“Militaries might rule the globe, their environmental clarity massive, but within a mile of his home none held a candle to Ezra. Smells and sounds filled his sensory palate, three hundred million scent receptors alone in his nose, his perceptual abilities exceeding what came to him through his senses. Ezra lived in the moment, and so did his dreams, always beginning in the frozen wilds. The pack was everything, moving through life hunting, killing, and taking care of its own. From the eons came blood and screams, violence, viciousness, and the horrible price of failure.” Taken from Dog Talk
Ezra’s fictional component is small. Wolves have been cross-bred with various domestic canines for at least two hundred years. Though his super natural ability, arising from direct instinctual ties with his oldest forebears is my invention, these creatures were real. They likely first occurred between five and seven million years ago, about the time of early man. The domestic version most of us love probably split from their wild brethren about four million years ago.
Gray wolves, Canis lupus, are the largest members of the Canidae family, and the species of wolf crossed with a German Shepherd to create Ezra. They are organized and social, living in hierarchical packs, normally five to nine wolves. A large male can weigh one-hundred-seventy-five pounds. Adults can run sixty miles in the course of a night, and attain speeds of forty miles per hour. Their sense of smell can extend two miles, their sense of hearing six miles, with their jaw strength reaching fifteen hundred pounds per square inch. Their coat and eye coloration vary, with Ezra’s black coat and yellow eyes naturally occurring in the species.
His super natural component aside, and suitable only for a man like Dave, Ezra is a formidable, extremely dangerous creature, accurately depicted to the best of my knowledge.
Terence L. Anderson 