Canine-feline territorial marking

Some interesting animal behavior has been underway just outside our house. Yesterday morning, I discovered that the bobcat had left a calling card overnight. A scrape with his hind paws (from top to bottom in the photo) and then scat. His pawprints are obvious above his territorial marking.

After seeing this scent marking, I moved a trail camera closer to it to capture the behavior of animals passing it.

Yesterday evening, a trio of coyotes trotted into our clearing. In the photo below, a coyote is passing the camera in the foreground. In the background, next to the big tree, another coyote is leaving scat over top of the bobcat's scat.

One of the most interesting things that I've learned with my trail cameras is that different species communicate with each other using their territorial markings. In one remote spot in the forest, three different species rubbed their fur and scent all over a tree trunk within weeks of each other last fall - a bear, a bobcat, and a mountain lion. In another case, a bobcat rolled on his back in the spot where a bear had just scent marked a tree and undoubtedly urinated at the same time.

So, contrary to what I learned in school and in my recent reading, territorial markings are not just for members of the same species. Other species respond to them as well. It's fascinating to me that canines and felines speak the same language, in terms of territorial markings, and talk to each other.

In the next coyote photo from last night, a coyote passed the camera and spotted another coyote looking straight at him. Notice that the trotting coyote's tail is up, compared to the photo above and all the other coyote photos that I've shown in the past. I think that the tail position is part of the communication between these two coyotes.

Finally, after two of the coyotes departed leaving a lone coyote, he raised his head to the sky in a howl.

Each morning, K heads out the door with me and checks out the animal scents around our house from the night before. I can tell how much activity occurred based on her excitement level. Today, it was high!

I feel so grateful that K can go on my morning snowbike rides with me again. Yesterday morning, she stood in a favorite spot with blue skies, white mountains, and orange lichen all around her.

Our rides are a special time for the two of us, and she glows in the beam of my attention. Her eyes sparkle as she runs. I think that she's as grateful for her return to snowbiking as I am!

In the evening, we share our hike with R, making the dynamic completely different. His high energy style requires lots of supervision. The upside is that he lures K into raucous playing, which I thought that I might never see from her again!

Yesterday evening, they sat in a beam of light from the setting sun, a pair of Labradors alert in their forest.

They ran like the wind, coming when I called them.

They both sported the "wild ear" look when sprinting.

After our time in the sunshine yesterday afternoon, we headed to a dark and snowy north-facing slope to scout out possible bear dens. Today, we're heading out for some more exploration after seeing some good signs yesterday!