The lovely Achilles came to Saint Francis Wolf Sanctuary from a private citizen in Oklahoma.  However, her circumstances changed and she had to move to Texas, where she had no proper enclosure and limited resources to adequately care for him. It was also illegal to own wolves or wolfdogs in the area she had moved to.  Thankfully, we had room to rescue him at the time.

Achilles is quite comfortable with new people, which is very rare for an arctic wolf.  In terms of stature, Achilles is definitely our largest animal, but he has a lean wolf build, so he only weighs about 100 pounds!

Achilles is the very first arctic wolf  we’ve had at the sanctuary. Arctic wolves are a subspecies of gray wolf, found in the high arctic of Canada and Greenland. They primarily hunt muskoxen and arctic hares. Because they live in a region with very few people, arctic wolves are less threatened by human hunting and overdevelopment than most other wolf populations. Arctic wolves look similar to other gray wolves, but are always white, and have some subtle differences in ear size, eye shape and set, and muzzle shape. While many breeders claim to have “arctic wolves” or wolfdogs, there are actually very few in captivity.