Sometimes I think my dog, Coffee Girl, is too cosseted. For instance I usually let her off-leash on mountain bike rides unless the road has faster traffic, or she is bothering free-range cattle. On the return trips later in the morning, she also gets snapped back on, since she doesn't care by then. When it is over 75 F and the rattlesnake risk is higher, she also gets snapped on, whether she likes it or not.
(By the way, the best way to control a dog when mountain biking, is to put a carabiner on the end of her lease, and snap it to a belt around your waist.)
A couple mornings ago, we were riding and running on an enjoyable, recently-graded road. Then a long-tailed animal darted across the road about 50 yards ahead of us. I recognized it as a coatimundi, a type of raccoon with a long monkey-tail. It was only the second one that I've ever seen. Naturally Coffee Girl threw all caution to the wind and took off after the coatimundi.
Wikipedia has an interesting article on the coati. Not surprisingly, this coatimundi climbed up the first tree it could find. Not surprisingly Coffee Girl had her hackles out at 90 degrees and was whimpering/barking with the strangest sounds she has ever made.
The tree-ed coatimundi was behaving oddly, too. It was about 15 feet up in the tree, but it kept trying to climb higher. The branches kept getting weaker like that; and for a moment I thought the crazy animal was going to fall out of the tree and land right on the barking fool dog's head.
Then things really took a bizarre turn. The beastie starting climbing down the tree! What was it thinking? That some referee was going to blow the whistle for a 'time-out', and that my 44 pound dog was just going to grant a 20 pound prey 'safe passage' to the next tree?
A few seconds before we could find out, I let out a "Come here!", the likes of which my dog has never heard before, and she came back to me to get snapped back on her leash. The coatimundi then scrambled over to the next tree.
What was going on with that creature? They are supposed to be excellent at tree climbing. Perhaps it had never been chased by a dog before, and thought the dog could climb as well; and that it needed to climb higher to get safe?
At any rate, no harm was done to anybody. And the coatimundi now understands dogs a little better. Gee, do you think when Trump gets his wall built, that coatimundis will stop sneaking up from Central America to invade the USA?
(By the way, the best way to control a dog when mountain biking, is to put a carabiner on the end of her lease, and snap it to a belt around your waist.)
A couple mornings ago, we were riding and running on an enjoyable, recently-graded road. Then a long-tailed animal darted across the road about 50 yards ahead of us. I recognized it as a coatimundi, a type of raccoon with a long monkey-tail. It was only the second one that I've ever seen. Naturally Coffee Girl threw all caution to the wind and took off after the coatimundi.
Wikipedia has an interesting article on the coati. Not surprisingly, this coatimundi climbed up the first tree it could find. Not surprisingly Coffee Girl had her hackles out at 90 degrees and was whimpering/barking with the strangest sounds she has ever made.
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| A long-tailed coatimundi. I never realized how difficult it is to take a photo when the brightness of the sky drowns the subject of the photograph. |
Then things really took a bizarre turn. The beastie starting climbing down the tree! What was it thinking? That some referee was going to blow the whistle for a 'time-out', and that my 44 pound dog was just going to grant a 20 pound prey 'safe passage' to the next tree?
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| The coatimundi looking down on the damn fool dog, barking her head off. |
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| The damn fool coatimundi descending the tree, where my dog was waiting for it. |
What was going on with that creature? They are supposed to be excellent at tree climbing. Perhaps it had never been chased by a dog before, and thought the dog could climb as well; and that it needed to climb higher to get safe?
At any rate, no harm was done to anybody. And the coatimundi now understands dogs a little better. Gee, do you think when Trump gets his wall built, that coatimundis will stop sneaking up from Central America to invade the USA?
Comments
We saw one of those things [near Safford,AZ.] We've been wondering for the last week what it was. The dogs weren't with us, so that [Safford] coatimundi is still dog ignorant.
Chris
In general you know that there are boondocking blabber-mouth blogs on the internet. Some of them are RV organizations. Some are Brand X affinity groups. I don't want to publicize locations and help those people broadcast the location, make a buck off of it, and help ruin it.
At least this incident shows that Coffee Girl is still a youthful pup at heart.