An initiative started at Windsong Heights School in Airdrie inspired students to embark upon a passion project that is helping a rescued Irish Wolfhound at the Yamnuska Wolfdog Sanctuary near Cochrane.

The school came together to support Horton, an Irish Wolfhound that was rescued from neglect and abuse in 2015 and taken to the Wolfdog Sanctuary.  Horton was adopted by the school in an effort to help him with his rehabilitation and progress.  

Windsong Learning Support teacher Sherri Goodall says the relationship between the school and Horton is about more than just helping out an abandoned dog.  "We call ourselves the Windsong Wolves, (Timber the Wolf is the school's mascot).  We're a wolfpack and we have a creed that we developed in our first year to set a culture in our school of what does it look like to be a wolf, how do you act and think like a wolf, and then how do you act in a wolfpack to care for one another."

With those thoughts in mind, the Windsong grade four and grade eight classes took the extra money earned from bottle drives and decided to sponsor an animal from the Wolfdog Sanctuary and they chose Horton.  The adoption led Evan Pierson, a grade eight student, to come up with the idea for a book about Horton and he set about creating it with help from Goodall and with the support of other students who helped illustrate it.  Grade six student Raiden Green used his typing expertise to complete the book.  

Pierson's love for animals brought inspiration for the book but something else about the wolfhound was his inspiration for the title.  "Well," says Evan, "his name was one big thing."  Inspired by the well known Dr. Seuss children's book 'Horton Hears A Who," Evan titled his book 'Horton Hears Our Howls.'  "I thought since he came from such a bad beginning, 'cause he came from a lady who had over 200 dogs seized from her.  They were just chained up outside so they came and rescued him and I figured selling a book might be a good way to help with him in being rehabilitated and getting a better liking to humans."

Evan and teacher Goodall put out the word about the project and asked other classes and students to contribute drawings and the inspirational sticky notes to Horton that are contained in the book,  "The inspirational sticky notes are our howls and they say he's hearing us trying to comfort him," explains Evan.  "We're the wolfpack!  We're trying to comfort another wolf."   

According to Goodall, the notes are based on the creed at the school and got the whole school working together, just like a wolfpack does.  

The closure of the school in the spring because of the COVID-19 pandemic threw a bit of a wrench into the project says Goodall.  "Evan and I had to video chat and finish our creation over Zoom calls and Google chats when we were at home learning in the spring.  Everyone's going to be pretty excited when they see it."

The finished composition was revealed this week.  The author was impressed.  "I thought it was good and that it would make a lot of money to help Horton," Evan says.

The book is now on sale at both Windsong Heights School and the Yamnuska Wolfdog Sanctuary.  Proceeds will go towards Horton's continuing care.  

Evan has had a chance to meet Horton face-to-face, although Horton's history with humans made him a little hesitant to make friends.  "He was very shy, he would only come up to people for food and that wasn't happening when we were out there but we saw lots of videos of how he does it with food, he comes really close when you have food so it was a whole different Horton when I saw the videos."

Working together, helping others, doing good deeds.  That's the way of the Windsong Heights Wolfpack. 

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