Two-year-old husky Koda had a characteristically inquisitive nature. But her owners, Rachel Howatt and Clinton Subbik, had no idea how far Koda’s curiosity would take her when she ran away from their home in Manitoba, Ontario, one day in December of 2018.
The woods seemed the most likely playground, so the couple began their hunt, appealing for assistance from neighbors and friends. Rachel and Clinton remained hopeful, however, that Koda knew her way home and would return eventually.
Little did Koda’s family know what she had been up to in her rather eventful 72-hour absence.
Dogs are pack animals, and lacking a canine chum with whom to roll about, sniff, dig, play, and generally satisfy their perennial curiosity, Koda found herself a friend in a most unlikely figure.
Garry Suderman, a Manitoba resident and local hunter, reached out to a somewhat bemused but ultimately delighted Rachel and Clinton with some photos. The photos depicted more than just the beauty of the local landscape, bathed in wintery frost. They showed Koda and the rather extraordinary acquaintance she had made on her foray through the forest.
Garry’s photos, taken with exceptional clarity on his high-tech hunting camera, depicted a dog and a wild buck standing at close quarters in a snowy field. Within the course of 24 hours, a series of photos documented the pair interacting as though they were two members of the very same species. They sniffed one another, followed one another, and at night, they huddled together on the grass to keep warm.
“It’s pretty hard to believe at first, you know, that’s what she was doing all that time,“ Rachel opened up. ”We had no idea.”
Licking, grooming, and petting behaviors between the animals were observed.
Michael ventured that the animals may have just felt relaxed in the absence of predators, but it was most likely that all the animals he observed were motivated by curiosity.
Garry offered his unique perspective. As a hunter, he assumed that Koda was protecting the wild buck. “That is definitely the weirdest thing I’ve seen before,” Garry admitted, claiming that the photos represent a once-in-a-lifetime encounter, and an equally singular opportunity to capture the strange event on camera.
The couple, however, attributed Koda’s amazing behavior to the fact that she’s an outgoing dog. “She just wants to be everybody’s friend,” Rachel said.
Nervous that Koda could dash off to find her new friend again at any moment, Rachel and Clinton took on a second dog to keep Koda company.
Fittingly, they named him Buck.
