Riot joined the Big Pack in the Sky on December 20th, 2020.

She was assisted at 14 years old due to loss of mobility/unresponsiveness.

Riot was born in May of 2006 to a breeder in California, and arrived at Wild Spirit in August of 2008. The breeder was classifying puppies as “wolves” and selling them so young, they still needed to be bottle-fed by their new owners. In order for wolves to be social to humans at all, they need to be taken from their mothers before their eyes open.

Riot’s owner bottle-fed her, loved her, and gave her good care. Over the next two years, Riot became social enough to be around people, as long as they crouched down. Riot couldn’t be contained in a typical backyard and didn’t do well inside the house, which is why when her owner called us; Riot was living alone in a 10 x 10-foot cage. Her owner really loved her and knew Riot deserved better than she was able to provide.

When Riot’s owner called, we had several single male rescues in need of a companion. After many conversations, we felt that we could offer Riot a better life at Wild Spirit and improve another rescue’s life at the same time. One of our oldest rescues, Doc, had lost his life-long companion, Whitney. We had tried 3 separate times to match him with one our single females, and each time poor Doc had been beaten up. We were very hopeful that a younger, calmer female would be his best bet. Unfortunately, after his bad experiences with the other females, Doc was not feeling very open to making friends. He was immediately aggressive with Riot, and it was clear it was not a good match. We decided to try Riot with Axel, a 3-year old Arctic wolf who had just lost his older companion. Axel and Riot were a closer age and energy level, and both seemed very happy with the pairing. Over time, the two developed an extremely strong bond and lived peacefully together until Axel joined the Big Pack in the Sky on August 25th, 2015.

High-content wolfdog Cinder had arrived a few months prior to Axel’s passing and was in desperate need of some companionship; he was just about 2-years old and still adjusting to his new life. We moved Riot into his habitat after some introductions and for Cinder. He seemed overwhelmed to have a friend and couldn’t stop “love biting” her head. His enthusiasm was a bit annoying to Riot at first, but after she told him off a few times, Cinder managed to calm down a bit. The new couple got along well, but we noticed that Riot was not able to fully settle down in this new habitat. We thought it best to move them both back to Riot’s old habitat, next to the neighbors she had known for over 10 years. Cinder saw that Riot was comfortable being leashed to go for a walk, and he allowed us to leash him, too, to take them to their new home!