The wolf is very loyal to its destiny. The proverb the wolf aspires toward the forest human son aspires toward home grew out of thousands of years of observation. Choton told me one story that links to this aspiration of the wolf to the steppe. During the national holiday Choton was hunting marmots on Five Hill. He saw two wolf cubs playing at the outskirts of the forest and when gave chase they separated and ran in opposite directions. One of them tried to hide in a marmot hole by putting its head in the hole. Choton pulled the cub out, bound its mouth then chased and caught the second pup. He brought them home and nourished them keeping them in a hole three meters deep. Whenever Choton came back from an overnight in the city or night duty the housewives of neighbors would beg him “Please take away your wolves”. Your wolves howled hole night and we couldn’t sleep. When he was at home at home they didn’t howl, only when he left. Perhaps they were afraid of man the man who had caught them. When they had grown up a bit they began to spring towards the opening of the hole. Each time they would jump higher and higher. After three months they were almost able to reach the hole’s dirt rim but it was impossible for them to retreat enough to gather the speed to make it out. They would never eat cooked food with noodles, instead lying hungry. They would eat raw meat or marmots but they would not eat if someone was watching them. If wood was affixed to the end of stick and lowered towards them they would lay curled with their eyes shut tight sticking their muzzles into their groins. Then Choton made as if he was leaving and from upwind looked through the grasses. The wolves thought the man had gone their ears went from laid-back to straight up. They looked cautiously toward the opening of the hole quickly nabbed the meat and lay down in a corner to eat it. When I caught them eating their stuck their muzzles into their groins. I pulled their muzzles out and they screwed their eyes shut. They never looked straight into a human’s eyes” Choton said.
In Khentii province one hunter reared a wolf pup until it grew up, then left it in a field. But the whelp, looking back followed its master home. The poet Nyamaa wrote to me about it. The proverbs don’t use wolf as a dog, don’t use the words of others as yours and the wolf is far from becoming a sheep as the crow is far from being white came into being for real reason. But animal trainer Amgalan managed to make wolves accustomed to people in order to perform with them. Hunters rearing wolves and my working with wolves are two very different things” he said. Wolves are not and will never be dogs. Hunters forget that a cub is still a wolf and treat it like a puppy dog. They will give food to a wolf cub with their hand then beat and scold it when the cub bites the hand together with the food. Or they will lift the cub by the scruff of its neck out of fondness when for a wolf it is torture. If an animal trainer wants to train a wolf the trainer will endure some minor bites. The wolf is inclined to want to grasp as much as possible in its jaws. But there is a difference between grasping with their teeth on purpose and involuntarily. A wolf does grasp its masters hand along with the food but once it realizes what the hand is lets go of it and regrets it. The wolf can be trained to understand what the word hand means then it will bite the hand tenderly. In this way it learns slowly how to take food from a hand. When I first got my hand bit, I was shocked and pushed the wolf away. That was the wrong thing to do and I had to work hard after that to teach the wolf how to take things from my hand. I have worked with wolves for about twenty years, so I can say I know a little bit about them Choton said laughing. A wolf never accustoms with another person- if it becomes accustomed to someone its for a lifetime. I worked hard to accustom wolfs and goats to one another. In the eyes of a wolf a goat always looks like a food. And the goat feels by instinct that the wolf is a predator. But instinct also tells the wolf that its master is Amgalan and that it can not eat the goat in front of its master while the goat senses that the wolf defers to Amgalan and will not attack in front of him. That doesn’t mean the wolf and goat become fond of each other and it does not mean that either animal can be switched for another one of its kind since the wolf and goat accustom to each other’s specific scent. I had one wolf called Caragana Amgalan said. Goats live shorter lives than wolves so when my first goat died I had to train a new one for the performance with Caragana. The performance was one in which the goat passed under the wolf and the wolf jumped over the goat. The first time Caragana jumped over the new goat she looked back at the goat after jumping. A successful first attempt like this is very important so I thought everything was going well. Encouraged, I bid the wolf jump a second time. But the wolf jumped landed on the goat and bit. Once a wolf bites it does not surrender what’s in its mouth. The goat screamed. I pulled the wolf by the scruff of her neck and pushed the goat away but the wolf wouldn’t loosen her grip. I told the attendant children to bring water and splash it between the goat and the wolf. The children were frightened but the wolf was also frightened at the sight of the water and moved away. So the water splashed me instead and I was soaked. I had the children hold the goat while I reached into wolf’s mouth and removed the goat flesh from its teeth. The wolf didn’t bite my hand. The wolf is always loyal to its wolf destiny. The poet Tsoodol described clearly in his poem “The wolf” the loyalty of the wolf to its life in the wild:
Though in the vastness Of the world wolf life is difficult Its no better to live Licking the bottom of a bowl Its not a glad life To attend a dusty hearth.
