My Meeting with Shaun Ellis the Wolfman

Shaun was kind enough to spend some considerable time with me in May 2009.

There are not enough words or good enough words for me to describe or justify what a great man Shaun is, down to earth, sincere, empathy, passionate, warmth, patient, no ego, reassuringly calm presence, true gent are just a few and a word I don't use lightly....a genius....

If I could become 10% of a human that Shaun is then that would be a massive achievement for me.

One thing that working with dogs has taught me is to feel and sense how they feel, no matter what bad behaviour I have come across from a dog I have never felt anything negative from a dog, I try and just sense how they feel, this I have found also works with humans, for example if I come across a negative person just being near them I can sense their state of mind and sometimes it can give me a headache, if I remove myself from them the headache goes away, also time spent in their presence seems to be an energy draining experience.

With Shaun is was like being with a dog, there were no negative vibes whatsoever, I hope this comes across as a compliment as it was intended.

Having practised and learnt Cesar Millans methods it gave me a great insight into dogs and helped me with my dog and other peoples dogs with great success and I owe the guy a lot, however, I know now that my eyes were only slightly open, I thought I knew a lot about dog behaviour but Shaun is on a completely different level in my view to anyone else and even with one meeting with Shaun my eyes are now open a lot more regarding wolf and dog behaviour, this is not to say that I have turned my back on CM, but it is now clear to me that using his methods has meant that what I have achieved with dogs is as a beta rank and not as an alpha as I understood and believed it to be, not that it is a bad thing as at least I was communicating to dogs as dogs do, but now has given me an insight to why I can't get some human owners to do the same with their dogs....why?...I guess as they are not naturally a beta rank is the reason and find it hard to be so, looking at my own life I can see I am a natural beta rank, I have always taken things on head on, not often backed away and will try and discipline people around me, which I must add albeit with good intentions.

I cannot put into words how much I appreciate Shaun spending considerable time with me as after all I am just an enthusiastic amateur and as much as I would like to, do not have the status or rank to influence much in the wolf / dog world, I do and will try to do in that regard as much as I possibly can to help others understand about wolves and dogs where possible.

Myself and Shaun had a chat in the pouring rain for 2 hours, I was so much in awe that I didn't really notice the rain and could have easily listened to him for another 2 hours in the poring rain or more, Shaun could see I was getting soaked and kindly offered we could stand under a tree that was over the wall where the public are not allowed right next to the wolf wire fencing, some wolves came over and Shaun explained they just checking me out, I stayed sideways on to the fencing and even though I didn't look directly at them I could feel their presence, it was awesome!...it was a real treat for me to be that close to one of the greatest creatures on the planet.

I tried my best to take in everything that Shaun shared with me, I would like to share this with you.

Here goes....

Shaun explained what to do when dealing with a dog with a high prey drive, when out with the dog off lead and say it goes to run after a rabbit if you get a successful recall and give the dog a food reward you actually heighten the prey drive further as the connection to running after they prey and getting food does this, interestingly if you just put the dog on the lead with no food reward and took him home and fed him later this has the same effect of increasing the dogs prey drive as well for the same reasons, what Shaun suggests is that when the dog comes back to you, rub him under his shoulders and chest area, this is wolf language is to say that what you have just done was dangerous and this will lesson the prey drive.

I also told him about an English Bull Terrier I tried to help with but was destroyed when I wasn't allowed to really do what I wanted to try and help him by the human wall, this dog was in a 4 foot by 4 foot cage and had been so for 2 and half weeks in his own pee and poop, also the cage had been in complete darkness covered by blankets, the dog had been taught to be aggressive by its drug dealer owner and he must have gone too far as the dog became too aggressive even for the drug dealer to handle him, I was only given an hour to help this dog, I managed to get him calm a number of times but each time I tried to get in the cage with him or get him out of the cage he would just go berserk, I have dealt with a number of aggressive dogs and have never backed off before, my thinking was ok this dog is going to bite me and probably try and kill me if it can, as he was scheduled to be destroyed the next day I didn't think no matter what I did could convince the human wall (rescue centre) that this dog was worth saving, so I didn't think it was worth risking injury for, if knowing I had their support then I would have, also to be completely honest, I bottled it, this is something I regret, but also in my mind even if I could have shown them that this dog is not a lost cause, putting him back in the cage would have put him back to square one, so he would have needed a foster home, I couldn't take him home as my partner is disabled and I wouldn't want to put anyone else at risk, not many would have been able to handle him and even if I was able to rehabilitate the dog fully who would adopt him with his history?...my view was to re-direct his high energy to search and rescue or similar, but what organisation would take him, again because of his history.
I would have stayed with the dog all night if I had to and if was allowed to, to try and gain his trust and help him, but after 1 hour I was told to leave even though I offered my services completely free of charge and the same applied for how long it would take me to fully rehabilitate the dog.

The rescue centre said this was the worst case they had seen in their 50 year history and to date is the most aggressive case I have ever seen to date, but to me as with most dogs with aggression its not really aggression but based usually on fear as I believe this case was and the dog had lost all trust in all humans.
Shaun amazed me when he likened it to a case when he helped a wolf with similar problems!..This was a wolf were as a pup it was brought up by some humans who tried to domesticate it as a pet, when it got older it was subjected to beatings as a way of controlling it, in the end a local zoo adopted the wolf but none of the staff could do anything with it as it just went crazy all the time, they asked for Shaun's help, Shaun told them that no matter what happened they must leave it between Shaun and the wolf, Shaun explained as soon as he went in the enclosure the wolf charged him and attacked him, he bit to the bone all along Shaun's arm (he showed me the scars!), covered in blood Shaun stayed in the enclosure for 3 days, eventually the wolf came over to Shaun and licked his injuries, in the 3 days the wolf and Shaun had not had any food, the wolf had now worked out that if Shaun didn't survive then neither would the wolf as he would need Shaun's help to hunt for food, after that they never had problems with the wolf again.....if this isn't genius what Shaun did, then I have no idea what is......

One area where Shaun explained where I had failed with the English Bull Terrier was that even though I was calm as CM had taught me to be with dogs, I couldn't control my heart rate, to my amazement Shaun explained to me that wolves and dogs can hear your heartbeat from 6 feet away!!!...so when the EBT was being abused by its drug dealer owner the owners hear rate would have been fast out of anger etc....so when it came to the critical bit with me and the EBT my heart beat would have got faster and the dog would have associated a fast heart beat with a beating and reacted accordingly, this makes sense why I could calm the dog down but as soon as I opened the cage door my heart beat would have quickened as at least a part of me would have got heightened ie adrenaline etc and the dog reacted accordingly.
Shaun also explained how wolves communicate at feeding time using their ears, to a lower rank they would have flat ears and say a higher rank was coming to the side the wolf would raise one ear to the higher ranking wolf to show his / her rank and leave his other ear flat to the lower ranking wolf.
With wolves the higher ranking ones have darker marks on their coat, ie with high ranking wolves the dark markings on their face, hackles and tail is as though someone has gone over it with a black marker pen and the lesser ranks are lighter in colour, I asked Shaun if he had ever seen this in domestic dogs, he replied yes, with German Shepherds, so I then asked if a German Shepherd dog was the high rank in a human family and say I adopted the dog and became a higher rank than him how long would it be before I would notice the markings on him fade....he replied in about 2 to 4 weeks....
Shaun told me that when a dog sighs ie takes a big breath and sighs that this meant the dog was happy and content with his pack and is a good way of social bonding.
Shaun told me to come back and observe his wolves to learn more, I live about 3.5 hours away but this is something I intend to when other things allow.
Shaun has met CM and thinks CM is a good guy and has had great success with dogs but his knowledge of pack behaviour is probably based on what was known at the time some years ago and that knowledge has moved on since, perhaps the likes of CM can embrace the new and ongoing knowledge now known about wolves to bring his skills to an even greater level than they already are, personally I couldn't agree more, I wish I could get Shaun and CM in the same room as combined I believe they could do even more to help people understand wolves and dogs, Shaun's TV programmes and the dog whisperer programmes have both been very successful, combine the two in some sort of new TV programme and it would be even more successful in my view.
Perhaps one area of difficulty would be that one of CM's best selling books 'Be the Pack leader' would have to have its title changed to....'Be the Pack Beta'.........
As with Shaun's wolf pack the beta is quite often twice the size of the alpha and stronger, if the alpha and the beta have a bit of a problem the alpha wont take the beta on straight away, he / she will go and play fight with a lower rank to build up the adrenaline levels and then go back to the beta and basically say....OI MOVE!!.......works every time I am told......
Shaun, many thanks once again, its a day I will never forget and I will do whatever I can to try and make as many people as possible have a better understanding of wolves and dogs.