Mom said we had a first…well, first time for her anyway.

Sissy Coyote came calling!

This is how it happened:

The night was beautiful, a clear, full bright moon hung in the sky just above the cottonwood tree. The light from the full moon lit up everything, casting sliver and blue shadows everywhere. Fuzzy and I were having a great time sitting on the back step of the back porch. Every once in a while Fuzzy would see something run across the road out by the tractor sheds, and then he would take off running and barking! HEY YOU! WHAT ARE YOU DOING ON OUR PLACE! Then I would follow hollering as loud as I could.

It was great fun.

I really don’t think Fuzzy can see very well anymore, but what the heck, he sees enough that we get to chase ‘whomever or whatever’ off the place. If they really aren’t there, who is going to complain? NOT ME!!!

So we had a great time until Mom came out and turned all the yard lights on….

“What is happening out here, boys, are the Chickens safe?” She asked giving each of us a wonderful pet on the head and all over the body.

Hummmmmmmmmmmm

I sort of think she knows we are just having fun.

So we all three walk  out to the chicken house, opened the door, and turned on the light in the chicken house.

“One, two, three, four” counted Mom. “Well, nothing bad going on here.”

The chickens were rather startled to have the light turned on, but they didn’t move. They continued to sit on their perch and sort of talked to each other about the lights and stuff like that.

Mom, Fuzzy and I all walked back to house. But she took the long way…we checked on the cows, all asleep, we walked by the grain bins, nothing happening there, except they were all sparkly in the moonlight. Really rather pretty, I thought.

Then we stopped at the tractor sheds, Mom said she wondered if there were some stray cats out here (in the tractor shed) that Fuzzy and I were barking at. We just looked very sincerely at her and I thumped my tail really vigorously, Fuzzy just shook his little stub of a tail, but he did shake it really hard. We wanted Mom to think she was right.

She must have as we all walked back to the house, got many pets and rubs and scratches and told good night. We were also warned to not do any more barking if it’s just for fun as Dad will be the next person out to see what the problems were.

So we were silent. BUT…we did chase a couple of cats, and a really neat squirrel, or at least I thought it was a squirrel…but the highlight was when the FOX came through the yard.

Fuzz and I were sitting out by the woodpile, next to the chicken house, just taking in the night…when right out of the corral a fox came, padded by the garbage cans and almost ran right into to us!

I sat up and barked HALLLLLLLLLLLLLLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! MOM COME QUICK!!!!

Both Fuzzy and I were so excited that I’m sure it came through in our yips and barks. Mom came out of the house fast…it looked like she may have been asleep. We kept up the barrage of barking, I pointed down the road, Mom flipped on the yard lights, I ran back to her really fast and twirled and swirled around and headed back to Fuzzy who was looking down the road sort of prancing for us to get there.

We made it just in time for Mom to see the bushy tail sliding under the barbed wire fence; she flung the flashlights light into the field and saw the red fox heading as fast as its little legs could go to the drain ditch across the way.

Mom said it didn’t have anything in its mouth!

“You boys sure are doing a good job tonight,” she said. We licked her hands and she petted us all over.

After all that it was starting to get rather nippy outside so we decided to head to our snug and cozy dog houses. I went in first, because I feel the cold before Fuzz, but I heard him come in a few minutes later.

We were sleeping really good…sound as you might say. When in the yard, RIGHT BY THE CLOTHES LINE was SISSY the Coyote! And she was …WOW! Some kind of beautiful! She started making this pretty strange howl/bark thing that had Fuzzy and I out of our dog houses in a flash!

We both barked and howled back at her, but she was NOT afraid. It was getting close to morning…I could see the rim of almost light in the east along the Paonia Mountains…we were frenzied in our barking.

Both Mom and Dad came out of the house FAST!!!!

Dad had his gun!

This was a good thing, because while Fuzz and I were looking at Sissy the Witching Coyote, there were four other lurking coyotes over by the hen house!!!

They were trying to raid the HEN HOUSE!

BAM!!!

Dad shot the gun!!!

Scared off the coyotes, even pretty Sissy Coyote — Fuzzy and I watched her slink away, well actually melt away into the shadows.

The gun pretty much frightened me also. I yelped just as loud as the gun!

Fuzzy laughed at me. Heck, man! I wasn’t expecting anything like that L.O.U.D sound!

Mom said she didn’t understand why the coyotes were so aggressive this year; a friend of hers said that they are probably coyote-dogs. Which is probably true…lots of people have dropped dogs off out here.

The ditch rider says he has seen a pack of wild dogs down over the hill. So what is living around our place is a mix of coyote/dogs. Dad’s going to talk to the D.O.W. Trapper to see what can be done. Calving season is a few months off (February) we don’t need any coyotes, wild dogs, or coyote-dogs around.

Anyway….this full moon was sure full of fun and excitement! (By the way…Dad wondered why Mom didn’t grab her camera; she usually has it with her all the time. — NOW That would have been cool….a photo of Sissy Coyote! I would pin it up in my dog house. She was that kind of wonderful!)

Boomer