Part Wild: Caught Between the Worlds of Wolves and Dogs - Softcover

Terrill, Ceiridwen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 145163482X ISBN 13: 9781451634822

Publisher: Scribner, 2012

Synopsis

An “introspective and lyrical” (Booklist) memoir about a woman and her wolfdog hybrid—a powerful combination of storytelling and science that is as informative as it is moving.

When Ceiridwen Terrill adopts a wolfdog—part husky, part gray wolf—named Inyo to be her protector and fellow traveler, she is drawn to Inyo’s spark of wildness and compelled by the great responsibility, even danger, that accompanies the allure of the wild. She feels transformed by the extraordinary love she shares with Inyo, who teaches Terrill how to carve out a place for herself in the world.

Over almost four years, Terrill and Inyo’s adventures veer between hilarious and heartbreaking. There are peaceful weekends spent hiking in snowy foothills, mirthful romps through dirty laundry, joyful adoptions of dog companions, and clashes brought on by the stress of caring for Inyo, insatiable without the stimulation of a life lived outdoors. Forced to move and weigh the complaints of fearful neighbors against the desires of her space-craving wolfdog, Terrill must confront the reality of what she has done by trying to tame a part-wild animal.

A gifted writer able to capture the grace and power of the natural world, the complexity of scientific ideas, and the pulse of the human experience, Terrill has written a bittersweet memoir of the beauty and tragedy that come from living with a measure of wildness.

About this title

About the Author

Ceiridwen Terrill is an associate professor of science writing and environmental journalism at Concordia University in Portland, Oregon. Her essays have appeared in Oxford American and Isotope, as well as the anthology What Wildness Is This: Women Write About the Southwest. Her first book Unnatural Landscapes: Tracking Invasive Species was published in 2007. To see photos and video from Part Wild and to learn more about her work, visit MyUrbanWild.com. Follow her on Twitter@myurbanwild.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Author’s Note

I grew up loving dogs, from the free puppies in a cardboard box outside the 7-Eleven—my mother said no and broke my little-kid heart—to the Welsh corgi of my teenage years, my perfect mimic right down to the resentful glance over one shoulder as we slunk off to my room. Then by chance, at a particularly sad and frightening time in my life, I met an animal labeled “wolfdog” and decided that only a wolfdog could be the kind of companion I was looking for.

Wolfdog breeders believe that introducing a “wild streak” into the dog genome helps to reverse the damage caused by domestication, and produces an animal smarter, stronger, and more independent than a dog. To find out if they’re right, I spent five years tracking down geneticists, wolf biologists, and dog trainers. To grasp the differences between wolves and dogs, I turned skulls over in my hands, peered at teeth, studied paw prints in the snow, and trained my telephoto lens on Half-Tail, a young female wolf of the Agate Creek Pack, as she howled to her pack mates. I found clues in genetics, in behavioral studies, and in theories about the origins of the dog. I hopped planes to Texas and Siberia, attended wolf conferences, visited a wildlife forensics lab, and drove dusty back roads to meet breeders and animal-rescue folks.

Right or not, wolfdog breeders wouldn’t be in business without buyers drawn to the idea of bonding with a part-wild creature, as if surmounting the difficulties of that kind of relationship—as opposed to simply enjoying the easy one with dogs—will fill a great hole in their hearts. That’s why I can’t explain wolfdogs’ genetics, behavior, or the difficulty of keeping them without revealing the reasons for my own longing and telling the story of my life with a wolfdog.

It’s impossible to write about wolfdogs without writing about dogs, the canines designed to be our friends, and about wolves too, the wild creatures who neither need nor want a bond with humans. A book about wolfdogs has to contain it all—the personal desires whetted by myth, political battles in the borderlands where wild ways and human enterprise clash, and the complex and sometimes conflicting scientific studies that seek to expand our knowledge of all the creatures within the genusCanis.

Writing a book that combines the personal with science has meant becoming a little like a wolfdog myself: azweiweltenkind—a child of two worlds.

© 2011 Ceiridwen Terrill

Edition details

• Publisher: Scribner
• Publication date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 145163482X
• ISBN 13: 9781451634822
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 304