Dirk, Gunnison Founder⚜️

Dirk's dying wisdom to Janis and his pack
Words of wisdom in no particular order:

• Always take an acorn when traveling in the Prairie or the Dreamlands
• Be generous and helpful as much as possible
• Do not cause unnecessary death or destruction
• Do not interfere with another predator's hunt if you or your pack is not hungry
• Do not eat the kits
• Watch the butterflies
• Go West
• Watching and waiting when you don't know rarely results in bad
• You are more valuable to your pack alive and able to hunt than victorious and on death's door
• Choose pragmatism over pride everytime; there is no dishonor in scavenging and eating rats
• Make sure your pack eats before you; you will find food as you explore

Backstory
Dirk was chased from his birth pack at a very early age. Though the low-lying woodland offered plentiful prey, there were too many mouths for the hunters' daily catch to feed. He was among the many pups who were run off to face a likely slow death of starvation and exposure. He survived, however, due in large part to his willingness to eat almost anything.

The Gunnison Pack that Dirk founded and now leads is shaped by his early experiences. He places a strong emphasis on keeping a small pack that can depend on having full bellies every night. To accomplish this, he focuses on hunting teams and making sure every member of the pack serves at least two roles: keeping the pack alive and healthy, and perpetuating the lineage of capable, efficient wolves who can not only live, but thrive, where ever they find themselves.

At the moment, the Gunnison Pack finds itself in a desert on the western slope of a harrowing mountain range. The game here is scarcer and leaner, but hares, quail, and hogs sustain a wolf as well as deer, elk, and grouse. The pack's stores are regularly overflowing with more fresh food than the members can realistically consume. With this abundance, Dirk is realizing a growing goal: Improving the state of wolves everywhere. To do this, he is taking in the female pups who show promise that neighboring packs have chased and sheltering them until they reach their first heat. These females, who have lived under Dirk's leadership, will go out into other packs and take with them the standards they experienced. This will spread Dirk's ideas as surely as breeding will spread genetics.

Scar: Dirk was patrolling the pack's prairie territory and came across a large fox in the prime of its life. They fought, and it was a surprisingly difficult fight, and Dirk wasn't sure he was going to make it out alive. One of the robust fox's strategies was to go for his legs; the fox was trying to literally hamstring him by trying to tear his Achilles tendon. But the fox aimed badly and went too low, giving Dirk both a nasty tear along his hind foot, but also the opening he needed to get the fox by the back of the neck. With his last ounce of strength, he broke the upstart's neck and limped back to his pack.