Last spring, our two year old Goldendoodle, Stanley had a scary wildlife encounter.
It was about 10:00 PM when Stanley was let outside our rural home to do his ‘business’. I knew something was up when he didn’t come around the house after he had started the first of his usual two laps of the yard. I was standing on the front veranda when I heard a bit of commotion behind the house. Since we live in the country, skunks, porcupines and other wild animals are always a possibility. I ducked into the house to grab my boots and when I came back outside I could hear the familiar sound of Stanley running up the side driveway. As he approached the front of the house, I realized there was something different in the sound. Almost as one, two animals whizzed by my feet. I could pick out the shape of my big white dog tight on the heels of a coyote of just about the same size. (While bike riding, I have clocked Stanley at 40 kph and he was doing all of that, I am sure.) They disappeared in the dark, no snarling or barking, just the sound of them running on the lawn. I panicked a little and really was unsure of what to do. Fortunately, even in the heat of this intense chase, Stan knew where his Invisible Fence was located. He pulled up to a stop, the Coyote crashed into the woods, and all ended well.
I am certainly no expert, but have heard that coyotes will hunt by having one of their pack lure a dog away from safety. The other coyotes will then attack and the dog is in big trouble. While we don’t know if this was the case that night, we do know that there are coyotes in our area and, if Stanley hadn’t stopped for the fence, he would have chased that single animal to the woods. I do regularly check for tracks in our woodlot and have not seen any for quite some time. Maybe Stanley scared them away. Here’s hoping.