Oct 8, 2009

Obviously a coyote, but back to him in a minute. Perhaps you remember a SNL skit in which either Dana Carvey or Kevin Nealon did a spoof on the movie Twister. In the skit, either Hans or Frans hysterically and repeatedly shouted, "It's a twister!", in a Bavarian/Arnold accent. Well, Jack the Mutt and I witnesses an, It's a twister!, moment in real time this morning. Our neighbor Amy has a Jack Russell terrier and some other small white dog. This morning, while Jack and I were sitting in the front yard, Amy came out of her house and down her driveway, mutts on leases, leading the way. She stopped at the end of the drive, while one dog or another took care of some business and just as I turned my attention back to Jack, I heard Amy scream and then scream again. I looked up to she her frantically trying to run toward her house, dogs now in tow. Then, an adult coyote, ran by at full gallop, down the middle of the street. Amy, now safely inside her little walled courtyard shouted over and over, "It's a twister, uh, I mean coyote!" I guess she was yelling at her significant other. Our house is surrounded by about 7 to 10 miles of urban development on every side. It is not unusual to see coyotes in urban neighborhoods across the country, although Hooterville has many more coyotes than cities of the East do. The coyotes living in our neighborhoods traverse the city using the natural creek beds, called arroyos. They forage for rabbits, squirrels and neighborhood cats and are mostly nocturnal. They are more afraid of people than we are of them, as witnessed by our coyote this morning, who ran past three small meal-sized dogs, on his way back to the arroyo on the corner. Even though coyote attacks on people almost never happen, when a coyote comes near a calm retreat is the wisest course. Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky

8 comments:

The Bug said...

Doesn't sound like she calmly retreated! Of course, I'm not one to talk - I would probably scream & run too...

Kurt said...

I'm not afraid. I could totally take a coyote.

Barbara said...

Make sure Jack doesn't go exploring by himself. I'd hate to see him end up as a coyote's dinner.

We have a fox and a coyote who regularly saunter down the street in my urban neighborhood. There are deer all over the place, just calmly eating grass beside busy highways and sometimes wreaking havoc as they attempt to cross over. There's a real proliferation of wild animals as we continue to squeeze the areas where they used to exist out of sight.

a. said...

I don't really want to be next to a coyote.

Megan said...

I remember that skit.

Hilarious!

No coyotes here but Santa Monica has a ton - they come down out of the hills at night.

Unknown said...

Well that's not something you see everyday!

Reya Mellicker said...

Kids in school learn about tigers and whales and all kinds of exotic animals, but I don't believe, in most schools, that kids are taught how to behave around animals they will no doubt encounter. Kids should learn dog body language, understand how to (or how to NOT) approach housecats.

They should also be instructed on what to do when they see coyotes, foxes, raccoons, skunks, opossums, rats, squirrels, deer and other urban animals.

It's so weird that no one has thought of this. Maybe someone has and I just don't know about it.

mouse (aka kimy) said...

definitely not my reaction to when I've encountered coyotes or foxes - knowing that the odds are in my favor (that is it is pretty certain they won't attack) when I've been blessed to meet one of these critters wandering either I carry on slowly with what I was doing or stop and gaze in amazement (and wish I had my camera in the rare instance that I don't!)

if I lived in coyote country I would definitely not let my cats or small yappy dogs out without human supervision!

what are the odds that amy screams when she sees a mouse too?