A stuffed wolf in Hinton has gained fame after two decades of standing in the window of shed in an alleyway near Highway 75. Nick Bogenrief, who owns the wolf, said he thought it was a good conversation piece, but didn't know it would garner so much notoriety. [Click to enlarge]

But it's what is behind the window of a storage shed behind his shop that brings people from all over driving down the alley.

Flashing white teeth bared in a scowl, and glassy yellow eyes glare out at passersby.

A large stuffed wolf, now matted and faded with age, stands guard in a shed otherwise filled with doors for Bogenrief's future use as a stained glass artist.

The wolf has been their for years, decades even.

And people keep driving by to see it.

"I've lived here 22 years, and I'd say the number of people that have stopped to see it is 1,000, easy," said Clif Haefs, whose backyard is across the alley from the shed with the wolf in the window.

To get to the wolf, drivers on Highway 75 turn west at the stoplight in Hinton and take a right into the first alley after Bogenrief's shop, B & B Art Glass. The wolf is on the right.

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"Some people look at it, then back up and look at it again," Haefs said. "Some take pictures with their cell phones and cameras."

He said he enjoys sitting in his backyard watching people check the wolf out.

About five years ago, someone stopped by and said they were from Wayne State College in Nebraska and had heard about the wolf, Haefs said.

"I see all kinds of license plates from all over. I see cars pull up and young kids all pile out," Haefs said. "I've been tempted to get solar lights to shine on it at night."

Then he turned to Bogenrief and laughed.

"Don't you wish you'd charged admission?" he joked.

Bogenrief didn't shoot the wolf himself. Actually, he bagged it at an auction in McCook Lake, S.D. more than 20 years ago.

A man who dabbled in taxidermy was retiring and selling his possessions, including the wolf.

Bogenrief learned it had probably been a gray wolf, shot in South Dakota.

"Nobody was too interested in it, so I got it for probably a reasonable price, maybe about $60," he said.

He bought the stuffed wolf for his dad, now 98 years old, who always went to auctions.

"I remember at the old place in a shed he had a huge case with all these animals and birds that had been stuffed by a taxidermist," Bogenrief said.

He remembers his dad also had a big moose at the antique shop on the corner of Highway 75 and Main Street in Hinton.

But his dad didn't really want the wolf, Bogenrief remembered.

Finally, he decided the shed window would be a good home for the stuffed canine.

"It's a good conversation piece," he said. "I thought it would be a good watch dog."

He didn't know it would garner so much attention, but, he noted, Highway 75 is the most traveled highway in Iowa other than the interstates, and it's only half a block away.

"It's amazing the number that stop to look," he said.

The Hinton "dog" has become somewhat of a legend among area college students.

Joel Scholten, a 2006 graduate from Northwestern College in Orange City, about 35 miles from Hinton, said people had told him about the "Hinton dog" since he was a freshman.

He heard stories but still hadn't seen it as a senior.

"By then I was hard-core excited to see it," he said on a phone interview from his home in Seattle, Wash.

Then, one night he was riding home on a coach bus with the college volleyball team, which he student coached.

"The girls actually convinced our head coach to go see the Hinton dog," he said. "We actually pulled our bus through the alley."

It was a weirder experience than he imagined.

"It is a bit startling," he said. "You think you're going to handle it like a man, but then it's a bit of a startling experience. I didn't expect it to be snarling for one thing."

The legend lives on. Before Scholten graduated, he told a bunch of freshman they should go visit the Hinton dog.

"It's not something that people sneak up to the house to look at," he said. "It's literally something there to be seen."

In Hinton, some residents haven't heard of the dog, others are quite familiar with it's presence.

"It's been there so long that I barely notice it anymore," said Don Lang, enjoying a cup of coffee at a Hinton convenience store.

"But the first time a person sees it, it makes you go 'Whoa!'" Stan Hageman added, sitting across the table.

From what Bogenrief says, it sounds like the window will be the wolf's permanent home.

"I don't dare touch it," he said. "It's pretty old and in pretty rough shape."

And the answer to the age-old question: How much is that doggy in the window?

Bogenrief said he probably wouldn't sell it.

"It's more of a novelty now," he said.