Wolf with a warm heart

Rocky Ridge Refuge owner is a savior to goats, a capybara, tortoise, dogs and other animals

Janice Wolf, founder of Rocky Ridge Refuge, gets a kiss from Wade, the Water Buffalo.

Janice Wolf, founder of Rocky Ridge Refuge, gets a kiss from Wade, the Water Buffalo.

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Rocky Ridge Refuge - home to media-darling Cheesecake, the capybara who mothers canines - is just outside of Mountain Home.

Janice Wolf and the roughly 50 animals she cares for occupy 11 wooded acres at the end of a maze of gravel roads.

It’s an impossible place to stumble upon, and after seven years of steady visitors at their former home, Wolf and her pack are ready for some solitude.

Rocky Ridge first made international headlines with Lurch, the record-breaking Watusi steer. Watusis are known for their massive horns, which normally grow up to 18 inches in diameter and span over 5 feet.

When Lurch made Guinness World Records in 2003, his horns were 38 inches in diameter and spanned nearly 8 feet. They were still growing when he died of horn cancer on May 22, 2010, just shy of 15 years old. Lurch was featured on The Ellen DeGeneres Show twice, which enabled Wolf to build a barn and get a washer and dryer. He was also the subject of the documentary, Looking for Lurch, by Little Rock director Tim Jackson. It won the audience choice award at the Little Rock Film Festival in 2010.

“Lurch started everything … I would still have been rescuing animals, but on a very small scale,” Wolf says. But the Lurch-seekers continued to come, even after his death.

This is part of why, last year, she decided to move the refuge. Now Wolf shares a snug red house with a couple of birds, some rabbits and an African sulcata tortoise. Various yards are demarcated with wire fencing. A dozen dogs, including several giant Irish wolfhounds, trot around one of them with Elliot, the month-old, bottle-fed goat, bouncing at their heels. These are Wolf’s personal pets. They enter the house at will via their dog door.

An adjoining pen hosts a miniature horse named Bazinga, as well as Cheesecake, her pool (capybaras like to keep their skin moist), and Cheesecake’s latest puppies.

Wolf calls them “the tree puppies.” Rocky Ridge often takes in pregnant and orphaned dogs. To keep things straight, each new litter is named according to a theme. The tree puppies are Magnolia, Birch, Spruce, Ginkgo, Hawthorn, Aspen, Acacia and Juniper. They form a chewing, wriggling mass of white and brown fluff. There’s also Matthew and Dennis, the remaining Dox-bull (Dachshund/ Pit Bull) pups. Cheesecake also raised their litter of eight, found behind a local church in a sealed plastic storage container. The other six have been adopted.

“They had homes, too, but at the last minute, the people decided not to take them,” Wolf says, exasperated. Because she screens her applicants thoroughly, including coercing allies to carry out home visits, adoption approval can take weeks. Most Rocky Ridge dogs find homes in the Northeast and out West, in areas where spay and neuter laws have made strays virtually non-existent.

THE LURCH YEARS

In the early ’90s, Wolf moved to Arkansas from Hawaii. She’d never lived here before, but her father’s family is linked to the Jacob Wolf House, built in 1829 as the first Izard County courthouse, and now, the oldest public structure in the state. A former veterinary technician with a master’s degree in rehabilitation counseling, for years Wolf used pet therapy to treat people.

She came to Arkansas primarily because her father had land, and she had always wanted to rescue animals. She still remembers a wounded pelican that she encountered at age 3 when her family lived in Key West, Fla. Because her father was a naval officer, the family moved often, and she was never allowed pets.

“I was already introverted. I had Asperger’s, too. They didn’t know it at the time. I was always a little different, and animals were just easier to be with. And they still are,” Wolf says.

So she created a living space out of a 400-squarefoot shed on her father’s land and began working three jobs to finance Rocky Ridge.Lurch wasn’t a rescue, but he was among the refuge’s first animals. He was born on an exotic animal farm from which Wolf sometimes took in unsellable animals.

“I was up there to get something else, and I saw Lurch. He was just a little baby and … something just told me I was supposed to have him. I said, ‘Hey, I want that one.’ And they said ‘No, you can’t have that little calf, his mother is a grand champion.’ But I talked them into it,” she says. In 1995, Lurch came to live with Noogie, the half-blind llama, and Journey, the abused Zebu (Asian miniature calf), whom Wolf bought at an auction to save her life.

At first Lurch seemed like a normal Watusi, but his horns grew quickly. After he became a record-holder, Wolf began receiving unsolicited donations and unexpected knocks at her door. “In the summer, grandmas would want to bring their grand kids out, and they’d just stay all day … I couldn’t get anything done,” Wolf says. “On holidays I could have 50 carloads show up. I’m talking during heat waves, blizzards, rainstorms ….”

The visitors began at sunrise and kept coming until well past sunset. Once, at 10:30 p.m., Wolf turned a man away. “He said, ‘I drove a long way.’ What do you think? I don’t have lights out in the field! You can’t see Lurch,” she recollects.

Some visits were stressful for the animals. “You wouldn’t believe the stupid stuff people do. I had one guy, an adult, stick his hand inside a zebra’s mouth. ‘Does he bite?’ Pow! … And one guy, he was a lawyer … his kids were jumping on the backs of these little [miniature] donkeys … and the guy didn’t say a word … I’m thinking, he’d be the first one to sue me when his kid falls on his butt!” In particular, Wolf dreaded male visitors. They were always knocking on Lurch’s sensitive horns. “Men are so retarded, I swear … ‘Don’t do that!’” she yells, mimicking the reaction that became her standard.

THEY’RE ALL LAP DOGS

At the moment, Wolf is crouching just outside a fence, scouring the ground for dandelion blooms. “These are Crouton’s favorite,” she says, plucking up a yellow bud and offering it to the tortoise. Crouton stretches her neck toward Wolf’s hand and opens wide. On the other side of the fence, Cheesecake stands on her hind legs, black,tapered digits gripping the wire. She wants dandelions, too.

Wolf obliges, snagging a fistful of grass for “Cheesy.” Fans follow the capybara on a Facebook page that Wolf set up three years ago. This is fitting, since Cheesecake was a gift from friends Wolf has only met virtually. After Lurch died, three of her Internet supporters wanted to comfort her, so they bought a baby capybara from a breeder in Booneville.

Native to Peru, capybaras are the largest rodents in the world. They can top 100 pounds. They live in herds, so Wolf gave Cheesecake a litter of puppies to raise. Cheesecake proved so maternal that soon she was caring for each new litter that arrived. Pictures of the capybara nuzzling puppies began to circulate on the Internet. Cheesecake made Huffington Post, network news, and ultimately,Good Morning America. That’s when Wolf decided to put a donation link on her Facebook page. She posts a picture a day and has 40,000 “likes.”

“I never counted on having donations and living that way. I was just going to do what I could do myself,” Wolf says. But a small, core group of supporters sends money regularly, and if she gets more than she needs, Wolf funnels the donations to other shelters. She also finances the refuge through calendars made from Rocky Ridge Facebook pictures. This year, she sold about 2,500.

During a month without extraordinary veterinary bills, Wolf spends about $2,000 on the animals. She buys supplies in bulk and provides basic medical care herself, including using alternate techniques -nutritional supplements, herbs and physical therapy - when conventional medicine fails. Recently she cured 13 puppies of parvovirus. And once, with a combination of nutrition and physical therapy, she helped Blade, a paraplegic wolfhound, learn to walk.

“He couldn’t go play, so the other dogs would bring their toys to him .… They were extra gentle, and they made a point of being with him. Especially that blind guy,” she nods to Ivan, a silky black and white mutt with clouded eyes. Wolf decided to keep Blade and Ivan as her own.

Some Rocky Ridge animals are unexpectedly affectionate. In one pen, Wolf is trailed by a zebra, a miniature horse and a staggering pig. It’s a lovable, ramshackle parade. Due to neglect, the pig, Disco, has a neurological disorder. He falls over when he gets excited, and often walks along the fence to stay upright. Barcode, the zebra, and Tofu, a miniature horse, nudge Wolf with their noses, demanding attention.

Meanwhile Wade, the water buffalo and, famously, Lurch’s best friend, stretches his neck to be scratched. His head tilts in pleasure, his long, curly horns askew. He thanks Wolf with a lick, his tongue coursing the length of her face. “I’ve been slimed,” she says, rubbing her cheek. But she’s grinning.

Unlikely friendships form. Pit bulls bed down with rabbits, and terriers cuddle with ducklings. Even Crouton, the free-ranging tortoise, prefers puppies to solitude. “I hadn’t had her super long when those Great Dane puppies were born. She was on this heated blanket in my bedroom. She left her spot and came over and was always with those puppies, of her own choice. Even when they got bigger and rowdier, she wanted to be with them. They’d be playing, and she’d crawl right in the middle of them,” Wolf says.

When Crouton came to the refuge, she was malnourished and her shell was deformed. She’d been kept in a dark room and fed only lettuce, even though she needs light, warmth and a variety of greens. Someone rescued Crouton and took her to Wolf, without the original owner’s permission. Mostly, Wolf takes in animals that are destined for euthanasia at shelters or are rescued by vets from abusers. Sometimes Wolf witnesses the abuse herself. “I’ll go to the farmer stores, and they’re selling ducks and chicks at Easter. I’ll see kids mauling them, and some of them are so stressed and half dead. I’ll end up taking them home and nursing them back to health,” she says.

‘PEOPLE ARE WHINERS, ANIMALS MOVE ON’

Wolf thinks people have a lot to learn from animals.

“People are big whiners. They think somehow they’re owed more, or they use their past as an excuse to get away with bad behavior …. Dogs, you cut off a leg, you lose an eye, you give them just a little bit of kindness, and they’re ready to move on with life and be happy and appreciate it. The dogs I’ve seen with the worst abuse end up being the best dogs.”

She has nursed several dogs through gunshot wounds.Mayberry was found in Little Rock, “shot through the nostril, straight on. She was looking right at them when they shot her. Still loves everybody,” Wolf says, working her fingers through the wire to pat the long-haired Oreo-colored dog.

Teagan, Rocky Ridge’s most expensive rescue ever, was also a gunshot victim. “This poor little German shepherd, she’s what keeps me going,” Wolf says. Teagan was found in Mississippi, an adult hunched in a tiny crate, weighing only 15 pounds. “Somebody had taken her out and put her front leg through a collar so the arm was stuck up … and shot her under the armpit. It came out, blew out her eye, blew up a bunch of teeth, and they left her like that.”

Teagan went to a specialist in Memphis and endured three surgeries. Then she nearly died twice from a staph infection. Wolf spent a year and $7,000rehabilitating Teagan, who now lives in Portland, Ore., and has her own Facebook page. “She’s the best dog ever. Her owner just adores her. She [the owner] actually works for the Animal Legal Defense Fund, so Teagan gets to go to work with her everyday,” Wolf says.

Wolf’s current focus is on finding a place for Songbird, a bull terrier who arrived at Rocky Ridge more than a year ago with three puppies and a long-broken, painful leg. Now Songbird hops around on three legs - the broken one had to be amputated - while Wolf playfully taunts her. Songbird loves people, but she doesn’t love other dogs, so she spends most of her time alone in a pen.

“It kills me that she doesn’t have a home yet,” Wolf says. “The thing is, you post a picture of a dog who’s in bad shape, and everybody feels so sorry for it. Everybody wanted Songbird when she looked all pitiful. Now that she’s better, they’re gone. You’ll get a thousand applications for one dog that makes national headlines, but those people won’t go adopt another dog when they don’t get that one. They want the famous one, the notoriety.”

This is part of why she’s downsizing. A few years ago, Rocky Ridge sheltered about 70 animals. But it’s getting more difficult to find homes for the dogs, and Wolf’s arthritis is getting worse, making it more difficult for her to drag around bales of hay and buckets of water. She wonders who will take care of the animals if something happens to her. “I’ve tried and tried to get an organization to commit to taking them. They’d get everything I own. They could sell the land. But I can’t find anybody,” she says.

Wolf probably won’t take in any more large animals, but she’ll continue to rescue as long as she’s able: “It’s what I was born to do and why I get out of bed in the morning.”

As for Lurch, he has a couple of new homes. His body was taken to a taxidermist and mounted in a museum in Miami, and his horns are at Ripley’s Believe it or Not! Museum in Key West, Fla.

Family, Pages 34 on 05/01/2013