I was chanting japa in the dark of the night the other day and I heard coyotes howling in the distance. While it isn’t rare to hear them it is uncommon as they tend to be quite discreet. They can be known to be active in that there are less ground hogs this year than previous years and that is probably attributable to them.
They also eat cats. We had one cat who abruptly disappeared, no trace. If he had been hit by a car we would have seen a body on the roadway but one day he just wasn’t there.
We have two cats now, one who is too dumb to figure out how to use the cat door so she is always safe in the house at night, but James is free to go in and out even at night.
The thought was that even if it put his life in danger being out at night, let him live free.
James came to us from Georgia. One day my son Madhu found him as a kitten crawled up into his motor at night for warmth. They kept him but it was a problem as he had issues with their two existing cats.
James was constantly peeing, staking out his territory so they had to keep him locked up in the laundry room. He loved going outside so they would let him out a few hours a day but mostly had to keep him confined.
Eventually they realized this wasn’t working so took him to the animal shelter. Two hours later they couldn’t stand it so went and got him back. While I am not a cat person, Madhu knew my wife is and played on her sympathies and secured her permission to bring him here.
So Madhu drove James up here from Georgia and dropped him off.
James loves it here and is a voracious hunter, he will bring in multiple rodents a day some days. Even our neighbor said that lately James has been hanging out at their place and since he started, they noticed they have less mice.
Madhu was part of the decision to let him wander at night, despite the danger from coyotes. Let him take the risk and have his freedom, but he has survived for several years now and my bet is he is wily enough to survive several more.
August 20, 2012 at 8:50 pm
I say continue to let James walk on the wild side…what will be, will be.
As for the cacophony of the coyotes…probably heard you doing your rounds and just responding with haribol! Jai! Jai! …a lot of old spirits up there from the days of old. Maybe they were chanting rounds too.
August 20, 2012 at 9:00 pm
One last birth as a coyote in the Holy Dham before heading back home :-)
August 26, 2012 at 4:05 pm
He is king of the ridge. Still no pee inside your home?
August 27, 2012 at 7:49 am
Never had a problem with that at all.
September 2, 2012 at 9:16 pm
i agree, too: let him run free. i hate the idea of confining anyone, no matter how many legs, to a prison unless they really deserve it.
i once had a parrot, after bribing some locals to get me a small one stolen from under his mother’s wings. (a decision i very much regretted afterwards.)
but after feeding him every 20 min with mashed dhal for the first few weeks — they have hardly any stomach to store food at that age and have to eat continuously — i let him fly free.
after some drama, where he got stuck in a tree and didn’t know how to continue, me climbing up after him and bringing him back, etc., he continued to come ‘home’ every evening, living with us for some 15 years or so, until he either died or decided to settle down somewhere else. (i think the former, since he appeared a bit sick during the last days he was here.)
certainly was a beastly act to have him kidnapped from his family to begin with, but keeping him in a cage, or confined to indoors, i simply couldn’t do that. life imprisonment for no fault of their own, pets don’t deserve that.
September 3, 2012 at 8:41 am
Thanks for sharing