In the Company of Wolves : Shelters: They opened their hearts--and then a sanctuary to save the animals from abusive or neglectful owners. For these two women, the wolf embodies grace, spirit and mystery.

A couple of enormous cow bones are lying in Jacque Evans’ nice, queen-size bed, along with a squeaky chew toy.

The bones, nasty and gnawed-on, do not belong to Evans, but to her sometime sleeping companions--five large wolf-dog hybrids that live in a pen just outside her back door.

“They’re my ‘house pack’--one short of a six-pack,” Evans says. “They’re my babies.”

Call her Sleeps With Wolves.

The founder of Candy Kitchen Rescue Ranch knows that when the wind whistles through the chinks in your log home, there’s no finer way to stay warm than to share your bed with a couple of wolves.

Evans, 64, and her business partner, Barbara Berge, 52, are the full-time, unpaid staff of the ranch, which shelters 39 wolves and hybrids. The four-pawed residents pass their days digging dens in the soft earth of their large outdoor pens, sleeping in the sun and, yes, howling.

“I can start them at any time,” Evans says matter-of-factly.

It’s simple enough. She howls long and loud, and three dozen voices join in, a wild, primal chorus punctuated by yips and barks that sends shivers down the spine.

Evans is beaming.

“What we’re providing is a lifelong sanctuary for the ones that have been abused,” she says. “We want to educate people about the wild wolf and also educate hybrid owners about what they have.”

The abuse of domesticated wolves and hybrids is a growing problem as more of the creatures find their way into peoples’ homes.

“A lot of people think it’s like owning a piece of the wild--it’s a romantic image,” Evans says. “It’s neat to say, ‘I’ve got a wolf in my back yard.’ ”

In recent years a culture of wolf owners has sprung up. They have formed organizations and published newsletters. A permit from the U.S. Department of Agriculture is required to keep a pure wolf; possession of hybrids may be subject to local laws.

Many owners, who often buy their puppies from unscrupulous breeders, get wolves for the wrong reasons, Evans says. Owners expect their wolves or wolf-dogs to behave like ordinary dogs, but they are different, she says. Although dogs are descended from wolves, wolves retain traits that dogs have lost through millennia of selective breeding.

For one thing, wolves don’t fetch. “Wolves are too intelligent,” Evans says. “They don’t see any point in that.”

“They’re very much like cats,” Berge adds. “They want to investigate virtually everything. I think of wolves as far more feline than canine.”

Of course, a wolf is more of a handful than your average tabby.

It can weigh up to 110 pounds and stand 32 inches at the shoulder. A wolf easily can leap seven or eight feet off the ground (and over a fence), and its jaws clamp down with a force of 1,500 pounds per square inch--about twice that of a German shepherd.

“Because of their curiosity, they’re very destructive,” Berge says. “They want to see what’s inside your couch or your TV.”

When an adorable wolf cub reaches unruly adolescence, the owner may be in for a shock. That often spells trouble for the wolf.

“There’s a certain kind of controlling personality that gets a wolf, can’t control it and abuses it terribly,” Berge says. Some owners abandon the animals--which haven’t learned to hunt, so they’ll hang around homes looking for scraps or prey on livestock and get shot.

That’s where Candy Kitchen comes in.

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The 22-acre ranch--a nonprofit foundation supported by cash donations and volunteer help--has five pure wolves, another that may be all wolf and 33 hybrids, ranging from about 25% wolf to more than 90%.

Animals are referred by animal control departments, zoos, breeders and owners. Although Berge and Evans are committed to keeping the animals until they die (they live to be 15, on average), the duo will adopt them out to responsible owners.

The animals live in pairs or small groups in roomy outdoor pens constructed of heavy gauge chain-link mesh. The mesh extends in a buried 4-foot-wide apron running along the inner perimeter of each fence to keep the wolves from digging out.

They chow down daily on dog food and get meat twice a week--most of it donated by merchants. All have been spayed or neutered.

“We’re trying to rectify the situation, not perpetuate it,” Evans explains.

Most days, Candy Kitchen sees a steady stream of visitors: wolf fanciers, schoolchildren and the just plain curious.

In between chatting with visitors and tending to the animals, Evans, an artist by trade, works on her paintings, which frequently depict wolves or Native Americans. She sells to collectors and licenses some to a greeting card company.

Evans bought this lush, pine-covered spread in the Zuni Mountains 135 miles west of Albuquerque a dozen years ago, moving here permanently in 1985. The old log ranch headquarters took its name from an early owner, who reputedly sold pin~on candy and moonshine.

Evans bought a wolf-hybrid pup five years ago, then adopted others that had been abandoned. “I realized there was a terrible need to help these animals that had been discarded,” she says. “I got started building pens, and then every penny went to wolves.”

She founded the refuge in 1991 and the following year met Berge, a London-born former stage actress who had relocated to Albuquerque and had also been adopting hard-luck wolves. For her, it all began with a vision.

“Sitting on a plane coming back from my mother’s funeral, I had a very strong feeling I had to have a wolf,” Berge recalls. “They are addicting. They are wonderful, wonderful animals.”

Berge moved to the area in 1993 and built a home a mile down the road. Evans is the shelter’s executive director and Berge its general manager.

The rustic ranch building has been augmented with more rooms and a couple of traditional log hogans built by workers from the neighboring Ramah Navajo Reservation. There is no bathroom--everyone makes do with a rickety outhouse.

On a blustery spring day, a wood stove in the kitchen provides warmth. The wooden benches along the table have teeth marks on their corners.

Berge says a smart owner will “wolf-proof” the house, removing anything valuable or fragile. Wolves are smart and very possessive. They like to steal things and bury them. She learned this the hard way.

“I went through 10 flower beds in two months,” she recalls, “and the final time I just sat and cried.”

Nonetheless, wolves make great companions, Berge says. “They bond so completely and totally to you. When you give one up, they grieve terribly.”

Touring the pens, Evans and Berge coo to their charges as if the wolves were children.

In side-by-side boarding pens, four 2-year-old British Columbian timber wolves regard visitors with wary yellow eyes, pacing restlessly back and forth.

Sisters Natasha and Nashoba and brothers Nootka and Nanook all belonged to the same captive-bred litter, but were not socialized around humans as young cubs, Evans says.

Around people, Berge says, wolves are not the bloodthirsty beasts of fairy tales. “Their natural temperament is to hide,” she says. “They’re very timid animals.”

Nearby, Nantan, an Alaskan timber wolf, shares a pen with Kali, a wolf-looking hybrid. Nantan keeps his distance, but Kali has the people-loving personality of a black Lab, desperately trying to lick anyone within reach.

Kali was shot by someone who mistook her for a wild wolf, Berge says. She was rescued after being scheduled for euthanasia.

Most of the animals at Candy Kitchen have similarly harrowing stories, Berge says.

Shiloh, nearly 90% wolf, had belonged to a couple living on a ranch in southern New Mexico. “The rancher said he would shoot her, because he didn’t want anything on his ranch he couldn’t kill,” Berge says.

Wolves tend to inflame passions in people, Berge says.

“They either love them or hate them. They’re definitely powerful, and they’re scary to people because of that,” she says. “They strip away the veneer of civilization. There’s nothing subservient in the way a wolf looks at you.”

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Evans visits her house pack, ruled over by Isis, the alpha female who is 95% wolf. With humans in the pen, Isis rides herd on the other four in the pack, which flatten their ears submissively as she lopes by.

The omega female--lowliest of the low--is Shunka. Isis often nips at her or stands over her in a dominance display. As cruel as the dominance-submission display appears, it follows good wolf logic.

“We’ve thought about taking her out, but if we did, they would grieve for her,” Evans says of Shunka. “She would grieve too.”

Isis likes people, but she is not very doglike.

Evans demonstrates by confronting Isis and scolding her the way one would a naughty pooch. The wolf regards her steadily and does not cringe.

“It’s a Mexican standoff with her and me,” Evans says. “There’s no use trying to make her submit, because you can’t.”

Later, Berge tries to pinpoint what it is about wolves that drives her and Evans to put in 12-hour days, seven days a week.

“They are what they are,” she says. “They have a grace and a spirit and a mystery that is extraordinary--they can’t be defined.”