As I was writing yesterday about my personal training experience with the invisible fence for dogs, I recalled an incident that occurred just this past weekend with one of my dogs, Princess. Princess has a completely different personality from our younger dog Aspen. She has never and will never play fetch, she likes to wander around our yard inspecting the perimeter, and will, if given the opportunity, take herself on walks through the neighborhood always returning when she is done. Its almost as if she has part wild dog in her. Aspen, just to offer up a comparison, has never taken it upon himself to inspect the perimeter of the property, desperately wants to play fetch continuously with any object that can be thrown, and is not as likely to take himself on a walk if given the opportunity. Even when it comes to sitting around a fire outside at night, Aspen will whine to go inside and Princess will either wander through the darkness or lay down at your feet, perfectly content. I love both of my dogs, they are just completely different. So that brings me to Princess and her experiences over the weekend.
Saturday was a beautiful, warm, spring day and with the evening being just a touch on the cool side, we decided to invite a friend over and have our first spring fire in our back yard. On a side note, I personally love the new fire pit area as it is surrounded by massive oak trees that thrust their branches out over the fire pit so that when the fire is glowing nice and brightly, the gnarly branches are illuminated against a starry sky. But back to Saturday night. Aspen was whining up a storm as soon as our friend came over and since he wouldn't stop until something was thrown to him, I simply put him inside where he was perfectly content. So Princess stayed outside with us, wandering through the woods sniffing for rodents. For a long time, she had her nose buried in some leaves near a massive rock, determine to find whatever was hiding underneath. She stayed and stayed, sniffed and sniffed. At one point, she either looked away or moved and a chipmunk made a run for it, dashing for either its home or a better hiding place. Either the chipmunk outsmarted Princess or it just got lucky because it went right for the invisible fence 20' from where it was hiding. Princess pursued and in the heat of the pursuit, forgot about the fence, and let out a few loud yelps as she got too close to it. Sitting in the dark near a fire and hearing her pursuit was mildly amusing. The only reason I am fairly certain it was a chipmunk is because our old rock wall running along our property is filled with little chipmunk nests. They are everywhere. I have noticed a few times when a hawk has swooped down through the thicket of trees that the chipmunks let out a maelstrom of warning chirps, almost sounding like a little flock of birds. Its amazing to watch. But I digress, I was talking about Princess chasing chipmunks. I think she is personally waiting for one to slip up so she can catch it. With her being around 9 years old now, I think her days of actually being able to catch one are past her. So that was Saturday night.
Sunday night. Once we had put our children to bed, our son actually going down early because he had played outside all day and gotten massive amounts of fresh air, we cooked some pork on the grill for our dinner. As we were sitting out there waiting for it to cook, (Aspen being inside once again) Princess was sitting by the fire pit staring into the woods, monitoring the woodland activities. Out of nowhere, she barks once and bolts down the line of the invisible fence. After that first bark, she goes into a barking frenzy near the far back corner of our property that is completely wooded. I can't see what she is barking at, but I can ascertain her bark over something that is close versus something ethereal that she thinks is there. So I call her back with no response from her at all, she just keeps on barking. I try a few more times to no avail. Finally, holding my mostly empty glass of beer, I head over to where Princess is barking. I was thinking it may be a person walking in their wooded back yard or perhaps a rodent or another neighborhood dog. Maybe it could have been a hawk that had swooped down and scooped up a little chipmunk for dinner. I couldn't tell because Princess was just over the crest of a little hill in our yard. I made my way up the hill and as soon as I came up over the top and saw Princess, I saw what she was barking at; a coyote, standing about 30' away staring at us. It was mostly gray with a little white, pointy ears, a little taller than Princess our dog, and a big bushy tail. There was no mistaking it for anything other than a coyote. As soon as it saw me, it bounded off, silent as a deer making its way through the carpet of leaves.
There had been reports of a coyote in our area, but I never actually thought that I would get a chance to see one standing 30 feet away from me in our backyard. It was only for a brief moment, but still, it was a pretty cool sight to see. Some people are worried about their dogs being attacked. Myself on the other hand, am not worried as both of my dogs are only slightly smaller than a coyote. If my dogs were more the size of rats or large cats, that would be a different story as they would probably make a nice dinner for that lone coyote. In fact, part of me is surprised that Princess didn't try going through our invisible fence after that coyote. After all, she got shocked chasing a chipmunk so one would think she would go after that coyote. And yet, the chipmunk was an animal she knew she could take where as the coyote was probably more of an even match. The only other difference between the two nights was that the chipmunk chase occurred in pitch black night whereas the coyote chase occurred at dusk, just after the sun had sunk beyond the horizon and there was still a little bit of ambient light to see with. I wonder now what would have happened if both Aspen and Princess were outside when that coyote came around. Would they have both tried to go through the invisible fence after that coyote feeling empowered with two of them? The world may never know....
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