I just have to tell you this one right now. Jake, the brown coyote that has been hanging around my spot at the horse camp, has figured a sure-fire way to get me to feed him. I don’t know what started him coming so close; it’s probably that I can’t stand to throw away any kitchen scraps that a wild critter might eat. We have had a long dry spell, and the pickings are skimpy out there. So I take all vegetable and stale bread scraps, sometimes pouring bacon grease on the stale bread, and put them in a designated critter-feeding spot quite a long way from our compound.
Coyotes eat a lot of vegetable matter, and there are also a million or so rabbits and gophers to eat whatever I put out. Every scrap is gone by the next day, so I know my offerings are appreciated. Perhaps Jake has come to expect the food, or he may be an animal displaced by the recent fire with no pack of his own in the area. Whatever the reason, he slinks around in the bushes most of the day, too close for the safety of my cats. I have a newly fenced yard, but the cats don’t stay in it.
I haven’t put any food out or paid any attention to Jake in three days, and I think he didn’t have any luck hunting so he figured out a new strategy.
He is used to my big fat black lab/collie mix, Smoky Joe, chasing him, and knows he can outrun Smoky every time. He also sees that my daughter’s rescued pit bulls are securely penned, and only one of them, a mixed breed, would have a chance of catching him. So tonight he paraded back and forth about 100 feet from the dog’s kennel, with occasional detours up the hill when Smoky went after him from time to time. Jane’s dogs went crazy with hysterical barking. Pit bulls are very strong. Once I saw a pit bull puppy bend the frame of a sturdy chain link kennel enough to escape. So, before the dogs broke out, I filled a dish with dog food and took it down to the feeding spot with Jake following at a safe distance. I left him eating contentedly very pleased with himself.
Everything is quiet now and I hope and pray it will stay that way.
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Comments: 13
Aww Debbie, I couldn't do that. I think maybe he wants to join my pack. Maybe he will fall in love and go back to being wild with a mate like he is supposed to. Come to think of it I really don't know if it is a he or a she. Jake may be Jaqueline.
Lune - He is a trickster all right! He got Jane's dogs to do his barking for him so I would come out, and I'm the one who has been putting food out for him. It worked lika a charm.
Pamela - I hadn't thought of that. Coy is what they are. I think coyote is a Mexican word. The local Kumeyaay Indian name for them is something like 'hudaput', with the 'u' pronounced 'uh'. They are really a species of little wolves. Thanks for stopping by.
My daughter has been gone for two days so I am feeding her eight dogs as well as my own two. Yesterday, as I doled out the portion for each dog in their kennels, I noticed Jake, standing about 100 feet away in open space letting me know he was hungry too. I took a generous portion over to his feeding spot while he followed, and I talked to him. He started eating as soon as I had moved about 30 feet away. I'm amazed how tame he is! I just pray he doesn't kill any of my cats when they venture out of my new fenced yard. Maybe he won't if I keep him well fed.