第 1 章
When Wolves Become Family: A Wild Journey of Love and Liberation
Imagine waking up to the sound of a timber wolf howling outside your bedroom window-not in the distant wilderness, but in suburban Connecticut. This is the reality Jack Douglas created for himself, his Japanese wife Reiko, and their two young sons in his hilarious and heartwarming memoir "The Jewish-Japanese Sex & Cook Book and How to Raise Wolves." Published in 1972, this cult classic became an underground sensation among counterculture readers seeking an alternative to conventional suburban life. The book found fans in unexpected places-Johnny Carson reportedly kept a copy on his nightstand, while Hunter S. Thompson cited it as inspiration for his gonzo journalism style. Despite its provocative title (which has nothing to do with Jewish-Japanese relations, cooking, or sex), the memoir chronicles Douglas's adventures with his growing menagerie of exotic pets, culminating in his mission to prepare a wolf family for return to the Canadian wilderness. As a successful comedy writer for Jack Paar and Johnny Carson, Douglas brought his sharp wit to this tale of animal companionship that challenges our notions of domestication and asks profound questions about our relationship with the natural world.
第 2 章
The Unconventional Family: Humans and Beasts Under One Roof
Jack Douglas's Connecticut household defied every suburban norm of the 1970s. Beyond his Japanese wife Reiko and their two sons Bobby and Timothy, the family included a 200-pound mountain lion named Pussycat, an Alaskan malamute called Chibi, and a 4-pound Pomeranian aptly named Doggie. Despite this already crowded menagerie, Jack felt something was missing-a timber wolf to complete his concept of "total bliss."
Reiko's initial reaction to this proposal was unequivocal: "I THINK I go back Japan!" Her threat to return to her homeland underscored the absurdity of adding a wild predator to their household. Yet Jack persisted, eventually bringing home a wolf puppy he claimed was a "Mother's Day present." Reiko's retaliation-putting soy sauce on his apple pie-marked the beginning of an uneasy truce.
The wolf puppy's integration into the household was anything but smooth. He had "accidents" throughout the house and developed a particular fondness for destroying Reiko's clothes. She defended herself with smacks on his nose and the vacuum cleaner, which the clever wolf soon turned into a game before destroying the cord. The family struggled with naming him, rejecting cute names as unsuitable for an animal destined to look regal and noble. After much debate, they settled on the simplest solution: "Wolf."
As Wolf grew, he left his mark on their historic Honansville home-supposedly built in 1769 by iron mine tycoon Ezekiel Pettibone. His teeth marks adorned every newel post, mantelpiece, and door. When Jack found Wolf destroying the kitchen door, he wisely followed the Bronx Zoo curator's advice: "Never try to take a kitchen door away from a full-grown timber wolf!"
Despite the chaos, the family developed a rhythm around their wild companion. Bobby admirably stood his ground with Wolf, understanding that showing weakness to wild animals only encourages aggression. Reiko maintained "a very low threshold of fauna tolerance" but gradually adapted to their extraordinary lifestyle. Their home became a testament to the possibility-however chaotic-of humans and wild animals coexisting under one roof.
第 3 章
Daily Life with a Predator: The Walks, The Challenges
Every morning, rain or shine, Jack embarked on the harrowing adventure of walking Wolf through the Connecticut hills. On rare peaceful days, Wolf behaved like a gentle pet, walking quietly beside Jack and taking his hand softly between his fangs-as if reassuring him that "the wolves of the world had everything under control." But these moments were the exception rather than the rule.
Most walks were grueling tests of Jack's durability against Wolf's practice attack maneuvers. The powerful animal would circle him endlessly, slashing at his pants legs, making Jack's world spin crazily. His only defense was grabbing Wolf's mouth, which didn't hurt the animal but gave him momentary pause. Jack constantly reminded himself that a full-grown wolf cannot be hurt in hand-to-hand combat, leading him to frequently question why he kept such a challenging pet.
Wolf's health challenges added another layer of complexity to their relationship. When the growing wolf's back legs began failing-a condition similar to rickets caused by Jack's mistake of feeding him too much meat and not enough puppy chow-Jack was devastated. Scolded by Dr. Dann, the veterinarian, he changed Wolf's diet, adding cod liver oil, vitamins, and calcium, while performing physical therapy by helping him walk and giving regular massages.
Despite his disability, Wolf showed remarkable determination. In one memorable instance, he managed to escape his room by pulling himself through a partially opened window to visit Chibi the malamute-proving he had the guts to eventually walk again. This resilience deepened Jack's admiration for the animal.
Social situations became particularly challenging with a wolf in the household. Jack lamented being treated as a "freak" for having a wolf as a pet, especially when others tried to compete by mentioning their ordinary dogs. At gatherings, he endured tedious conversations about the history of schnauzers while defending his unconventional choice of companion. When Bobby asked to bring an animal to his school pet show, Jack agreed to bring Wolf himself, leading to a chaotic scene that ended with a little girl befriending the wolf with Fig Newtons and Jack paying her two dollars for her cookies to lure Wolf back into the car.
Through these daily challenges, Jack's bond with Wolf deepened, transcending the typical human-pet relationship and entering territory more akin to a complex friendship between two different species trying to understand each other's worlds.
第 4 章
The Origins of a Wolf Obsession: A Lifelong Connection to Wildlife
Jack's extraordinary affinity for wild animals wasn't a sudden midlife crisis but rather the culmination of a lifetime of unusual animal encounters. His mother had experimented with raising various creatures-from rabbits she couldn't bear to sell for slaughter (releasing 932 into the woods), to chinchillas, Siamese cats, experimental mice meant for Harvard, rattlesnakes raised for venom, and finally German shepherds bred to be pets but turning out as unpredictable guard dogs.
As a boy, Jack had trapped muskrats for their fur, bashing their heads-an act he now shuddered to recall. His relationship with animals had evolved dramatically over the years, to the point where he avoided killing even ants. He had developed a deep belief in nature's divinity while ironically holding human life "rather cheaply" due to overpopulation concerns.
A pivotal moment in Jack's journey toward wolf ownership came during his days touring southwest Texas with a small musical group called "Bonnie and the Three Clydes." In a ghost town called Riverbend, they discovered Joe's gas station and lion farm. Joe, a lonely man with bandaged hands, kept fifteen African lions he'd rescued from a bankrupt circus. Despite financial struggles, Joe refused to part with any lions, explaining simply, "I guess I just love 'em. And that's not gonna end." Jack recognized this same strange bond between animals and man in his own attraction to wolves.
His first wolf, Tanuki, had come from John and Sandra Harris, California conservationists who raised wolves for reintroduction into game refuges. Despite their worthy project and immaculate, escape-proof facilities located in a manufacturing area far from residential communities, John Harris had served numerous jail sentences for refusing to relocate their wolf breeding preserve. Harris continued his nonprofit work despite legal battles, occasionally serving thirty-day contempt terms while gaining support from San Francisco newsmen.
When Tanuki died during their time living in northern Canada's wilderness, Bobby was deeply affected, asking profound questions about death and the afterlife. Jack comforted him with the idea of a "Happy Hunting Ground" for animals, promising they would see Tanuki again someday-a moment that brought tears to both their eyes. This spiritual connection to wolves had become interwoven with Jack's sense of family and belonging.
第 5 章
The Honansville Ecology Group: Comedy and Conservation
The Honansville Ecology Group provided a comedic counterpoint to Jack's serious dedication to wildlife preservation, embodying both the growing environmental consciousness and the sometimes misguided enthusiasm of 1970s suburban conservation efforts. Their first meeting at Jack's home revealed a motley crew of well-intentioned but eccentric neighbors, each bringing their own peculiar concerns and personalities to the cause.
Frank and Ethel Krasselt, local artists who specialized in watercolor landscapes, arrived with detailed sketches of endangered red-winged blackbirds and impassioned speeches about the expanding gravel pits threatening their habitat. The couple's artistic sensibilities often clashed with practical conservation needs - they once proposed painting warning signs for the birds in what they called "naturally appealing earth tones," apparently unaware that birds don't recognize human artwork.
Virgil Palmquist and Reggie Mailer, the antique shop owners from Main Street, brought an oddly specific agenda focused entirely on their shop's resident gray squirrel, which they'd named Winston. Their lengthy presentations about Winston's ongoing "territorial dispute" with a aggressive red squirrel became a running joke at meetings. They even attempted to institute a squirrel protection program, complete with miniature crossing guards near their shop.
Bella Brown, the imposing Women's Lib leader, added her own brand of chaos to the proceedings. Standing six feet tall and perpetually dressed in denim overalls, she punctuated her environmental arguments with precise shots of tobacco juice into a coffee can she carried everywhere. Her passionate speeches about watershed protection were frequently interrupted by the metallic "ping" of her impressive aim.
The wealthy Rogers Dotsons - Margaret and Theodore - represented the "checkbook environmentalists" of their time. They joined every cause that crossed their path, from Save the Whales to Protect the Pachysandra, writing checks with enthusiasm but rarely understanding the issues at hand. They once proposed releasing pandas into the local woods, convinced they would "naturally adapt to the ecosystem."
The group's meetings at Jack's house - ostensibly chosen because his wolf ownership made him the member with the most stake in preservation - regularly devolved into social gatherings more focused on potluck disputes than environmental action. Heated debates erupted over whether Betty Anderson's "organic" bean casserole truly qualified as natural, and whether Bella's tobacco spitting violated the group's own anti-pollution stance.
Harry Mitchell, the town's legendary drunk, emerged as the group's most memorable character. His evolution from automotive menace to equestrian nuisance became local legend. After losing his license for driving his Studebaker along railroad tracks ahead of the 5:15 freight train, he took to horseback riding with equal abandon. His midnight rides through town, shouting about Mick Jagger's imminent arrival while wearing a Confederate cavalry hat, earned him both notoriety and a backside full of rock salt courtesy of farmer Jim Whitaker's shotgun.
The group's attempts at serious conservation work often collapsed into absurdist debate. One particularly memorable meeting descended into chaos over prioritizing endangered species protection. The Krasselts championed their beloved red-winged blackbirds, while others advocated for electric eels (despite their absence from local waters), blind moles (which were actually quite numerous), African gnus (proposed by the well-traveled Dotsons), and skinks (supported by Harry Mitchell, who admitted he just liked saying the word).
Despite their comedic ineffectiveness, the Honansville Ecology Group represented an important shift in American suburban consciousness. Their fumbling attempts at environmental activism reflected a growing awareness that suburban expansion threatened natural habitats. While their methods might have been questionable - like their failed attempt to create a "squirrel sanctuary" in the town square - their underlying concern for environmental preservation marked a significant cultural shift in how Americans viewed their relationship with nature.
第 6 章
Finding a Mate for Wolf: The Path to Freedom
As Wolf matured, Jack began wrestling with his conscience. Despite the joy of having this magnificent animal in his home, he recognized the fundamental unfairness of keeping a wild creature in captivity. After a particularly discouraging day trying to teach Wolf to hunt, Jack confessed to Reiko over an unappetizing TV dinner that he couldn't imagine sending Wolf into the forest alone. To his surprise, Reiko suggested getting Wolf a mate.
This idea aligned with what John and Sandra Harris of the North American Association for the Preservation of Predatory Animals were doing-releasing whole wolf families into wilderness reserves. Their theory was that responsibility for a family would activate the male's hunting instincts more effectively than if he were alone. Though a single wolf can kill deer through ambush tactics, Jack worried Wolf lacked the necessary skills, having never lived in the wild.
The search for a mate led Jack to Old Lady Simpson's place, which he visited under the pretense of going to New York to meet Dick Crenna about a potential movie deal. Expecting to find a grotesque sixty-year-old woman with a mustache, snaggled teeth, and warts, Jack was shocked when Old Lady Simpson turned out to be a stunning thirty-one-year-old beauty with copper-red hair, green eyes, and a figure that left him tongue-tied. She explained the place was named after her grandmother who had lived to ninety-eight.
After seeing her magnificent wolf specimens, including a 150-pound Alaskan male, Jack acquired a female wolf he simply named "Lady." Wolf and Lady's relationship blossomed, and one night after a visit from the Honansville Ecology Group, Lady had five pups. Though Wolf growled viciously when Jack checked on them, he didn't bite-seeming to understand Jack's concern for his new family.
By fourteen days, the pups' eyes were open though they still seemed nearly blind. They didn't look like wolves at all with their tiny gray ear flaps and short pushed-in noses-more like baby pug dogs. Sandra Harris reassured Jack they would eventually look "just like Disney wolves" with long pointy noses. The two-year-old Timothy named them "Dancer, Prancer, Dunder, Blitzen, and Wolfie," which the family decided to adopt as their official names.
With the wolf family complete, Jack's plan to return them to the wild began to take shape. He had contacted the superintendent of Isle Royale National Park, the only wolf sanctuary in the United States, asking if his wolves could be freed there if anything happened to him. When this proved impossible (as the resident wolf pack would attack any newcomers), Jack began exploring other options for releasing the wolf family into a suitable wilderness environment.
第 7 章
The Journey to Lost Lake: Preparing for Freedom
The plan to release Wolf, Lady, and their pups into the wild crystallized around Lost Lake in the Canadian wilderness. The journey began with a tense border crossing, where a customs agent recognized Jack and Reiko from television appearances. After some banter about their Connecticut license plates and the wolves in their cages, he let them through easily since animals entering Canada weren't his responsibility but fell under the Ontario Department of Lands and Forests.
Finding accommodation along the way proved difficult as motel after motel rejected them once they heard the wolves' mournful howling. When they finally found a place that would take them, Jack ended up spending the night alone in a field with the howling wolves while Reiko and the boys slept comfortably at the motel.
Upon reaching Chinookville, they faced the challenge of transferring the wolves from car cages to Charlie Burke's Canada Goose Airways plane with barely enough daylight remaining. Wolf resisted fiercely, requiring Jack to use a chicken as bait to get him out, then drag him through a chaotic dock area and up a springy ramp into the plane. When Wolf fell into the water between the pontoon and plane, Jack had to carefully inch him back up using his chain leash.
At Lost Lake, Jack took all the wolves to a larger island with caves for dens, rabbits, mice, squirrels, and beaver. Initially hesitant about their newfound freedom, they soon began exploring thoroughly, sniffing every detail of their new environment. Wolf especially reveled in his freedom, dashing through the underbrush. The family spent a month at Lost Lake, allowing the wolves to adapt to their island environment. They caught small game which Jack supplemented with Alpo, Burgerbits, and raw chicken. Their bodies hardened considerably, muscles becoming like steel springs.
The tranquility of this wilderness preparation was shattered when Charlie Burke's twin-engine Otter landed, bringing the entire Honansville Ecology Group for an unexpected visit. The wolves, spooked by the noisy crowd, hid in the thick vegetation and caves. Only occasional glimpses of bushy tails or curious faces could be seen. When Jack stayed behind with dog biscuits while the others circled in boats, Wolf cautiously emerged, followed by Lady and the pups. Just as they formed a beautiful tableau against the pines and birches, Virgil let out a shrieking whoop that sent them instantly vanishing.
As November approached, the wolves looked magnificent with their thick winter coats. Even the six-month-old pups appeared like adults. Jack's concerns about hunters persisted, especially after an encounter with a disheveled hunter who called wolves "born killers" and mentioned hunting deer out of season. Despite considering other locations like Minnesota or national parks, Jack found no better alternatives than Lost Lake for the wolves' release.
第 8 章
Wilderness Misadventures: When Urban Meets Wild
What was planned as a controlled release of wolves into the wild evolved into an unexpected survival scenario when the Honansville Ecology Group's visit coincided with equipment failures that left everyone stranded. The generator broke down, eliminating electric lights and television, while the radio died mid-broadcast during "God's Word for Today," severing their last connection to civilization.
The silence of the forest became oppressive as Jack worried about what might be happening in the outside world-perhaps nuclear war or some global catastrophe. Food supplies dwindled critically, with only chicken backs (reserved for the wolves), peanut butter, rice, potato chips, flour, maple syrup, sugar, coffee, and about five pounds of M&Ms remaining.
The situation was complicated by the arrival of Dr. Shimkin, an anthropologist and wolf expert, who showed up with a disheveled woman named Marie Prindle and her two children instead of his beautiful wife Lillian. When questioned about her identity, Dr. Shimkin awkwardly introduced her as his "secretary" and claimed she was there to help with his wolf research notes. Jack couldn't believe Dr. Shimkin would choose this "gangrerous trull" over his beautiful wife Lillian, suspecting the doctor's true intentions were carnal rather than professional.
Marie's poorly behaved children, her yapping dog that relieved itself on the living room floor, and her Siamese cat that scratched Timothy and urinated into the floor furnace vent added to the chaos. Yet somehow, without television, they had experienced an unusually pleasant evening of quiet self-entertainment-"unheard of in living memory."
As their isolation extended to nineteen days, the Honansville Ecology Group had grown thoroughly sick of nature. Harry Mitchell longed for the polluted Housatonic River, Rogers Dotson mumbled about McDonald's after running out of pipe tobacco, and antique dealers Virgil and Reggie fantasized about selling Saabs in Sweden-anything to escape their wilderness predicament.
The experience had stripped away the group's environmental pretensions. Virgil declared, "To hell with ecology! Let 'em pollute!" as survival became everyone's only concern. Jack began obsessively painting everything red-trees, rocks, paths, furniture-as therapy to maintain his sanity. Meanwhile, Dr. Shimkin took over wolf-tending duties, eventually gaining Wolf's trust, who showed affection by urinating all over the doctor's white shirt-a puppy habit wolves never outgrow.
These wilderness misadventures revealed the thin veneer of civilization that separated the ecology enthusiasts from their animal instincts. When pushed to the edge of comfort and convenience, their lofty environmental principles quickly gave way to basic survival concerns-a ironic counterpoint to the wolves' increasing comfort with their natural environment.
第 9 章
The Final Release: A Bittersweet Farewell
November 1st arrived-the day Jack had chosen to release Wolf, Lady, and their pups (Dancer, Prancer, Dunder, Blitzen, and Wolfie) into the wild. Though he nearly abandoned the plan, seeing their happiness on the island convinced him they couldn't be locked up again. The logistics of the release proved challenging. They moved the naive pups first, transporting them to a pine-covered peninsula on the mainland. Wolf and Lady proved impossible to cage, so they tricked them with ropes and towed them swimming behind their boat across the half-mile of lake.
The family reunion was joyous-the pups wriggling and nuzzling their parents with overwhelming excitement. As Jack and his family pushed away from shore, snow began falling softly. Their last glimpse of the wolves-Wolf standing proudly with Lady beside him and the five pups forming a semicircle behind-was a beautiful yet heartbreaking image of creatures both magnificent and vulnerable in the gathering November darkness.
This final scene encapsulated the central tension of Jack's relationship with Wolf-the desire to possess and protect a wild creature versus the moral imperative to allow it to live according to its nature. In releasing Wolf and his family, Jack acknowledged that true love sometimes means letting go. The wolves' return to the wild represented both an ending and a beginning-the conclusion of their time as part of Jack's human family and the start of their life as a wild wolf pack.
Jack's journey with Wolf challenged conventional notions about the boundaries between wild and domestic, human and animal. Through humor, misadventure, and moments of profound connection, his story reminds us that all creatures-human and wolf alike-share a fundamental desire for freedom, family, and a place to call home. As the wolves disappeared into the Canadian wilderness, they carried with them not just the survival skills Jack had tried to teach them, but also the experience of having been loved by humans who ultimately respected their wild nature enough to set them free.