Lots of animals can be kept as pets, from common ones like dogs and cats to exotic ones like snakes and parrots.
Then on the rarest of occasions, you see pets like Kira, the wolf.
Kira was abandoned by her mother at only 3 days old and couldn’t survive alone, thankfully Alida came to the rescue.
Alida took her in, raised her, trained her and brought her up just like a dog so she could have another chance at life.
Wolves are wild at heart, and unlike dogs, don’t have generations of domestication in their genes, so understandably, Kira was quite difficult to domesticate.
She was more cautious of new things, so Alida had to work extra hard. Kira needed a lot of socialization, she met with kids, adults and even other animals.
Now after a lot of work, she is fully domesticated and wouldn’t hurt a fly.
“Kira’s mom used to live with a family, but they didn’t manage to take care of her and she ended up in a nursery. She no longer trusts people. Kira was born in the same nursery.”
“If released into the wild, there’s a high probability she will die since no one taught her to hunt. Kira’s mother abandoned her babies when they were 3 days old and in the nursery, so they were fed by hand. And I took her away as soon as Kira got stronger and also first fed her with milk.”
“I took her from the nursery when she was 28 days old. She is smart but very stubborn. When making decisions, she focuses on herself, not me. From the very beginning, I began the process of her socialization. She saw a huge number of dogs, people, and children.”
“We walked in different places so that she could study different smells, hear new sounds. Wolves have an innate neophobia, a fear of everything new. This is a very difficult process, long and tedious, but it is necessary so that Kira can live with me in an urban environment and feel comfortable.”
Alida took Kira from the nursery when she was only 28 days old and continued to care, feed and teach her to be domesticated.
“Upbringing, too, had its problems, but with age, it all goes away and the work bears fruit—Kira has a stable and mild psyche, does not react to aggression from other dogs, and does not provoke conflicts herself. She treats children very carefully and if the child is afraid of her, she doesn’t approach him.”
Alida made sure she wouldn’t be scared of the modern world and therefore took her on lots of adventures.
“On the street, people generally react with curiosity, ask to be photographed, ask if it is dangerous to live with a wolf, and especially when there’s a child at home (I have a 7-year-old son, Bogdan.)”
Kira is now a fully domesticated happy dog who lives in a home with a 7-year-old boy who she loves dearly.
Alida often gets asked by passers-by what it’s like to live with a wolf.
“In real life, people react quite normally, because Kira is very friendly and doesn’t instil fear in people. But on the internet, people are both angry and stupid, they write different things. Especially after a series of reports about us, there were a lot of reports that I was acting very stupidly since I kept a predatory animal at home.”
To follow Kira and Alida’s daily lives, check out her Instagram she.s.a.wolf