On Being Potential Prey, Part 1: The Wolfdog

Everyone should spend time with an uncaged, lethal non-human

Wolfdogs: INDIGO MOUNTAIN NATURE CENTER

The first time I was in the presence of an uncaged animal that could kill and eat me, I was twenty-three. It was a wolfdog named Rex, illegally bred by a couple named Mitzi and Chad. Mitzi was the shockingly beautiful friend of my then-new girlfriend, Holly. Chad was Mitzi’s affable, mulleted husband. In my recollection, Mitzi’s eyes were perhaps the bluest I have ever seen, her long hair just shy of platinum, her voice, like Chad’s, deeply country.

Holly and I were taking a break from our NYC lives, traveling south in a ‘72 Chevy Impala she’d named Brunhilde, visiting relatives. (We’d bonded on a shared Southern heritage and a mutual love of road trips, among other things.) Much of my family was in Atlanta, and Mitzi and Chad had settled at the end of a long, gravel driveway, deep in the piney woods, within a couple hours of where I’d grown up. A high, chain-link fence encircled several acres around their red brick house. Their closest neighbor was a mile away. How and why Mitzi and Chad had ended up in the Georgia countryside, defying the law (and, it could be argued, morality) by breeding wolves and wolfdogs, I do not recall. But the couple’s proximity to my people made a visit super convenient, and Holly really wanted to see Mitzi, so off we went.

Holly and Mitzi had met in NYC in the early 80s. They’d adventured together in Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. Both women would allude to intense and unforgettable adventures they’d shared, sparing me most of the details. Judging from the wickedly delighted looks in their eyes, and the way their voices grew husky when the subject of these travels arose, I would wager my ignorance was (and still is) probably bliss.

As I motored the boat-like Chevy up that long driveway, deeper into the pine thicket, I spotted a couple of large plywood doghouses behind the fence, but initially, no animals. I parked, and we stepped out into the blazing summer afternoon. As I turned away from the fence to survey the land, the hair on the back of my neck stood up. I whirled to see a massive wolf, about fifteen feet away, leap effortlessly five feet up onto the pitch of a doghouse roof. She landed like a ballet dancer, massive feet rooting her to the shingles, head dipping as her eyes bore into me like no creature’s ever had. No doubt her nose, one-hundred times stronger that a human’s, was assessing the riot of olfactory information the two humans (and our car, packed with junk) exuded. She made no sound, tongue lolling, ears twitching.

My mind would enshrine this important moment in memory. For the first time in my life as a human, I was not at the top of the food chain. I wouldn’t grasp this intellectually – i.e. with words – until later, but I did clock it somewhere in my body. My inferior, dulled-by-civilization senses registered freshly dug earth, canine shit, and, via my dilating pupils, a terrifying, ineffable beauty.

Several other wolves ambled over, densely furred creatures seeming to move in slow motion, again, like dancers, but also somehow sulky. Tails drooping, giving away their unhappiness. The air filled with lupine huffing, the pack pacing behind the chain links, eying Holly and me, reading us.

In retrospect, I viscerally feel the injustice of the situation, but at the time, my impulse to judge, my “morals,” went offline, supplanted by underutilized survival instincts. I am amazed at the trust Holly and I implicitly gave Mitzi and Chad, those cobbled-together chain links, and the captive wolves themselves. But, as we bear no scars from being mauled by canis lupus, that trust, however it was calculated, was obviously well-placed.

Wolfdogs. PHOTO: INDIGO MOUNTAIN NATURE CENTER

“Hey y’all!” Mitzi yelled from the side door. “C’mon in!”

We were more than happy to do that. I would finally meet the illustrious Mitzi, who did not disappoint, and the tall drink of water that was Chad, who had sort of won the lottery with Mitzi. Indeed, she was so magnetic and sweet, my primal fear at being demoted on the food chain evaporated.

After proper introductions in the oddly dark, low-ceilinged home, the four of us settled at the kitchen table to drink sweet iced tea, chat, and watch the wolves through the window.

“I see y’all met Sweetie Pie,” Mitzi said. “She’s ok, but she doesn’t like women.”

I stood to use their quaint little bathroom, and when I returned, Mitzi brazenly eyed me up and down, darted her gaze back to Holly, raised her eyebrows, nodded and laughed. This wordless, animal-like communique reddened my girlfriend’s grinning face, which raised my spirits. In the time before they’d settled down (sort of) with their men, these women had been wild together – like the wolves, except free – taking full advantage of being unattached and young. I surmised (correctly) that some of that half-buried wildness was to be bestowed on me later that night in a mom n’ pop motel. Tellingly, the thought of being surrounded by potentially lethal animals receded. I was, after all, a young man in love, which made me both acutely smart and profoundly stupid, but most significantly, happy.

As we refilled our glasses, Chad opened a door and in trotted Rex, who looked very much like one of the pack, which made Holly and me tense up again. Chad quickly informed us Rex was in fact a mix of wolf and German shepherd, between a quarter and half wolf. A wolfdog they’d bred. Still disarmingly large, but slightly smaller than the pack, and, according to Chad, less unpredictable around people.

“He’s the only one we can let in the house,” Chad said. “All them others just tear everything up. We learnt the hard way. They really can’t help themselves.”

Again, I let myself trust, reaching out to touch Rex. My instincts, now enflamed, ok’ed it. Rex allowed me to pet him, to scratch the nubby part of his skull as he rooted for my crotch. Mitzi laughingly yelled, “No buddy! No, no, no!” Rex’s musk would remain heavy on my hands, and wreak mild havoc on my human brain for the rest of the day. As convivial as the scene got, I could not fully compartmentalize the fact that Rex, however “domesticated,” could still easily overpower, kill, and eat me. Could in fact do that to all of us, if he wanted or needed to. Perhaps some part of me assumed – as I still assume – Chad had at least a couple of loaded guns close at hand, should shit go awry with the animals.

How exactly Chad and Mitzi bred wolfdogs I didn’t catch. I sort of wish I’d asked, but again, that part of my mind wasn’t really spinning. My guess is they would isolate a male German shepherd or husky with a female wolf in heat, or a male wolf with a female German shepherd or husky in heat. According to Google, a wolfdog in 2024 costs between $1500 and $2000, and many end up either euthanized or in sanctuaries (like Indigo Mountain) because the dumbass humans who purchased them can’t handle sharing a home with a wild beast who will not fetch, and refuses to be subjugated to the will of an inferior homo sapiens. Harmonious human/wolfdog relationships are, in fact, rare.

I knew none of this at the time, and I’m glad of that. Would the current version of me be able to sit companionably with wolfdog breeders, distracted from reality, befuddled by charisma, kindness, beauty, lustiness, and sweet iced tea? No.

Sometime in the last decade I came across the Anne Beattie quote, “People forget years, and remember moments.” For good and for ill, I have come to realize this is true. That day with Mitzi and Chad is one of only a handful I recall from that road trip, the scenes crystallized probably due to the mixture of bone-deep fear and beauty. I’ve told the story, replayed it in my mind, very likely misremembered parts, and opined that every person should seize the opportunity to feel what I felt: humility at being merely human, emphatically not the master of your domain, a citizen of “civilization” merely by chance, and the double-edged sword that is industry. It is only our weapons that elevate us above Earth’s true apex predators.

I’m sure part of the reason I remember that day with the wolves, the wolfdog, and the besotted young couple is that this would be the only time I would encounter Mitzi. Just a couple years later, she would perish in a car accident, losing control on a rainy two-lane blacktop, leaving Chad a widower. She and Holly hadn’t kept in close touch, so I don’t know if Mitzi and Chad had abandoned their wolfdog breeding.

Whatever. Today, it feels perfect that in my only memory of this unforgettable woman who’d adventured with my wife, she is surrounded by wild animals just outside the window, barely governable forces kept at bay, if only for the moment, while we laugh and enjoy our ignorance, and our youth.

NEXT: On Being Potential Prey, Part 2: The Black Bear