May 22, 2017

Why Wolf Pack

Wolves are highly social animals that live in packs. A pack is an extended family group. Families come in all shapes, colors, sizes, and configurations. Our aim is to support the healing process for whole families and communities.

Wolves can survive in a variety of habitats, including forests, tundra, mountains, swamps and deserts. Wolves, just like people, are adaptable and resilient.

Wolves spend about 35% of their time traveling. They often travel 20 to 30 miles per day, but may cover over 100 miles in a day when prey is scarce. We believe in reducing barriers and meeting people where they are at. Clinicians and skills trainers work with families at home, at school, and in the community.

Communication between pack members allows wolves to care for and feed their young, defend their common territory, and cooperatively bring down prey larger than individual wolves on their own. As humans we are designed to live among social groups and communities that rely on one another for meeting basic needs, raising our children, companionship, as well as emotional and mental support.

A great deal of the communication among wolf pack members involves body language. Specialized behaviors and postures have evolved that help reduce aggression between individual animals within the pack. Body language helps the pack live together more agreeably. From infancy, our primary mode of communication is behavior. Often times, our communication and behavior is easily misunderstood. Staff works to help families understand one another’s behavior and improve communication.

Wolves help maintain native biodiversity. When gray wolves were reintroduced into Yellowstone National Park in 1995 after a 70-year absence, they began to restore ecosystems that had been degraded in their absence. Healing is about balance. A person’s overall well-being includes their physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual health.