Most Americans who have pets typically own a dog, a cat or a fish.
Not Matt Geitner, though.
The staff accountant at Milwaukee-based Komisar Brady & Co. has had a wolf, a shark and a sugar glider.
“The wolf was just crazy cool,” he said. “No one believes we had one. It was just such a weird animal.”
A girlfriend flew the wolf pup from Alaska and gave it to Geitner and his roommate as a gift when they were in college.
The two lived with the animal, simply dubbed “Wolf,” at their condo, where they fed it dog food mixed with raw meat, walked it on a leash around their complex, and gave it bones.
As to be expected with a wolf, it spent much of its time outside, staying up and howling at the moon.
The animal, estimated to be 90 percent gray wolf and 10 percent husky or malamute, grew to be about 50 pounds.
Geitner and his roommate quickly learned they could not keep a wolf at a condo, however, and gave it to a farm a few months later.
Also in his 20s, Geitner had a sugar glider – a small marsupial he could keep in his pocket or the palm of his hand – and an eight to 10-inch shark that lived in a saltwater aquarium.
“I was born and raised in the country,” said Geitner, a Door County native. “I’ve always had animals.”
Today, he does not have any outlandish animals, but he is the owner of two rescue dogs, Badger and Georgia.
