

Well, Jack London is a good writer, but he never let the facts get in the way of a good story.

The lead dogs are generally the smartest ones, the ones you can cut a deal with.

You don't want a lead dog that's aggressive, that's going to jump into somebody else's team and pick a fight.

You want a lead dog, an attitude that's basically going to stay out there in front of the team, take them by and just get the speed up.

The lead dog doesn't really have to be a big, strong, hard pulling dog.

Their job is to set the pace and the speed.

It's like most things in life.

Lead follow o r get out of the way.

The reason you hook them up in pairs like this is so that they have somebody to run with, as long as the other dog keeps going.

It's a flywheel effect, and then they'll both keep going for like turns and stuff.

You say G for right and Hoffer left and whoa to stop and easy to slow down.

And they're always listening to you.

Always one out.

Usually the way we get them to do G and Haase hook them up next to somebody that already knows G and line out.

And then after a while, they know that every time you say G and that other dog drags him to the left or the right, as it were, then after a while they learn it.

But that's the fastest way to train sled dogs is use sled dogs that already know how to do it.

Line out, line out.

Okay, stay.

I'm running a four dog team.

I have Aspen as my lead dog.

Kahlua is my team dog and in the wheel I have Yukon and there's different ways people name their dogs.

So I have a Edgar Allen poe litter which came out as tar, tar and feather Raven fall House usher if you name them after cartoon dogs you run out after about eight.

I got trees or my woodlands litters.

I got theater and birds and willow and magnolia.

I got stars and constellations.

Ivanova and Zeta and Antares TV dogs run out after about six.

We had a nice litter of one male and by five females, and that worked out great for my fiddler on the roof So I had to.

And I had to name all the daughters, the wife and all the daughters.

The dogs like to go whenever they just want to go out and see the world, right, Vince?

Vince wants to see the world.

And so whenever you put him in the truck, they're happy to go and do whatever it is you're doing.

A dog will do just about anything as long as you do it with them.

It's one of their companionship features.

The more I see of men, the better I like dogs.

This is Dakota.

She is.

She is a chow mixed and and we love her because she's real silly.

Yeah.

Loves cold weather.

Likes to bury herself in snow.

She hates coming in.

The house is the perfect Colorado dog because she loves snow, loves outdoors.

And she loves us.

One day, coyote was walking along the road and he looked down the ravine.

And he saw this little small creature walking down there, and he said, well, let me.

I wonder who that is.

He said, and he looked down, and when he got down there, he found out that he was brother Badger.

And coyote said, hello, brother, let's hunt.

Let's hunt some rabbits.

And then Badger says, oh, okay, okay, why don't you go ahead and go?

Go.

Then Badger said, then coyote says, oh boy.

He says, Badger is slow & nearsighted, he won't get a thin I'm going to get the best of Badger.

I am, he said, and he took off, and he went down into the valley, and then all of a sudden he saw this two little ears pop up and he said, oh, wow, there's for sure I can get this.

I know I can , he said, he runs over there and he said, rabbit on the head.

In the meantime, Badger was still sitting there, kind of falling asleep, and he sat up and he said, now I can do my work and I can get I can outsmart that coyote.

So he started walking over.

He found a little hole in the ground and he has this huge claws.

And he started digging, digging, digging.

And then all of a sudden he looked in there and he saw 5 rabbits and he went, boom, boom, boom, boom, hit him over the head with his stick, tied their legs together and carried them back over to the camp.

And he says, oh, I can't just put them right here.

That darn old coyote, he's he's going to see them right away.

I'm going to get the best of him.

So he took him out and took him behind a tree and laid him down in a row, and he said, nah, that's not good enough.

He said, I'm going to get some more.

So he looked around again.

He walked a little ways off and he found another hole and he started digging.

Digging again.

He found five more and he went boom, boom, boom, boom.

He hit him over the head, tied their legs together and carried them back over to where the other ones were and laid him out.

He said, there, he said, now I'll get.

So he walks back over and he sits back down and falls back asleep.

In the meantime, Coyote's coming home.

By the time he got there, he says, he started laughing and he says, look, I knew it.

Badger still sitting there in the same old place, doing the same old thing.

He sound asleep, he said.

So he walks up to Badger and he says, hey, he says, Badger, Badger, you're gonna wake up, brother.

Wake up.

Badger opens one eye and he looks at him and he says.

Yep, I see he got a rabbit.

Come on over here.

I want to show you something.

He follows him and they walk around the cedar tree.

Coyotes eyes got this big.

And he says, oh my goodness, how in the world did you get all these?

That's for me to know badger said & he laughed He says, come on.

Anti up Coyote said, let me see how many rabbits you've got.

ten rabbits.

Oh my goodness.

But you did win the race.

You were here before I was said co yote.

And you did say that whoever got the most rabbits right?

Coyote gets all the rabbits.

Okay.

And yeah, I guess so.

Coyote went over there and grabbed his rabbit and he smacked it down on the ground right beside the others.

And he said, there you are.

There's your.

That's your 11th rabbit.

I guess my teeth are going to chatter all winter long, he said bye Badger, and he walked off into the forest.

They thought they would never see him again or hear of him again.

But as the Indians say, if you go out into the forest late in the evening and you listen very carefully, you can still hear, oh.

Coyte crying over his lost rabbit, the end.

The Boulder Turnpike was being built in about 1950 1951, and the construction workers one day noticed this stray dog had come to visit them most every day.

They would feed him scraps from their lunch pail, and he would stay around.

When the road construction was done and the toll booths were open, Shep still was looking for a home, and eventually he befriended the the toll takers and befriended befriended many of the drivers when they came through.

He stayed there, then around the toll booths until he died in 1964 and never showed any inclination to want to go anywhere else.

He wasn't chained to the toll gate.

He wasn't kept inside the toll booths.

He had free reign, but he chose to stay with the with the toll booths and the toll takers who became his friends.

When Shep was put to sleep in 1964, he had become such a friend of the toll takers, and I think such a friend of the of the people who normally traveled the turnpike, that they wanted to do something for his memory.

This was a dog who any was alive.

People would leave off checks at the toll booth by dog food.

At Christmas time.

They would leave off dog toys for him.

Dog food companies would send dog food to the toll booths for him.

He befriended a lot of people and people didn't want to let the memory die.

So they put the little gravestone in and buried Shep right next to where the toll booths used to be.

It was a simpler time, and and really, having this dog as our mascot around the toll booth on our freeways is something probably you wouldn't see in New York and you wouldn't see and in other parts of the country.

It was just a little bit of Colorado that was pretty special and a simpler time.

If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you.

This is the principal difference between a man and his dog.

This is my dog, Marley.

We got her from the the Friends League up in Tacoma, Washington.

So she's an immigrant to Colorado.

She loves it out here.

There's plenty of room for her to run around.

She's only about two years old, so she's still kind of skittish, but she's German shepherd, husky and part wolf.

They think because she howls.

But she likes being in Colorado.

She seems to like the the hot weather better than the rainy weather.

We got her from the friends league, so makes you feel kind of good that you got saved one of them.

So that's kind of a big bonus.

You guys said a puppy on the way here.

Is that what you mean?

Yeah, we're the Wheeler family.

I'm Michael, Diane, and Eliza.

We came here to Denver.

Dumb friends to get a puppy today.

I'm really impressed with the Denver Dumb friends.

Like, it's very modern facility clean.

There's glass between you and the animals.

I think it would be fun if you could pet them, but I understand for safety, it's probably not wise to be that open.

Oh, look at this one.

Thank you.

Yes, we can see the Denver Dumb Friends League was established in 1910.

It was established by a group of women who were concerned for the homeless animals in the Denver area.

And the motto for the Dumb Friends League is we speak for those who cannot speak for themselves.

The dogs and cats, they all have toys.

Some of them have blankets.

You see staff members and volunteers playing with the dogs.

The dogs are being called by name.

There are signs on the kennels.

It's a good feeling when I'm with the family and we're walking through the kennels, I like to find out what they're interested in and what they like to see in a pet and help them.

As far as answering questions that they may have about the ones that they're attracted to.

Sometimes people like the puppies.

They're real cute, yet they're looking for a smaller breed dog so I can help them look at the dogs that meet their expectations on what they're looking for.

Okay, let's go ahead and come on in.

We come in the door behind you.

Are you going?

Okay, we're gonna keep running these for a minute.

Okay.

When I was looking at the pets, the some of those eyes just melted your heart.

You know, the little puppy eyes.

And that's.

I think what people look for in a pet is, is a companion.

Someone you can tell your deepest secrets to and trust them.

What do you estimate will be the yearly expense of owning this pet?

Figure a dollar a day.

Your biggest hope when people walk out the door with an animal is that that we have given them the information they need to be a responsible pet owner, and then it's going to work out for the people and for the animal, because that's the best.

That's the ultimate.

The animal has a lifetime home.

And and the patrons have a wonderful friend companionship and that everybody's happy.

And that's the best that we can ask for.

I think a good name would be puffy.

I'm going to probably tell all my friends the whole school.

Happiness is a warm puppy.

It's hard to describe the feeling that one gets when you see a dog go out a distance of a half a mile and gather 3 or 400 head of sheep and bring them to your feet without command.

Their ability to read livestock and understand livestock is beyond description.

This is what we know today as a Border Collie.

The breed originated in Scotland in excess of 400 years ago.

The word collie is an old Gaelic word meaning good or fine or excellent.

The old shepherds used to talk about having a collie wife or a dog Collie dog being a really good working dog.

The commands I use are a bit Scottish and probably don't make a lot of sense to a lot of people with a significant thing is that they are very different.

If I want the dog to go to his right or in a counterclockwise motion around the sheep, the verbal command for the dog to do that is away to me, away to me, away to me.

If I want the dog to go to the left or in a clockwise motion around the livestock, that command is come by, come by, lie down.

Okay.

The third command, of course, is lie down.

And that's the stop command.

When I tell the dog there I want the dog, no matter what direction he's going to turn and move directly toward the livestock.

I'll incorporate that with a command to get the dog to move forward, which is the command that I use is get up incorporating those five maneuvers with the dog.

I think you can readily see that given a little bit of time and patience, I can put the sheep essentially anywhere I want to.

We find the border collie in use in Colorado more and more every day.

One man and a dog can go out and do more work with cattle or sheep than four men on horseback.

Border Collie works very, very much like a cutting horse.

In fact, is in this part of the country.

You frequently here cutting horses referred to as a 14 hand border collie.

Their style and method is the same.

It's all position and balance and power or authority over the livestock.

The only thing that these dogs ask for a reward is a warm, dry place to to sleep, food in their belly and a pat every now and then.

Wherever life may take you in sunshine or in fog, you'll never quite forget it.

When once you've worked a dog.

The end.