It was a phenomenon Rick had encountered many times. In any given population of animals, some will seemingly be up for any challenge—crossing a road, fording a deep stream, attacking a rival or an unusually large prey animal—and some will not. In fighting dogs, the tendency to rise to a challenge is known as gameness, and it has been a highly coveted attribute cultivated through generations of selective breeding. In wolves, the provenance—and the desirability—of the trait is less clear. The same fearlessness that might serve an animal well in Yellowstone, where cars moved very slowly and
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