COCHRANE— As COVID-19 public health measures are reduced, more establishments are slowly beginning to flick on those open signs.
The Yamnuska Wolfdog Sanctuary was back to business as usual on Thursday (May 28) as they re-opened their doors to the public for the first time in almost three months.
Operations Manager Alyx Harris said she anticipated the first day back to be a bit slower allowing staff to gauge how the wolfdogs would react to seeing people again.
The Yamnuska Wolfdog Sanctuary, like many other businesses, has had to adjust its standard procedures to follow COVID-19 health guidelines put in place by the provincial government. Harris said it has not been too difficult to adapt to the new protocols.
"We've kind of just figured out what works best and some of this might change, we might realize 'OK this isn't working that well we need to make an adjustment' and that's just the reality we're living in, we just have to figure it out as we go," she said. "We're still doing our Interactive Tour and our Intro Tour, and they're not too different from what we were doing before we're just ensuring we got either smaller capacities on those tours."
At the moment the Intro Tour welcomes ten individuals to participate on a guided excursion with a wolfdog expert, while the Interactive Tour is able to run at its regular capacity of ten people.
The sanctuary is also looking at putting in barriers to accommodate folks on a rainy day so that they can be sheltered and not be six feet apart but still adhere to health protocols, although Harris said she does not anticipate tours being fully booked given the circumstances surrounding COVID-19.
"Of course we would like to see that," she chuckled, adding the sanctuary puts the safely of its visitors at the forefront.
The Yamnuska Wolfdog Sanctuary walk is being put on hold for the time being with a general admission option being offered instead, Harris said, adding that this option allows individuals to go out and explore the facility on their own.
"We don't have our enrichment activities we were running because unfortunately, it doesn't give people the ability to properly separate from each other, it encourages people to cluster together, so we've unfortunately had to suspend those for the time being," Harris said. She additional signage with information about woldfogs has been placed throughout the Sanctuary to help with the loss of not having the opportunity to speak with a guide.
The Sanctuary is currently home to 29 wolfdogs with typically two per enclosure. Each pack sits on about one to two acres of land at the 160 acre facility. The wolfdogs typically come to the sanctuary as surrenders or transfers from other organizations.
"Wolfdogs are so territorial that its easiest to pair a male and a female and then they're kind of a couple," Harris said, explaining if there is more than two in an enclosure its usually special circumstances.
"Our Engadine pack, they're three siblings, they were an accidental litter from another facility, and so they came to us all three together and they've been together since forever so they are going to always stay together," Harris said. "We have one pack that actually has five, and the reason for that is some of them have come in as young puppies and have been able to be integrated into that pack."
Harris added the Yumnuska pack is in a private enclosure because they are used for the tour and too much interaction would be a little scary for the wolfdogs.
"It's our exclusive [tour] pack," she joked.
Some of the wolfdogs may never be introduced for public viewing and that strictly stems from the situations they have come from, Harris said explaining their comfort levels lie solely with the caretakers only.
Throughout the challenges of COVID-19 the sanctuary was as active as they could be on social media to keep their presence known. The added idle time was used to the staff's advantage as they were able to cross some feats off their to-do lists.
The anticipated visitor centre which has been in the works for quite some time was set to open this summer, but due to COVID-19 it has taken a back seat for a few more months with the new target opening date being some time in the fall.
Harris said she is optimistic for the future of the sanctuary and knows this year will be much different than previous years. She noted the support normally received from tourists will be few and far between making their reliance on local support more dominant.
"There's that really big push right now to really support local," she said. "We have a lot of support out there already and we can't thank everyone enough."
