Dancing with Wolves, part 1

The coolness during our morning walks is really enjoyable. If only there were some place that had ten months of autumn, and two months of suffering, just to remind you how lucky you are most of the time. The autumn patterns with flowers, seedheads, and migrational birds seem a little different from last year. One yellow flower has taken over the field, so I stopped to photograph it:

But I never really finished the photo-op. There was a "hurt animal" sound nearby that sounded like my little poodle. I charged off in that direction, while yelling as loud as possible. I saw what looked like the back end of a coyote run off toward the main arroyo. I didn't see his head, but assumed that he was carrying off my little poodle to kill and eat in a minute.
 

The worst thing was knowing that my actions in the first few seconds might have life-or-death consequences, but I could only guess what to do. If only the little poodle wasn't such a non-barker! I looked for him in the direction that the coyote had run. In a minute we saw the coyote on the other side of the arroyo, staring back at us with an arrogant and bold look, somewhat like a coyote that I photographed at an animal shelter a couple years ago:

But why didn't he have my little poodle in his mouth? At any rate my younger coyote-sized dog, Coffee Girl, charged across the main arroyo and chased the coyote out of the neighborhood. Good girl! Isn't it amazing how even lovey-dovey dogs can turn on the ferocity when it is needed, as this photo of her a year ago shows:

Since the little poodle has fooled me before with miraculous survival stories -- see the "Sad Story at Book Cliffs" tab at the top of the screen -- I decided to walk towards home. Who knows?!

Just before crossing a secondary arroyo and entering the RV park proper, I couldn't believe what I saw: the little poodle was staggering to cross it. In the first couple seconds I could see blood on his leg, but there was no blood spurting out of an artery, no guts falling out of the abdomen. For the first time in his life, he seemed happy to be carried. When I got him home he collapsed on the rug outside my RV:

The most visible wound in the photo, on his back, was not deep and wasn't bleeding much. The more dangerous two wounds were on the throat, close to the carotid artery. But the coyote had missed. It was a relief to see steady breathing.

My neighbor in the RV park is a retired veterinary technician, who has quite a few supplies for her own dogs. She was generous enough to come over and shave off and dress the wounds with antiseptic, so he would be ready for the vet on Monday morning. My mood improved by the second as she worked away. Maybe even the little poodle could tell he was under expert care that he needed, because he was the perfect little patient, standing there.

His recovery is proceeding well.