Wild Animals

When the guy approached the gate, I had a feeling about the puppy he had on a leash. It was unusually fluffy, and it walked with a slightly hunched, loping stride unusual to a dog.

When he came into the park, several of the dogs, as usual, ran across to sniff the new arrival. The pup, which couldn't have weighed more than 10 pounds, stood his ground and sniffed back, which gave me a moment's pause, but the reaction of the dogs was unmistakable.

There were four to greet him at the gate: a heavy and tall white and black pit, a large golden retriever, a lab-based mutt of some sort, and a 10 month old doberman. All four of them sniffed, and backed away deferentially.

The wolf pup's eyes had just turned yellow. "All wolves are born with blue eyes," the owner told a curious and clearly nervous woman, "but they never keep them."

The pup wandered around the park, sniffing the fence line, climbing into the rings of cinder blocks set up to protect the saplings, chewing on mysterious pieces of garbage. "He's the least skittish one I've ever had. I've been breeding wolves for 6 years, and I've never seen one like him."
"Are they not usually like that?"
"No, mostly they're quite skittish. If they don't know a person, they'll usually run and hide."
"What about the adults? I mean, once they're full grown. Do they have any value as a guard?"
"No, if a person comes around that they don't know, they'll just hide."

The pup's fur was puffy and looked like a ball of cotton fuzz, but it was coarse and rough to the touch. His ribs were just below the skin. As he wandered around the park, the other dogs mostly avoided him. One would sniff at him, and back away, sometimes following from a few feet for a minute. He took up residence in a small hole, and began tearing the exposed grass roots with his teeth. Other dogs sniffed at him nervously and backed away.

There's an old story, from a Lakota guy called Archie Fire Lame Deer, about a dog and a bear cub. It's in the early part of the 20th, when the frontier was mostly tame but the West wasn't quite won. Being as it's a Lakota story, it'd be in the Dakotas, or Montana, or Wyoming, Nebraska... The bar owner's got a bear cub on a chain, and it's sitting on the bar and doing tricks. The cub is playing with a ball, just sitting next to the bar, slapping a ball around. The rest of the guys are all prospectors and miners and the types who're busy putting the final touches on the once-wild West, and a few Indians busy taming themselves with whiskey. The Indians aren't paying the bear much mind, but the white guys are all looking at this little cub and laughing. And a guy comes in with a dog, a big, muscular bulldog. It sees the bear and snarles. And the guy with the dog kinda laughs and says, "that's a nice bear, but you'd better hope my dog doesn't get off the chain 'cause he'll tear that toy apart."

And then there's a round of yelling and in the end it's decided it'll be a fight to the death and no stopping. And the bartender puts down money on his bear, and the Indians all bet on the bear, but the miners and gamblers and such all bet the dog. And they put the bear down on the floor and he's just sitting there looking around. And the guy lets his dog off the leash, and it snarls and makes a racket, but it stays put until the owner kicks it in the ass. And then it launches itself across the circle. And the little bear just takes one lazy swipe with his claws out. The dog's dead. And the little bear gives his little battle cry "hrnnngggh" and goes back to playing with his ball.

The point is, the dogs at the park were the Indians of the story, or maybe the dog of the story. Even the big nasty pit that's always muzzled stayed away from this little 10 pound wolf pup. You gotta have the sense to know when something ain't quite right, and the dogs knew it.

"They're all born with blue eyes, but they never keep 'em." The pup's eyes were just turned yellow, kind of a dirty amber, really. But in a year he'll weigh 140 lbs, and his eye's'll be yellow as gold, and he'll run with the other 8 in the breeder's pack. The alpha's getting old, he said, 15 now and still strong, but I'd guess this little fellow'll be alpha before he turns a year. Most wolves are too wild, even if they're bred in captivity. They shy from people they don't know, shy from dogs, shy from noises. "He doesn't jump at anything," the guy said, "even gunfire."