Wolf or Dog?
The great, powerful creature ran through the woods, his heart beating fast. He was a strongly muscled canine. But what kind of canine? It was a mystery. He was enormous, that's certain --- thirty-eight inches tall at his shoulder, and weighing one-hundred and seventy pounds. He was built like your ordinary tundra gray wolf, but somehow he did not seem wolfish. His fur was similar in color to a malamute's, black and white, but it had silver and gray streaking through. His fur was wolflike enough. That wasn't what made the creature un-wolflike. It was his eyes. True, they were large and rimmed in black, but the color was not right somehow. No wolf had blue eyes. The creature's irises were deep cerulean blue. He had inherited his blue eyes from his mother, who was 3/4 wolf and 1/4 malamute. His father had been an enormous black wolf, even larger than the blue-eyed creature. And presently, that blue-eyed creature fled, away from a terrible incident that had nearly cost him his life.
Because men, who had purchased him a while ago from an animal sanctuary, had recently decided to kill him for his luxurious pelt. This magnificent creature, a living, breathing animal, would have become a coat for some human. The wolf-dog stopped running, and looked back at the trail that his huge paws had worn. He had travelled for so long, and so far, and he decided to rest. Not to sleep. To simply rest. He shook himself back and forth to rid himself of the human scent, then sat. He listened to the quiet rustlings of the forest, his new home. Would he be able to hunt? Would he starve like the many wolf-dogs that humans dumped here? He did not know, nor did he contemplate over it. As he sat, a peculiar scent caught his nose. A scent that made the fur around his neck bristle. Despite his weariness, he trotted closer to the scent. A very odd feeling gripped him, and he could not stop himself. His massive shaggy head rose high, his long muzzle pointed up, and his deep, lilting voice cascaded out in a cloud of mist. Any hiker nearby who heard it would have heard what was undoubtedly a wolf. But no hikers heard it. Only a group of large gray dogs that were more than just dogs.
With silent golden eyes and pricked ears, they cocked their heads and loped towards the sound that called to them, in their own language, telling them to come. They came upon a large black, gray and silver animal, and sniffed it curiously. The animal, the wolf-dog, showed no signs of aggression. The wolf pack invited him closer, not discriminating against him because of his dog heritage. The wolves licked him and treated him as one of their own, and soon one wolf whined softly, asking him to run with them, to become their brother. The wolf-dog smiled a wolf smile, and spanked his forelegs on the ground playfully. The wolves ran, the wolf-dog somewhere among the crowd. He was no longer a dog. A wolf he had become.
This story is dedicated to Ramo, a very special friend of mine, who is 97% wolf and 3% Alaskan malamute. He is the wolf-dog in this story, and looks exactly as described. He will always be a symbol of the wolf to me.
By MaukiWolf