This morning while walking my German shepherd Cheyenne and my poodle mix Kody (on leashes) to the corral to feed the horses we ran into three coyotes! One of the coyotes stood his ground in the arena watching us. First let me make it clear I love coyotes - but not when my hundred-pound German shepherd is barking furiously and dragging us toward them. Instead of looping leashes around an arena post like I usually do while I'm feeding hay I dragged the dogs back to the house and returned to the arena alone where the curious coyote was waiting for me. Coyote watched me do my chores then loped off into the brush.
My horses, Rio and Raven and the one I board, Java think coyotes are just other German shepherds so they don't pay any attention to them. We need the coyotes to pass through once in a while as my acreage has once again become a metroplis of ground squirrels. I've figured out a non leathal way to make ground squirrels move on -- pour very used smelly kitty litter down their holes - which I do if they dig in the arena or pastures where the horses hang out. Otherwise, I really don't mind the ground squirrels - it's fun to watch them chase and groom each other and fill their cheeks with grass and hay as they harvest their winter bounty. When temperatures drop and snow covers the ground , as if by magic all the ground squirrels disappear into their burrows not to be seen again until spring when their noses start budding out of the ground like weeds and wild iris.
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