Wild Dog, not motorcycle related

True story, sorry if you've read it before. Even after all these years, I see this dog as being one of the most honorable beings I've ever met.

Roughly 30-35 years ago I was camping alone during gun season at our old deer camp when the sound of bones crunching on the other side of the canvas woke me up. I assumed it was a coyote munching on a pile of squirrel bones I knew were there, so I grabbed a pistol and snuck out into the dark to put holes in it.
As I exited the tent a very deep, low growl started quietly, and got louder as I stepped out of the tent. I had no idea what I was going to see, the moon was bright and I wasn’t using a light as I looked around the edge of the tent. What I saw was a huge white dog emitting a blood curdling growl as it headed away from the tent.
I went back in the tent, grabbed a pack of hotdogs and a chair and sat out in the dark facing the direction the dog disappeared in. Probably 45 cold minutes passed before the dog slowly appeared in the moonlight headed back towards the tent and the bones. When it spotted me, it stopped, raised its hackles and started that gut wrenching growl. I started talking to it, and threw a hot dog in front of it. It growled louder and stepped towards me, then scented the hotdog and slowly lowered its head to sniff it while keeping its eyes on me.
Eventually it ate the hotdog and I threw it another. It wouldn’t come to be me and wouldn’t quit growling but eventually it ate the whole pack of hot dogs as I threw them to it one by one.
Then I went back in the tent and went to sleep. I woke before dawn to the sound of yelling and growling. Another hunter had shown up and found this huge white dog (turned out to be a wild Great Pyrenees) laying in front of the tent entrance, evidently guarding me.
My kids, myself and my bud Jim made friends with this huge dog, and it would always find us within a day or two of our arrival at camp. It would jump on us in greeting, we could hug it and pet it. As far as I know, no one else could.
We knew it ate the same deer we were hunting, but we wouldn’t begrudge it that, and we made it clear to the other hunters, that it lived under our protection.
One night it took us until long after dark to find a deer we’d killed. The coyotes were howling around us as we started field dressing it, and we were acutely aware that somehow all 3 of us were unarmed. The unarmed part was unusual and somewhat embarrassing for a group of Frye’s. Then the White Pyrenees showed up, growled and went into the dark to stand between us and the coyotes and we knew we had nothing to fear. We left some of the meat for the dog, and saw it occasionally in the warm months, and it again kept us company the next hunting season.
I thought hard about bringing it home but it was a big wild dog, living a wild life, killing its own food, and I didn’t think it would have jived well with the local dogs and dairy cattle, so I didn’t. Perhaps it wouldn’t have enjoyed such a life, after living by its own rules for so long. And that’s certainly a sentiment I could identify with. It’s largely why I ride.
But I’ve always 2nd guessed myself on that decision. It was found dead a few years later, couldn’t tell what killed it. Natural causes, shot or hit by a car, just couldn’t tell, it was too far gone.
For years though, partially white coyotes were pretty common around there, and I liked to think they were my friend’s descendants. And no, I didn’t shoot the coyotes with the white spots, even when we were hunting the same deer.