My Darling Valentine Gone

By Jay Stoeckl, MAT, OFS, May 15, 2026
Folktailfriday.png

A few days ago, I was starting a tour out of Portland when I received an ominous text message from Jennifer:

“Valentine is sick. She’s in the house now…

My heart jumped into the pit of my stomach.

I hate to share yet more depressing news, as all the remaining puppies are doing well this morning, my darling Valentine has succumbed to the devastating and mysterious illness Jenn has been posting about.

Over the course of the past few months, I was truly imagining that if Yeti’s remaining offspring, Valentine, did not sell to an interested buyer, I might just keep her and have two angel wolves instead of just Yeti.

I imagined the two girls, all adults, going on a long hike with me in the wilderness. OH, how many admiring eyes would have been on such a spectacle, two snowy white dire wolves prancing along a trail.

Now the “devil-illness” has claimed my Valentine.

Talking to Jody-Lynn, Jennifer decided to take Valentine to Pullman, Washington where Washington State University veterinary program will be doing an autopsy on Valentine to find out just what has been killing our puppies. The scientists there are going to do a virology report, a bacteriology report, and any number of other studies to investigate what’s been happening.

Yeti appears to be unaware of what happened. I do not know how much they know. There comes a time, I think, when mama-dogs no longer see their offspring as offspring. And I… I will come home to my Yeti and love on her like there is no tomorrow.

There is an empty hole within me now that Amore and Valentine are gone. And news about the others was devastating too.

I wish I had a better tale to share with you, but this has dominated our existence all week. We love these little ones and we don’t ever want to see them suffer.

So, as WSU looks into the cause of our epidemic, I want to remind you that Maggie’s litter has shown zero signs of any of this. Troll, Mr. Toffee, and Lollipop are the top-of-the-line at the Dire Wolf Project. And they are amazing.

And they are beautiful.

Maggie, as you may recall, is Syrenka’s offspring. And Syrenka was one who survived the parvovirus scare a few years ago without a single symptom. Rock-solid immunity must exist in this particular breeding line. So, perhaps Syrenka’s golden health ticket has been passed onto her offspring. It certainly does appear to be so as Valentine shared the same living space with them and not a single one of them has been sick.

In the interim, we’re going to have to keep all puppies within our living spaces and not take any chances walking them even around the loop until we know more about this deadly disease.

See Troll, Mr. Toffee, and Lollipop at: https://direwolfdogs.com/dogs-for-sale/

Jennifer Stoeckl is the co-founder of the Dire Wolf Project, founder of the DireWolf Guardians American Dirus Dog Training Program, and owner/operator of DireWolf Dogs of Vallecito. She lives in the beautiful inland northwest among the Ponderosa pine forests with her pack of American Dirus dogs.