In her book (Simon & Schuster, 2009), which is based on her popular blog www.dailycoyote.net, Shreve Stockton describes her first year of raising Charlie, a coyote pup. Wonderful photos of Charlie and the wilderness of Wyoming illuminate the text. Fans of Charlie can still follow his story on her blog.

Shreve's connecting with Charlie was a happy accident. She was meandering across the country on her Vespa motor scooter after deciding to move back to her beloved New York from San Francisco, where she had worked as a photographer and writer. The beauty of Wyoming enticed her to stay.

"I felt magnetized to the land, to the red dirt and the Bighorn Mountains and the wide-openness I had no idea still existed in this country," she writes.

Initially she rented a house in Ten Sleep (pop. 300) on 17 wilderness acres.

"There was no curbside garbage pickup (nor were there curbs), and hauling my trash to the dump was a thrill, and the view from the dump was one of the most breathtaking I'd ever seen," she writes.

She worked as a substitute teacher, met some of the locals, and got used to a two-hour drive every 10 days for groceries. She accepted a cowboy's request to help feed his herd of cattle, and it turned into love. Mike also worked for Wildlife Services and was a government trapper, charged with protecting livestock by killing coyotes.

Along with her cat, Eli, Shreve moved later to a 12-by-12 rustic log cabin on Mike's property. It had a tin roof, no indoor plumbing, and a wood-burning stove. After she spent one winter there, Mike surprised her the next April by bringing home a coyote pup. He had killed its parents, who had been attacking sheep, and found the 10-day-old pup on the edge of its family den, its eyes barely open.

"He said he didn't understand what came over him," she writes. "He'd never done this in the 18 years he'd had this job."

The baby coyote was "darling; defenseless and helpless"—and covered with fat, brown fleas. For Shreve, it was a big responsibility and a commitment.

She used a syringe to feed him goat's milk. Eli balked at first, but slowly became Charlie's friend and playmate. They went on long hikes together but Shreve kept him a secret, out of sight of the neighbors, because coyotes are shot for sport in Wyoming and are thought to be a danger to livestock.

For Shreve, Charlie was "on the bridge between wild and domestic." She had to "stay hyperaware of what he was capable of." She didn't know what to expect of townspeople's reactions to Charlie or of Charlie's actions. As he grew older,

[i]t was striking to witness how delicate he was, not just in body, but in his manner. He took meat from my fingers with the very tips of his teeth ... and licked my face with soft, deliberate little licks. Though Charlie was joyously playful and gangly and eager, his movements and mannerisms were refined, almost aristocratic; quite the opposite of the familiar images of wild beasts as slobbering and barbaric.

For reasons I don't fully understand, Shreve chose not to take Charlie to a veterinarian for vaccinations and checkups. When he became seriously ill in the fall with distemper, Mike got the medicines to treat him from a local vet and Shreve injected them. Charlie survived and they returned to their long walks together.

A larger challenge came next: Charlie bit Shreve and she became afraid of him, though he was not aggressive with Mike and his dogs or with Eli. Shreve began to wear a thick deerskin tunic and to carry a deer antler to protect her from Charlie. As Charlie's occasional aggressive behavior continued, she turned to Cesar Millan's book Be the Pack Leader for advice on how to deal with him and her own fears.

Shreve knew she was stressed and preoccupied from managing her growing and popular blog. Although it had attracted significant interest and praise, some readers were critical of her decision to try to domesticate a wild animal.

She also knew that she had to become more disciplined, more self-aware, and to set a tight schedule for Charlie and her to follow. She mastered several strategies to reassert herself as the alpha figure in Charlie's eyes. She learned that his biting and growling were forms of self-defense when he was scared or startled. She moved back to her old house in town, built an electric fence so Charlie could roam unleashed, and neutered him. Slowly their relationship became more stable and loving again.

Through Shreve's and Charlie's relationship with each other (and with Mike, too) I have learned a lot about nature and nurture, strategies for domesticating a wild animal, and bringing more order to my own life, as well as the various forms that love and loyalty can take.

Serendipitously, and to my delight, a coyote has begun to hang out in my yard this fall. I named him Charlie, of course, and hope that he returns regularly!

Afterthought: Given my own conflicted perspectives on domesticating wild animals, I suggest that if you find a young animal in our area, you might want to take it to Operation Wildlife and contribute to the organization's wonderful work!

Other readings

• Cesar Millan, Be the Pack Leader, Random House, 2007. Millan's advice on attitude and action—and becoming the alpha figure—were immensely helpful to Shreve in correcting Charlie's aggressive behavior.
  
• Margaret A. Stanger, That Quail, Robert, Harper Paperback, 1992. In 1962, a family on Cape Cod receives the gift of an egg from an abandoned quail nest. Much to their surprise, it hatches. Robert turns out to be Roberta and lives a happy life with this family for four years.