Re: Stuck between a rock & a hard place...
Halloween night discovery:
Well, at this point in Tessa's life, I have realized/Tessa has proven: that she *WILL NOT* give a warning bark.
Tessa will move with WARP SPEED & complete STEALTH & her decisions are instant, or maybe the situation left no time, I do not know.
Weather was horrid for Halloween evening trick-or-treaters-due to very high winds & rain.
Tessa & I went outside, neither of us minding the rain, & gave out candy to the few groups of kids that were out, & all was perfectly well, no issues with the kids, but then she knows & LOVES the kids. She was an absolute angel, even got belly rubs.
Maybe 9:30pm, once trick or treating was done & we were dry & the rain stopped, we headed out for our night walk.
We went to the unofficial doggie park/football field. There is enough light at night that you can see somewhat, & I take a headlamp just in case.
Everything was normal, so I let her off leash so she could stretch her legs & get some good runs in before bed time.
We were alone.
The field is fenced, but there are no gates on either end.
The field is surrounded by trails leading down a mountain, & we do not do those at night, & do not do them alone anymore.
So everything is business as usual, we were on the far end of the field, but close to the middle, where it is further away from the entrance proper, which is closer to the street & houses.
This way I can see if someone is coming down with a pooch at night & leash her. This part of the field is much darker, but I can still see in the field, just can't see what is surrounding on that side or down into the trails, but have good view of the entrance proper.
The other entrance is rarely used, goes down onto the mountain trails.
Tessa was taking a rest as usual after a few runs, was completely relaxed. I was standing right there with her.
All of a sudden, she took off like a bat out of hell where there is no gate, on the dark side, & went down onto the trails.
I have NEVER seen her move that fast ever.
Honestly, I did not think her capable of that kind of speed!
She was completely silent & nothing was going to stop her.
I ran after her & stopped at the end of the field fence calling her & trying to listen for something to determine which direction she went.
All I did hear was some crashing of branches & leaves, getting father away, then silence. I was completely panicked, & I kept calling her.
I was worried she took off after a deer, or a rabbit, & didn't know which way to go, then I hear some crashing/crunching getting closer & I see something white but cannot tell in the darkness even with my headlamp. Tessa comes bounding out of the trails, with a big white bag in her mouth like a trophy.
I immediately leashed her & moved to the light, running, because I did not know what else to do except to get out of the darkness ASAP & make sure Tessa was OK.
And I was worried about the bag--in my mind, I'm thinking it's candy--cuz it's Halloween night, & worried she got some teenagers bag of candy or something.
She dropped the bag on command--did not even attempt to hold it like she does with her normal 'trophies' which I struggle to get her to drop....
I picked up the bag by it's handle to look inside & UGH--it smelled/wreaked/looked like human shit & something dead. Note: definitely not dog poo.
She stood obediently looking from the bag to me & wanted no parts of the bag once she dropped it.
I decided we needed to high-tail it outta the field & back to the main street.
Once up top & over looking where she made her bee-line, she stood proud & held her nose in the air, looked back down to where the bag was in the field & it looked back to me--like "see there's proof"
I think she went after a bum or vagrant or junkie, they set up tiny camps on the hillsides of the mountain & the weather this night was horrid.
Had she *NOT* come back with that bag, I WOULD have thought deer or rabbit.
When she takes a trophy, she ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS wants to keep it, regardless of how nasty it might be...
Wild animal poo is quite a delicacy unfortunately.
She dropped this bag & wanted no parts of it. It was obvious she brought it back only as "proof" of something.
When there is deer or rabbit, she *ALWAYS* does a "wait & see" , there was no wait & see, there was just pure action, & faster than I could have reacted to leash her, I didn't even get an ear perk or her whiffing the wind to even know to react, it believe it was all done on scent.
I checked her out good, no marks on her, looked at her mouth & snout well to see if there was blood or anything--none, so I assume no biting.
Next 2 nights at the field-the bag is still there-she has looked at it but doesn't want any part of it, though I have since pried many other nasty trophies from her mouth--no walk is complete without me having to pry something out of her mouth LOL.
I'll never know what was really there, though there is the bag. I'm told bums/homeless often poop in bags in an effort to keep their site clean especially if they are setting up for longer than a night, which kind of makes sense.
Now with this incident, I'm going to have to assume that there will NOT be any warning bark or posturing of ANY kind if she decides action is needed, which makes things a LOT more difficult. A "WOOF!" or posturing or even a rumble or growl give me time to react.
