Give me the creeps!!

Okay so we live in the country. Not a big deal, love it however I will never live in the country without a big dog. Or at least for that matter a dog. With this last year of losing my beloved Ben a GSD that monitored everything on this property and a German Rotti before that. We now have 2 dogs a smaller Heeler and a Mastiff X to which are so new here that I can't yet let them loose to do there patrols.

The hubby has been home for the last 2 wks. All day, EVERY day and has this weird obsession with our porch lights and who is wandering around our property. Not bad since dogs are still in training. To which I shouldn't gripe about but when you come back into the house at 530am and say pass me a flashlight cause something just drug something under the trampoline.

brrr yuck argh   

Rather scary.....I would not enjoy that at all. As for the comfort of a large, well trained dog.....good ones are worth their weight in gold! Our's is Carver and he makes sure all is well. We have had a recent health scare for our big guy and it brought to mind just how much we rely on him to keep our home and family safe. Thankfully he seems to be fine and I pray he will be with our family another 8 years.... Be safe and maybe stay away from that trampoline for the moment!

Well? What is it? What's under the trampoline?

Edited to add that we have a dog too, he's pretty much not useful for anything. Barks at things while running in the opposite direction. Scared to death of bears and garter snakes. HE is also not that alert since I usually spot wildlife before he does.

But we find that as winter goes on wild critters take refuge in snow-free places to bed down. One year we were all gathered at the neighbour's who said he had an eerie feeling when working in his yard then realized that his old truck canopy, propped up on a few boards, was home a bear, who was watching his every move through the windows in the canopy! We were all there when an armed conservation guy poked at the bear with a stick. Despite the stick and the gun, the bear would not come out. Eventually the neighbour aid, forget it, leave the bear, he'll leave when he's ready. A few weeks later when the weather was warmer, that's exactly what happened.

I hope it's just some cold critter seeking shelter and thinking your trampoline makes a dandy dry place in a cold world.

Definetly no trampoline   

Guess he gets to do all the night time chores now!

So about 45mins later he comes back in foggy and heavy of breathe.
"what was it!"
"well you see I was confused. There were tracks. But it looked like a 3legged fox. There was scuff marks at the end of the driveway but I couldn't find anything that came in or went out?"
"Oh for f***k sakes just tell me what was out there"
"Did you put the dog on a new run?"
"Yes, why?"
"Well she got off and was running wildly thru the property. Pretty much any where you have been she was there!"
"Oh you have got to be kidding me."
"nope but she screwed me up because some of her tracks looked like something was being dragged."

So all that's what is was my damn dog got off her lead and was checking everywhere I had been out on the property.
The GOOD she never left the property
The BAD apparently I'm no good at setting up runs

I was worried that it was some strange animal or who knows! An active imagination along with way to many horror movies thru out the years, haha.

Ruffled I was waiting to hear of some huuuuge carnivorous thing and blood all over and bits of black fur and stuff!!! so glad it was just your dog learning the trails :-). my heart is still beating hard!

I know right!! I was half heartedly expecting to hear that is was a bobcat or a cougar or even a wolf. Cause all of the above are living right across the road just past the swamp. Neighbor gets out and does tracking and some hunting for fun. Tells me about his trails and what he seen so far.

To top it all off we had fox problems last spring. So huge sigh of relief.

this continent is the wild places for sure. I don't doubt that everyone who lives here and was born here has had to learn and come to terms with the carnivorous nature of the landscape but, and maybe I've said it before so forgive if I am repeating myself, NOTHING in NZ will eat you - unless you happen to go swimming with the great whites and become the once in every 20 years casualty. Only two poisonous spiders and one won't kill you - just bad if you are diabetic and the other is half redback and half black widow (I think), might kill you but you have days to get the antidote and probably won't kill you anyway, seldom seen. I think we are doing pretty well as a family and acclimatising to flora and fauna overall is going pretty well. Some of those teeth bearing eaties live around here too - Every night if I am going out for . . . whatever - wood, shut chickens poop doors etc. . . . I always shine the head lamp around to see what eyes might be reflecting back at me and what color they are, I always especially check the tree branches for cougars. Might be I'm paranoid   . However, if I have to kill one with my bare hands, teeth and headlamp I want a heads up on its cooridinates! Did the fox get your chickens? We saw a few of them up in Terrace but not so many down here, more coyotes than anything but I did see a large cat with no tail once (bobcat?) and we've had a couple of bears. Coyotes are the most problematic - so clever.

The neighbors ahead of us had their son find a dead cougar in their back yard. We all figure that one of the many other neighbors shot it but it wasn't the instant kill shot. Had black bears in the backyard with the piggies. Came in cause of the feed but the Heeler kept him at bay and we chased it off. He pretty much wrecked our fence trying to go thru it. Till he figured out to go over. I'm not use to bears running away the ones up north just stood and stared.

Yes we got hit hard by the foxes. There were 2 dens in our area. I wasn't the only one who got hit my neighbors had considerable losses as well. So between the 3 of us no more fox problem. Its never a dull moment around here.

Realistically the only thing safe on this property that is wildlife is Moose. LOVE Moose.

Sure makes one fortify the pens and pay real attention to the ques of your animals.

Wildlife. Ugh.

I thought NZ had cannibals?

I'm a moose fan too. had one come up the back path from the gully - so amazing.

cannibals in NZ, rings a bell :-). no personal experience there though   

One Christmas I was looking out the back window. I was admiring how crisp & clean the snow looked. It wasn't knockers froze off cold. Felt really nice. Then I started looking at our fence. You know when your eyes see something but your brain isn't registering it? Sudeenly I yelles out to the hubs to get in here. He looks out the window and we both just were like "WHAT?"

There was a coyote hanging up on our fence. It was one that was visiting my yard for over a year cause it was injured. It had only 3 legs. Anyway, there was no way either of us were going to go out there to see if it was still kicking. F&W were not available as it was Christmas and they only have one officer for our county. An RCMP officer came out. The moment he got within 10 feet, that coyote came to life. Then we were able to see its leg had slid between a section of the fence, hanging it up.

One shot and the officer took him away. Felt bad but there was nothing anyone could have done. The leg was broken. Tell you what. I was surprised how big it was. Even with 3 legs it must have been managing food from somewhere.

That scared me. I am scared of things, like darkness and things that might be in the dark. Very happy to hear it was your own dog, eeks! Have an awesome day, CynthiaM.

I think I set a world record for shutting in chickens after Salem's Lot came out.

You know Toybarons anything past a year ago and I would have never believed that a 3 legged coyote would been hung up on your fence. But on one of our many trips back from Kamloops we had 3 legged coyote run across in front of us on maiden creek hill. No sooner did he disappear did my car D-rate. I call those 3 leggers bad luck! He too was a very health animal.

Is that a movie fowler?

Ruffledfeathers wrote:Is that a movie fowler?

Yep. Vampire movie based on Stephen King's book.

Horse Daughter would disagree with most of you on the fabulousness of moose. Her claim is that when a moose steps out onto the trail and your horse has never seen a moose, your horse attempts to climb a tree, and things can go very, very wrong. HD dislikes moose a lot, cause they freak out the horses. (llamas and alpacas are a close second in the 'freak out the horses' category)

Fowler I laugh at your jokes.  Stephen King is very clever but I sometimes wonder if he is a healthy cookie. Movies have an awesome adrenalin effect on us, adrenalin rev ups can be dangerous  -  after Alien I was very twitchy and after Jaws I never felt the same about the dark water  -  whether it was salty or fresh.  After The Thing my husband went "booh!" behind me on our way to brush out teeth before sleep and that was a big mistake cause partly I was angry he would do such a thing but mostly I was more than "quite" twitchy, that creepy creepy THING, I turned around and before I knew what I'd done he had a blood nose and my fist was returning to my body.  He's never done that again, funnily enough.      I may have been an assassin in a past life.

Uno that visual on tree climbing horses is very amusing but the reality is sobering.  I found pigs had a similar effect  -  for no known reason I can figure out except maybe there is something about pigs that says in the unseen "I eat both green stuff and I also eat meat."  For a fight/flight animal this would make sense.  When I was about 13 I was riding my anglo arab home, had been on the road allllll day (26km ride) and it was dusk, very nearly dark.  We were both at that droopy ploddy methodical sort of trance state, it's nearly over sort of thing.  Only about 1km to go and passed a milking shed, up on to the big wide grassy verge where an old working dog box was parked and my horse suddenly grew wings and bilocated about 3 meters to the right, in to the dog box which had a corrugated iron roof.  Big cut and bruising on my leg, suddenly we were dancing home instead of plodding, he was all lit up.  I was so glad to get home, I must have been low on blood sugars, adrenalin kept me in my seat but I slid off that horse with relief when we got there.  When I went back that way the next day to try and see what could have prompted the move I saw there was a lot of old 1" black polyurethane pipe laying in the grass.  Our theory is that he saw a snake, in that trance state, dusky poor light, the pipe triggered a genetic memory from what ever part of his heritage (Egypt/Golan Heights?) that has snakes.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]  

what a nice ending to that story Farmchiq. So often the animal has to die and that sucks, like Toybarrons's three legged coyote. My husband said there was a black bear in Osoyoos where he works, in the parking lot. Apparently it had to die, sad. Not sure why but I think it was because it was unwell or something, awake at an unusual time but think there might be more to it.