Dakota IMNC joined the Big Pack in the Sky on June 18th, 2025.
She was assisted at 14 years old due to age-related mobility and health concerns.
Dakota was born on February 18th, 2011 and arrived at Wild Spirit from Indigo Mountain Nature Center on April 9th, 2025.
In July of 2024, tragic news struck the wolf and wolfdog world when a beloved member of the community, Sue Cranston, passed away. Not only was Sue a tremendous advocate for these animals, she was also the Founder and Executive Director of Indigo Mountain Nature Center, a non-profit sanctuary located in Lake George, Colorado. With her passing, Indigo Mountain was on the cusp of shutting down, which would have left their 25 canid rescues without a home. With the over-saturation of wolfdogs already in sanctuaries (and more requiring placement each day), there was nowhere for these animals to go.
Losing a sanctuary is much like losing a life boat on a sinking ship, which is why Wild Spirit stepped up to offer a solution. Our first idea was to save the sanctuary itself; to purchase the Indigo Mountain property and in doing so, preserve the home of the 25 wolfdogs. The objective was to dissolve the Colorado sanctuary into our own, allowing Wild Spirit to operate in two neighboring states. This was called our “Save Indigo Mountain Campaign,” which saw an unprecedented amount of support from our incredible followers, as well as celebrities such as Kate Linder, Diane Warren, Bo Derek and many others. Unfortunately, the total up-front cost of this project (which included the purchase of the property itself, facility upgrades needed to acquire USDA licensing, and vet care for each rescue) would be approximately $1,500,000–a steep hurdle to save their lives. Regretfully, we were unable to amass the fund necessary to purchase the property before the owner’s deadline, and the land was sold in February of 2025.
Luckily for the residents of Indigo Mountain, Wild Spirit does not know the meaning of defeat. Though they lost their home, we were adamant to save their lives. One life boat was now officially gone, so we instead committed ourselves to building a new one! This began an even greater task of expanding Wild Spirit Wolf Sanctuary and creating 18 new enclosures to bring the animals here. We knew it would not be an easy endeavor. In fact, we were fully aware it would be far more difficult than simply purchasing the Indigo Mountain property, due to the limited space and resources here at Wild Spirit. Additionally, we had a new deadline of only 3 months to make it all happen; failure to do so would mean the 25 wolfdogs at Indigo Mountain would lose their homes, and their lives. Thus, the “Save Indigo Mountain Campaign” became our “Unite the Packs Campaign.“
The first step was securing enough money to make this transition possible, which we estimated to be a grand total of $171,729.44. Our donors, once again, proved their commitment to these animals by allowing us to reallocate a portion of our funds from the previous campaign to this new purpose, immediately securing $148,450.76 across 806 donations. Those who could not support us financially instead volunteered their time for enclosure construction, or donated enclosure materials (shout out to our good friend Jesse at Arkansas Wolf & Wildlife Center). All that was left was to construct the enclosures, and get the animals off property in time . . .
On March 12th, 2025, we officially rescued our first 12 animals from IMNC: Chappa, Tioga, Cassidy, Tahoe,Jaeger, Sonoma, Tippy, Blizzard, Stella, Summit Frisco and
The remaining 10 IMNC critters were brought home on April 9th, 2025, which included: Milo, Sundance, Aspen, Sable, Sarah, Sophie, Oakley, Dakota, Gunner and Skysong.
This is, by far, the largest rescue that Wild Spirit Wolf Sanctuary has ever conducted, and we cannot possibly express our endless gratitude to every human who helped make this possible. Thank you.
Finally, in order to share the full stories of our Indigo Mountain rescues, we’ve included their original bios below:
Dakota has been bounced around a lot in her short life. Her breeder originally sold her to an individual in Texas, who turned around 4 months later and placed her with another individual. The second owner put her up on Craigslist for adoption less than 2 months later. A woman in Colorado saw the advertisement and arranged to adopt her, but there were a couple of problems . . . This individual lived in an apartment on the third floor, had cats and absolutely NO wolfdog experience. After only a few short days of apartment living it was clear that Dakota needed something more than her new owner could offer and clearly needed someone with more experience.
It is not surprising that Dakota is not particularly social and required some special handling to help her through her fears and insecurities. Dakota arrived at Indigo Mountain in October 2011. Each day she learns to trust a little bit more and has clearly learned that people don’t always fail wolfdogs. However, she is still extremely shy.
Personality
Dakota arrived at Wild Spirit when she was already 14, and prior to her arrival, spent most of her time at Indigo Mountain Nature Center enjoying the peace and quiet of her shelter. This old gal loved her private time, which we presume was the wolfdog equivalent of sitting on her porch and telling the squirrels to get off her lawn. She didn’t go anywhere quickly, did everything her own way, and spent most of her days finding the perfect place to rest.
Relationships
Unfortunately, Dakota’s companionship history is unknown. When we arrived at Indigo Mountain Nature Center, she was living alone. Once she was transported to Wild Spirit, we didn’t have an ideal male who would pair nicely with an elder of her stature.
Here is an artist rendition of what we assume her past relationships looked like. (Cartoon wolf designed by Freepik)
Likes & Dislikes
Dakota loved watching the birds and finding the perfect place to rest her head.
Dakota disliked when caretakers disrupted her slumber and any fish added to her meals!
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