Never Know Who You’re Going to Meet #2

While training for our last Tri my friend and I were out in my neighborhood riding our bikes one day. Once we were finished we only had a block’s worth of distance to go to get back to my house. We approached the main street which is a two lane, no shouldered country road with a speed limit of 35. There was a bit of traffic and we were waiting our turn to cross when we spotted a huge, white dog and a man and a woman walking down the middle of the street. Cars were just going around the trio into the other lane and the trio didn’t seem phased.

We stood there transfixed just watching this huge animal come closer to us. When they reached us the dog happily came over and licked our hands, arms, and legs and wanted us to pet his head and back. His fur was thick and soft. His eyes were slanted upward and had a deep ridge. His tongue was huge. I noticed the man was holding his leash and it was the biggest and thickest leash I had ever seen. The next step would have been a rope.

My friend said, “Wow this is an interesting breed, what is it?”

The woman replied,  “Arctic wolf.”

We both retracted our hands. “What?”

“Arctic wolf.”

“Oh, that’s frightening,” my friend said.

“No, it’s not frightening, he’s really sweet,” snapped the woman.

I kept looking at his deep eyes and large head. I watched him walk away with his huge paws on the black asphalt and thought ‘this isn’t his habitat, this must hurt his feet’. But he seemed happy and yes, very sweet.

We stood there for a few more moments unsure of what just happened. We watched until they were far down the road and hopped back on our bikes to go home.

Since then I watch for the wolf trio from my windows. No sign yet.

 

Update: The wolf trio just walked by! Mere hours after writing this blog. There’s one for ‘putting it out to the universe’. It’s been three weeks since I saw them.