I think pop was trying to point out, tongue in cheek, that a wolf is no dog. Thinking that pepper spray is going to do anything other than distract him or her for a moment is foolish. They have no inherent fear of man that domesticated dogs have and seeing that they hunt in packs and pairs, distracting one is not much help.
Its brings up a point, though.
The truth is, you have absolutely nothing to fear from wolves. I can only think of one incident of a person being bitten by a wolf - and it was a habituated wolf, and while it was being hand fed by someone from the city. Wolves have a bad rep - but its completely undeserved.
There was an incident in Alaska, a few years ago - of human remains found that had been fed upon by wolves - but the person was a jogger, and may have been dead before the remains were found by the wolves (exponentially more joggers die each year of heart attack and stroke than by wolf attack in a given year - ha ha!). Other than that - I can't think of of a single incident of an attack on a person.
The truth of the matter is - wolves are highly intelligent, and extremely efficient predators - if they truly viewed humans as food none of us would dare leave our houses without a 12 gauge shotgun and as many grenades as we could stuff in our pockets - ha ha! Just be glad Dire-wolves became extinct, though!
I live in an area of very high wolf numbers - in fact I've found wolf sign within a km of my grow, and I do carry pepper spray when I'm in the bush, but only because my dogs are vulnerable to attack. They are also vulnerable to attack by mother bears, rutting elk and hunting cougar - and I carry the pepper spray on their behalf.
The brand I carry has a very high oleoresin capsicum content - and from first hand experience I can reliably relate that it would cause any hunting predator to re-evaluate their choice of prey in a heart-beat - whether its a 200lb hunting cat, or a whole pack of hungry wolves!
I watched this pack hunting a young bull elk through a lake, last summer - the elk got away, but it was a great show!
