Reed Intermediate School fifth graders were silently assembled around the school’s gymnasium as three wolves, lead by handlers, entered on Monday, October 13.

Mission: Wolf is a nonprofit educational wolf sanctuary in Colorado, according to its website, missionwolf.org, and its traveling ambassadors have provided its outreach program worldwide.

Before the wolves entered the gymnasium, Mission: Wolf Co-Founder and Executive Director Kent Weber and Reed fifth grade teacher Karen King, who helped bring Mission: Wolf to Reed for its last visit in 2012 along with the school’s PTA, prepared the students. If the students jumped or behaved disrespectfully, Mr Weber warned, the wolves would run out of the gymnasium.

Mr Weber also told the students he would show them how wild animals communicate, and he described some techniques to interact with wolves that can also be used with dogs.

When a wolf comes home to whining pups, Mr Weber said, the wolf knows to ignore the pups until they quiet down and relax. Only then will the wolf feed the pups. Humans can do the same thing when coming home to an energetic dog, he said. According to Mr Weber, when a dog jumps on a human returning home, the dog is telling the human it is “the worst puppy in the world,” because the entire time the human was gone the dog worried the human was lost or dead. Mr Weber told the students to respond to their dog the same way a wolf responds to pups, by ignoring the dog until it calms down. Acting this way, he said, will help dogs calm down over time.

Mission: Wolf, according to the organization, was created to provide shelter for captive wolves and to help humans understand them. According to its website, Mission: Wolf has more than 200 acres of land in Colorado.

Wolves are not house pets, the students learned. Mr Weber told the students about a family that adopted a “dog,” but when the family realized their dog was really a wolf, they contacted him. That first wolf eventually led to taking in 52 wolves, according to Mr Weber.

All of those wolves can eat roughly 2,000 pounds of raw beef each week, Mr Weber said. And when a wolf is raised in a cage or in captivity, he said, they do not grow up learning how to survive on their own. The Mission: Wolf wolves, he said, would not know how to eat if they were not fed.

Students also learned that wolves can run up to 35 miles per hour, and when approached by a wolf the students were told to keep their heads up and their eyes open. Ms King sat in the center of the gymnasium to greet the first wolf, Magpie, that entered. She demonstrated how to keep calm, look the wolf in the eyes, and allow the wolf to touch noses with her. That, Mr Weber explained, is how wolves get to know each other. They also smell teeth to fully understand the animal or human before them.

Mr Weber said wolves are terrified of people, which is why he said it is important to keep calm and maintain eye contact, which tells the wolf they are looking at someone who likes them.

“Wolves aren’t something we should be afraid of,” Mr Weber said.

With Mission: Wolf’s visit to Reed, Mr Weber said the school, courtesy of its PTA, made a donation to the organization.

Wolves Magpie, Abraham and Zeab all visited with the students. They were walked around the gymnasium by handlers, and some students were allowed to pet them under their jaws while some teachers received their own introductions to the wolves.