November 27 – It didn’t take long for Sue Cranston to fall in love with wolfhounds.
She started volunteering with the half-dog, half-wolf hybrids at an animal shelter in Colorado after moving there in the 1990s.
“They put a little puppy on her lap and a bottle and said, ‘Here, feed him,’” said her longtime partner Carol Scarborough. “And that was the end of it.”
Just a few years later, the couple founded the Indigo Mountain Nature Center and in 2000 purchased a sprawling 36-acre property in Lake George, Colorado, which over the years has been home to animals including captive-born black bears and, of course, wolfhounds .
Cranston died of cancer earlier this year. Scarborough and Cranston spent 39 years together.
Indigo Mountain was Cranston’s “passion,” built with “blood, sweat and tears,” Scarborough said.
A wolf sanctuary in New Mexico hopes to continue that legacy.
Cranston’s name is a well-known one in the rescue community. The first wolf sanctuary Brittany McDonald worked at in Texas started with a rescue in Cranston. In 2022, a few years after McDonald started working at Wild Spirit Wolf Sanctuary, about an hour west of Grants, their paths crossed again, when Cranston asked if the sanctuary would take in a wolfhound pup.
They never met in person. But Cranston’s influence crossed state lines.
“I heard the name Sue Cranston all the way back in 2017,” says McDonald, now executive director of Wild Spirit. “She has always been one of the most respected people in the wolf and wolfdog rescue community.”
Wild Spirit Wolf Sanctuary wants to buy the Colorado property and has raised about $200,000 to purchase the land. The goal is $1.5 million, according to the fundraising page.
“When I heard about Sue’s passing, it was one of those moments where you look back in time and say, ‘Man, I really wish I had had more contact with this person,’” McDonald said. “Now that opportunity doesn’t exist. So it was really great to find myself in this position now, trying to take over Sue’s legacy with Sue’s co-founder Carol.”
Finding new homes for 25 wolfhounds would be a challenge, McDonald said. At its current size, Wild Spirit would probably only be able to catch one or two of the animals. But the purchase could be an opportunity for growth.
The Lake George estate is centrally located near Eleven Mile State Park and surrounded by state and US Forest Service lands. There was no power, no water and no buildings on the property when Cranston and Scarborough bought it – the couple had to build everything ‘from scratch’.
“Where we are located here in New Mexico is very rustic, very remote,” McDonald said. “Even though we’re open and allowing people to come out and see the animals and learn about them, it’s not as accessible as the Indigo Mountain location… so it’s a prime location for us as an organization to generate that revenue to build what we need.”
Although Cranston and Scarborough ran the nonprofit center as a private retreat, McDonald said Wild Spirit would like to open it to the public. Wild Spirit is home to nearly 75 animals, including two red foxes, four coyotes, two New Guinea singing dogs, wolves and wolfhounds. Some of the animals, which are used to interacting with strangers, will likely be moved to Indigo Mountain, where existing pens can house about 50 animals.
People often adopt wolf dogs as puppies. Some have a higher percentage of wolf DNA, while others look more like dogs. The more wolf-like species, as the intelligent and curious animals grow larger – and go through hormonally tumultuous breeding seasons – are often abandoned by their owners.
In McDonald’s experience, most wolfhounds do not stay with their owners for more than four years after reaching breeding age, although some are given up after just a few months.
“It’s like clockwork every year,” McDonald said.
Social media has had a snowball effect, McDonald said, as wolfhounds become increasingly desirable pets. Breeders can sell a wolfhound puppy for thousands of dollars and are often ‘unscrupulous’ about who they sell it to.
This year, McDonald expects to see 200 litters of wolfhounds that are 85% wolf or more.
“Just as was the case with Indigo Mountain, if we can’t save an animal from one of our own, that leaves very little choice for the majority of these animals,” McDonald said. ‘Because shrines are always full [and] because the problem never goes away.”
Humane societies and animal shelters often won’t accept wolfdogs because they can’t adopt them, Scarborough said; she and Cranston wanted to prevent the animals from being euthanized.
Cranston, a petite woman standing about 6 feet tall, would bring the friendly wolfdog Taza to help educate students about coexisting with Colorado’s wildlife.
“Taza would definitely be above her waist,” Scarborough said. “She walked into a schoolroom and the kids were like, ‘Oh my God.’ “
Cranston was able to hold a dog biscuit in her mouth and Taza jumped up to get it – “to the delight of all the little school children.”
The nature center is a lot of work to manage alone, and Scarborough is ready for a new chapter in her life. But she wants to keep Cranston’s dream alive.
“I would rather move on and know that they will be well cared for for the rest of their lives, as we promised them,” Scarborough said. “It was a promise, and I want to keep that promise.”
