Our Mission
The Lockwood Animal Rescue Center (LARC) is a unique animal welfare and veterans’ rehabilitation center. We rescue and provide sanctuary for wolves, wolfdogs and other animals who have been bred to live in a domestic environment and protect wolves in the wild. We also offer a therapeutic environment for combat veterans suffering from trauma through employment, job skill development, sobriety maintenance, and coordination of care. Most of LARC’s facility caregivers are former military personnel.
Our Animals
Wolves and/or wolfdogs are given a death sentence from the day of conception. It is simple: if you are a wild wolf and you cross an imaginary boundary outside of a National Park or wander onto private land, you can be shot, trapped, and killed. If you are a high-content wolfdog born into domestic life, as soon as you jump out of your yard or escape your enclosure, you will be captured and destroyed at the shelter which cannot adopt out wolfdogs. Fortunately, many shelter staff will reach out to wolfdog sanctuaries and ask them to rescue the animal before s/he is euthanized. LARC has taken in many of these animals that people thought would make good pets, but they did not account for the fact that they can jump or climb a ten-foot fence and dig six feet underground overnight. LARC offers a safe forever home for this misunderstood and majestic animal.
We spay, neuter, and microchip all of our sanctuary residents, and build packs from rescued animals across the country. There is no need to breed because they simply do not make appropriate pets despite the allure of owning a part-wolf / part-wild animal. They are destructive and have the potential to be dangerous when living in the confined quarters of a domestic setting.
LARC also rescues horses used for Premarin, the only other animal we are aware of, who like the wolf, is given a death sentence from birth. Horses used for Premarin live on assembly lines where the females are catheterized to collect their urine and they are kept perpetually pregnant. The female offspring are destined for the same fate and the male foals are sold for human consumption overseas. LARC offers a forever home at our sanctuary, huge outdoor pastures, and the comfort of a herd for these rescued horses. Recent research also points to Premarin causing significant health problems for the women who take it.
All of the animal habitats at LARC are built with the animal in mind. That is to say, that they are not constructed for public viewing, but rather for animal habitat and enjoyment. LARC is not open to the public, so that the Veterans, wolves, wolfdogs, horses, and other residents at LARC are given the privacy they need for healing.
Our Veterans
LARC has always devoted itself to our returning military men and women, and we understand that the price of freedom is not free. LARC understands that many returning combat Veterans feel displaced and disconnected upon their return. The Veterans enrolled in our program get a chance to heal with our back-to-nature eco-therapy approach. More specifically, each veteran is paired with another Veteran who is further along in the process, and they work side by side caring for a similar sentient being (wolves, wolfdogs, horses, etc.) who also has suffered from trauma. More often than not, a returning infantryperson who wrestles with being a killer or a father can find a compatible soul in the wolfdog, who struggles with being a dog or a wolf. At LARC, we are aware that there is no cure for PTSD and survivors’ guilt, but what we offer is a safe place, supported by our staff, to explore these events and to understand that healing is possible.
