Conor, my son, had been at Newbury on the Saturday and had done a meet and greet with Dakota. So, when I told him where I was going on Sunday morning, he wanted to come with me. This was not Conor's first experience with the Trust wolves, that had been three years previous, before the minimum age restriction was in place for public walks.

I gave him a strict set of rules - based very much around 'you do what I say, when I say it.' I am happy to say that both son and wolves behaved impeccably.

We arrived early at 10am (cleaning begins at 11am in the summer) and set to work on the Europeans' beds. This was the safest place to start as they were out of the enclosures up at the Newbury show. It also got Conor right in at the deep end as they had made a mess in their sleeping areas. Once I had cleared it out, he was happy to come in without running out feeling sick.

Just as we finished cleaning out the Europeans' bedding areas help turned up in the form of Linda, a veteran volunteer and senior handler. She helped us with cleaning out the two sets of North Americans' bedding areas. To do all the cleaning took around two hours.

Kenai and Kodiak enjoyed playing in the water stream as we filled up their bucket. They try to drink the water before it gets to the bucket. Whilst they appeared to be having fun as they are the oldest wolves you do have to make sure you pay great attention not to be careless with them.

Just before we left Duma treated us with a display of her fine howling voice.

NOTE: AT ALL TIMES CONOR WAS CLOSELY SUPERVISED BY EITHER MYSELF OR LINDA.

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