...and the boys have still not fully renegotiated their territory agreements with the local coyotes. Most mornings I need to help them get outside in time for the 7AM business meeting, because, dammit, there's Something Out There that needs a good barking. At that time of the morning it's usually an uppity coyote, getting too close to the Lair for their preference.
In the old days, when there was a full pack 50% composed of dogs the size of small mastodons, this was at least seemingly a more serious matter. Back then the boys' claimed territory was "everything we can see," which meant they often would charge off as a herd toward some distant berm on the farthest ridge and might not be back for an hour or more. But the big dogs were aging, and tired of this game within a year or two of my arrival. For most of the time the official territory seemed to be the immediate ridge, and the wash to the south and the meadow to the north. The coyotes seemed fine with that, really, and so the ongoing dispute was reduced to a ritual in which the opposing groups serenaded each other in the mornings and evenings and otherwise ignored one another's existence.
That truce ended when we moved here. The Lair, unfortunately, is located in a hollow near the wash, completely surrounded by ridges. Nice for privacy, not so good for staking out territory the coyotes won't violate. And since Little Bear can't be trusted to run around unsupervised, all the heavy lifting falls on Ghost. Not that he seems to mind, he treats it like a merry romp. But Ghost, very fortunately, is smart enough not to take this too far. He charges around the periphery of our little hollow but never entirely over the crests and out of sight. LB is reduced to being the Greek chorus, which frustrates him intensely. But I must say he has developed a booming bark indicative of something really, really massive back there behind the one who's running around, which I wouldn't want to encounter if I were a coyote. Coyotes, at least the ones around here, can be insolent but are not very confrontational.
Your Monday Rule 5 puzzle for April 15
7 hours ago
4 comments:
I'm glad the coyotes are not confrontational, but still wonder about the feral dogs you wrote about a while back. Any more sign of them? They can be extremely unpredictable.
The stray (I'm backing away from "feral") dog situation remains on hold. The three I saw seem to have vacated our area: No further signs of them at Landlady's place or in the wash, where they were definitely didoing around for a while and leaving me all sorts of tracks. They never came nearer the Lair than the wash on the other side of M's ridge.
Still watching.
That's good. :)
"Most mornings I need to help them get outside in time for the 7AM business meeting, because, dammit, there's Something Out There that needs a good barking."
Ahh yes. Know the situation well. My Border Collie / Great Pyrenees mix (BC colors and cleverness combines with GP size)seems to think that all intrusions both real and imagined "need a good barking" and any neighboring mammals of any type who dare raise a sound even blocks away are quickly barked down with a throwing back of his head and letting loose. Of course the fact that he sounds like he weighs 300 lbs. no doubt contributes to his success. This is all to the annoyance of my Akita who being the strong silent type, prefers spec-ops type silent and sudden "for real" action to any type of early intrusion warning system. I can almost hear her thinking "Shut up dammit, so I can at least get a tooth into something".
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