Wolfdog Yuki photo went viral during 'Game of Thrones' and remains popular: What to know

It's a photo that millions have seen worldwide, showing a smiling woman behind with a large, brown and gray wolf dog named Yuki looking head-on.

The photo went viral in early 2019, the same time the popular HBO series "Game of Thrones" was in its final season.

Here's more things to know about the famous photo and Yuki.

It began with a different wolf dog photo

Brittany Allen says a photo of her and two wolf dogs not named Yuki (YOO-kye) began their viral tale.

A volunteer at Shy Wolf Sanctuary, Allen recalled how someone stole a photo of her with Misun, a white wolf, and Maraya, a black wolf, and posted it on Reddit, a social news website and forum.

Allen responded, asking fellow volunteer and friend Kat Herman, to take photos of her with Yuki, a wolf dog at Shy Wolf, in January 2019. At the same time the popular HBO series "Game of Thrones" that often featured dire wolfs was in its final season.

Overnight sensation

Allen, upset that others were using her photo without pernission, decided to create her own Reddit account with the stance: "Well if you're going to steal my pictures, I’ll post my own."

Herman shot a few photos of Allen and Yuki, which Allen shared this week with the Naples Daily News. Allen selected the one of her with her chin resting on Yuki's back to post on Reddit.

Not long after, Bored Panda, a Lithuanian website, reached out to Allen and asked to publish the photo with Yuki. The TV show "Inside Edition" also featured Yuki in a segment in April 2019 and Yuki and Allen went viral.

Her Instagram now has more than 98,000 followers, her TikTok 16,000 followers with more than 330,000 likes of her videos.

“It was kind of 0 to 60 overnight," Allen said. "All of a sudden, everything was crazy.”

Yuki still popular four years later

The photo went viral four years ago and Yuki died in November 2020. Even so, a couple dozen readers still click every day on a Daily News story announcing the animal's death from hemangiosarcoma, a blood cancer. The story has generated thousands of page views in the last 2½ years.

The British tabloid The Sun ― with a worldwide print circulation of 1.2 million ― this past March ran a story on Yuki, with the headline "FUR REAL: I rescued a ‘dog’ from death after his owners realized it was much more than a domestic pet."

And fans contact Shy Wolf regularly for permission to use Yuki's photo from across the world, sometimes a couple times a week or month.

“It seems to come in waves," said Deanna Deppen, Shy World executive director. "We have not actively promoted Yuki for a while because he did pass in 2020. But we definitely still receive requests from people because everything is on the internet forever, right?"

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Was Yuki really that big?

The photo Allen posted to Reddit makes him appear huge, with Yuki looking at the camera head-on and Allen behind him. Other photos Allen shared don't make Yuki look as daunting, although he's certainly a large animal.

She said some have even accused her of photoshopping the picture to make Yuki appear massive.

“It is an angle perspective," Allen said. "However, when an animal like Yuki sits at the particular angle it makes them look a lot bigger than they are. They’re taller animals in general.”

Yuki weighed 120 pounds at the most, especially before his illness, Allen said. And on his hind legs, Yuki could stand at least 5 feet, 6 inches. Wolfdogs are slender, tall and have large feet, she added.

“I’m 5-foot-3 and he would tower over me," she said.

Most of the rescued wolves at Shy Wolf on average weigh 110 to 120 pounds, Deppen said, noting the shelter once accepted a 165-pound wolf.

A 2018 DNA test confirmed that Yuki is 87.5 percent gray wolf, 8.6 percent Siberian husky and 3.9 percent German shepherd.

Throughout "Game of Thrones," which ran from 2011 to 2019, the extinct dire wolves were often featured. The dire wolf roamed in the Americas until roughly 13,000 years ago. And research in 2021 revealed that the dire wolf may not have been a wolf at all.

The dire wolf had a distinct lineage that split from other canines some 5.7 million years ago, the New York Times reported two years ago. Journalist James Gorman cited a report in the journal Nature where researchers reported their findings that the last common ancestor of the gray wolf and the dire wolf was about 5.7 million years ago.

"And another surprise was that the dire wolf didn’t seem to interbreed with other species — as dogs, wolves, coyotes and other canids do. In evolutionary terms, it met a lonely end," Gorman wrote.

Why was Yuki never adopted?

Yuki was not adoptable for various reasons, Deppen said.

"He had some personality quirks that would make him difficult to manage in a normal home environment," she said. "He was definitely a charismatic guy.”

Yuki was abandoned at eight months old by his original owners living on Florida’s east coast, ending up in a Florida high-kill shelter. A shelter employee told Shy Wolf about him, and Yuki moved to Shy Wolf in 2007.

Allen agreed that Yuki "was not a cuddly dude" and at times could be intimidating, especially to those he didn't like. But if he did like you, he was protective and showed that through his affection. Allen recalled the time Herman took the famous photo of her and Yuki.

“When he sat in my lap, I threw my phone to Kat and said, 'Please capture this moment!' It was beautiful to me because he had never done that. It was a lovely moment between me and him.”

What is Shy Wolf Sanctuary?

Shy Wolf, founded in 1993 by Kent and Nancy Smith, is located in Golden Gate Estates, east of Naples. The facility began taking in animals not accepted by government animal services, wildlife rehabilitators, or zoos, its website said.

And Shy Wolf continues to serve as a refuge for cougars, wolves and wolf dogs and other species including fox from as far away as the Arctic Circle. Over the years, Shy Wolf has rescued more than 1,300 animals.

Deppen said Nancy Smith named Yuki for a Native American tribe. The Yuki are an indigenous people of the Round Valley region of California.

And "Yuki" may derive from the Wintu (another California tribe) meaning "foreigner" or "enemy." In Japanese, "Yuki" means "happiness" or "snow."

Shy Wolf looks to expand

Deppen said she hopes the continued popularity of Yuki and Shy Wolf could help with a planned $30 million expansion to begin in a few years.

The goal is to expand from 2.5 acres to 17 acres and construct two large buildings, one for an education center that also would house animals of first responders when they work during hurricanes and other natural disasters.

“We want to make sure first responders know their pets are safe while they're at work protecting the community," Deppen said.

The other building would house Shy Wolf's animals.

“This is something the community needs in a whole," Deppen said. "If people want to become more involved in fundraising to facilitate plans, we welcome them contacting us."

Anyone interested in helping Shy Wolf can contact Deanna Deppen at admin@shywolfsanctuary.org or 239-290-9867.

Dave Osborn is the regional features editor of the Naples Daily News and News-Press. Follow him on Instagram @lacrossewriter and on Twitter @NDN_dosborn.

This article originally appeared on Naples Daily News: Wolf dog Yuki popular four years after 2019 viral photo: What to know