Mountain wildlife and mountain peace

Most days, our mountain world feels idyllic. Going for a hike relaxes me as I forget the little stuff that often clutters my mind. Yesterday, I was having back spasms, and thus, I was particularly eagerly looking forward to our evening stroll through the meadows and forests near our house. Any kind of movement, even walking, usually helps ease my spasms.

I have a routine with the Labraduo to prevent wildlife encounters. It involves starting each hike with the Duo on leash until we reach an open area where I can scan for wildlife, and then, if all is clear, I do a little remedial training to prepare them for whatever they might encounter during our hike. I focus on "stays" and recalls. So, in the intense setting sunlight, we practiced our stays and recalls yesterday evening.

K's chocolate fur glowed resplendently in the sun as she focused her laser-like attention on me.

R pretended to focus on me and held his stay. However, you can see that he was actually sampling the scents in the breeze.

When I called them, they both accelerated to warp speed in a few steps. I always reward recalls lavishly because I think that they're so important for the dogs' safety.

After training, we began meandering across the meadow, and I simultaneously scanned for wildlife. The late afternoon light looked gorgeous to me, and I gazed at nearby peaks. But, then, as I gazed, my eyes caught some movement down by the reddish willows in the foreground. I immediately called and leashed the Duo.

When the dogs were safely leashed, I used my telephoto lens to focus on the area of movement. There are three coyotes in the photo below. They're hard to pick out, showing how well their tawny fur camouflages them in the golden grass. The most obvious one is sitting in the upper left third of the photo. Another coyote is lying down to the left of the sitting one. Then, the least obvious one looks like a rock lying in the shadow of the willow in front of the more obvious coyotes.

After noting those three, I spotted a fourth, on the other side of the willow from the rock-like coyote.

At this point, the dogs hadn't noticed the coyotes mainly because the coyotes were stationary, and we were upwind of them. Consequently, I had time to zoom in on the pair of coyotes, both of whom were then sitting. They looked healthy, fluffy, and almost puppy-like bathed in a shaft of soft sunlight.

The coyotes contemplated me and Duo for a bit, and then they decided to flee behind the willow. You can also see part of the rock-like coyote unmoving in the very bottom of the photo,.

Due to the fast moving flight of the coyotes, the Duo became keenly aware of them, and pulled my arms so hard that they're about an inch longer now!

But, the rock-like coyote still didn't move. Through my telephoto lens, I could see him rotating his head, looking at us and sniffing the wind - so I knew that he was alive - but he didn't try to flee or hide.

I was worried about him. One coyote died on our property border last year after being shot several days earlier, and, just recently, I found the body of a coyote who had been shot and had died in the forest. So, as I watched this wild canine lying unmoving despite the flight of his cohorts, I speculated that he might be hurt. However, there was nothing that I could do except leave, to reduce his stress. He is, after all, a wild animal. I went back to the meadow this morning, without the dogs, and he was gone from that spot. A friend suggested that "he" might have been a "she" and be very pregnant, rendering her lethargic. I'll probably never know the answer unless a coyote turns up dead in the near future. I hope that doesn't happen.

Yesterday evening, I felt good that I'd spotted the coyotes before the dogs did and avoided a problem. I still had the dogs on leash 100 yards later when we crested a small ridge in the meadow. To my surprise, a large group of elk was standing only 50 yards away on the other side of the ridge. They'd been invisible to me until we reached the crest. I had a brief spike of adrenaline, not wanting to have a dog-elk encounter. Again, we were upwind of them, and they were stationary, so the Duo didn't immediately notice them. I briskly walked K and R to a huge tree and kept the tree trunk between dogs and the elk so that the dogs wouldn't see the elk. I asked the Duo for a down-stay, and I snapped a few photos as my adrenaline levels fell.

At that point, I decided that this particular sunset hike was going to be entirely on-leash. The wildlife seemed to be all around us so I didn't want to risk having my rambunctious pair of canines running free.

Then, a short time later, my decision to leash the Duo was validated when a bobcat bounded out of a boulder outcropping just in front of us. He jumped over a rocky escarpment and vanished. The Duo went almost insane with excitement. He'd crossed our path so near to us that we could see every detail of his fur.

So, although our world usually seems idyllic, it can be challenging to navigate nature with a pair of athletic and high-energy dogs. I train and train and train to prepare them for wildlife encounters but they're independent beings with their own minds. I'm 95% sure that I can call them away from any kind of wildlife. I believe that it's impossible to ever be 100% certain. So, I'm always scanning for wildlife and have their leashes close at hand.

Eventually, our hike calmed down as the sun set in a purple kaleidoscope sky.

I even dared to unleash K briefly for a photo. Then, the three of us sat on a rock and took some deep relaxing breaths to feel the mountain peace.

I love both parts of living in the mountains - the unpredictable wildlife and the peace. I felt both yesterday.